Courses

Work incentives pave the way to work and financial independence for recipients of public benefits. All public benefits programs and pensions provide incentives for recipients with disabilities to return to work. During the first set of 7 webinars (Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income and Work), participants will explore the principal benefits provided by the Social Security Administration as well as the work incentives pertaining to each benefit. While SSA provides some of the most significant cash and health care benefits, reality indicates that recipients with disabilities may receive benefits from a myriad of public sources. The second set of 6 webinars (The Effect of Work on Other Federal Programs and Their Relationship the Disability Programs) participants will review the various federal programs providing benefits to individuals with disabilities, including TANF, Workers Compensation, and Veterans Benefits, as well as how each relate to one another and are impacted by earned income. Finally, the third set of 4 webinars (The Ins and Outs of Becoming a Benefits Practitioner) will introduce the practice to participants by providing suggestions as to how this complex variety of work incentives, critically needed benefits and earnings can be described and explained to an individual with a disability to both encourage work and financial independence.

This intensive certification program for Benefits Practitioners requires participation in 17 webinars, completion of a provisional certification on line examination as well as a file review that, upon successful completion, will result in full certification. The webinars are presented twice weekly over a period of eight and a half weeks. The on line examination will be administered two weeks after the conclusion of the webinar series and participants will be allowed a full work week (24/7) to complete the examination. Finally, within 3 months of successfully completing the examination a file review will be completed by Cornell faculty to ensure that the provisionally certified Benefits Practitioner is actually able to effectively use the information obtained through the webinar courses and written materials.

Full certification can be maintained by securing 60 hours of continuing education units (CEU) over the 5 year period immediately following the attainment of full certification. An on line “portal” will be made available for logging CEU activity.

Work incentives pave the way to work and financial independence for recipients of public benefits. All public benefits programs and pensions provide incentives for recipients with disabilities to return to work. During the first set of 7 webinars (Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income and Work), participants will explore the principal benefits provided by the Social Security Administration as well as the work incentives pertaining to each benefit.

While SSA provides some of the most significant cash and health care benefits, people with disabilities may receive benefits from a myriad of public sources. In the second set of 6 webinars (The Effect of Work on Other Federal Programs and Their Relationship the Disability Programs) participants will review the various federal programs providing benefits to individuals with disabilities, including TANF, Workers Compensation, and Veterans Benefits, as well as how each relate to one another and are impacted by earned income.

Finally, the third set of 4 webinars (The Ins and Outs of Becoming a Benefits Practitioner) will introduce the practice to participants by providing suggestions as to how this complex variety of work incentives, critically needed benefits, and earnings can be explained to an individual with a disability to encourage both work and financial independence.

This intensive training program for Benefits Practitioners requires participation in 17 webinars. At the completion of the 17 webinars, participants will receive a Certificate of Attendance. Credentialing can be received if the participant chooses the Work Incentives Planning and Utilization for Benefit Practitioners Certificate Series (with Credentialing as a Benefits and Work Incentives Practitioner) course.

Participants interested in completing a course in SSA Work Incentive Knowledge and Utilization must complete all seven webinar classes in this concentration area. Individuals considering the delivery of benefits and work incentive planning and assistance should consider also completing the Work Incentive Planning course and the Federal Benefit Programs course. Individuals completing all three courses and passing an online examination will be eligible for the Cornell University Certificate in Work Incentives Planning and Utilization for Benefit Practitioners.

Learn to counsel youth with disabilities to use work incentives as a tool for establishing careers, as you earn Cornell’s Youth-C credential!

You’ll learn about:

• Work incentives that can specifically benefit youths
• Calculating and tracking the use of these work incentives, and planning for periods of time when each may not apply
• Using and understanding the BPQY to ensure a youth receives applicable work incentives
• Counseling youths and parents about the benefits of work—and the benefits of work incentives
• Financial tools to assist the youth and family as the youth begins work
• Assisting with developing good money habits immediately when a job begins

Prerequisite: Either an up-to-date WIP-C™ credential from Cornell University or CWIC certification from Virginia Commonwealth University.

The class will be limited to 40 participants.

Learn to counsel Veterans with disabilities about returning to work, as you earn Cornell’s Vet-C credential.

You’ll learn about

• Disability benefits offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
• How VA benefits and SSA benefits impact each other
• What happens to VA benefits when Veterans return to work
• Tools to verify VA benefits
• Counseling Veterans about the benefits of work and how to leverage VA benefits to support work
• Outreach to organizations serving Veterans

Prerequisite: Either an up-to-date WIP-C credential from Cornell University or CWIC certification from Virginia Commonwealth University. The class will be limited to 35 participants.

This course is for work incentives planners who have been promoted to leadership positions and those who would like to pursue leadership positions within the field. While many of the skills you use as a work incentives planner can help you in your work as a supervisor or manager, few work incentives planners have an opportunity to learn practical skills for supervision and management. The course includes five webinars that cover the following topics:

• Project management
• Developing protocols for intake and case handling
• Managing and maintaining diversified funding
• Supervision from recruitment through retention
• Performance evaluation and having difficult conversations

In this course, we share some of the skills and tools that we found most helpful in our leadership roles. We also address the need for statewide collaboration and working with other work incentives planning projects in your state and region.

After completing the course, you must pass an examination and complete a practical exercise to earn the Leader-C credential.

To maintain the credential, you will need to report 12 credit hours of continuing education credits every 3 years.

If a beneficiary asks you, “What is the most important thing I should do when I go to work?”, your answer should emphatically be:  “Report your earnings and work incentive use to Social Security”.  Reporting earnings limits overpayments (and underpayments) and helps get overpayments waived when they occur.  Reporting work incentive use can help continue Title II Disability benefits, keep SSI payments higher, continue medical benefits if cash benefits stop, and restore cash benefits if earnings drop later.

That sounds simple enough, but the devil is in the details.  This webinar explains the little devils, including:

When and how often to report earnings  Options for reporting earnings when work starts, and when it continues  Methods for reporting earnings for Title II Disability and for SSI  When and how often to report work incentive use  Forms and documents needed for reporting work incentives  Tracking and saving documentation of earnings and work incentive use  What to do when a beneficiary is overpaid, despite reporting earnings and work incentives  A WIP’s role in reporting  

When it comes to determining whether a person’s wages are SGA, Social Security has its own law of averages.  If an individual’s countable income fluctuates above and below the SGA dollar amount from month to month, SSA will generally average the earnings, rather than consider the precise amount each month.  Income averaging can be helpful to many beneficiaries; if their countable earnings exceed SGA several months a year, but their average annual earnings are below SGA, they will not be counted as performing SGA in any month of the year.  But if their countable earnings exceed SGA in most but not all months, income averaging can actually hurt them; it may be used to determine that their earnings were over SGA in every month of the year.

Averaging isn’t always used, even when countable earnings fluctuate above and below the SGA amount.  And sometimes earnings may be averaged multiple different times during a calendar year, instead of using an annual average.  Work Incentive Practitioners need to know the rules for averaging to help Title II beneficiaries estimate whether their cash benefits will continue based on their earnings.

This webinar addresses the details, including:

When averaging is and is not used  Rules for determining the periods during which earnings are averaged  Estimating when averaging will help an individual  Strategies to help avoid having averaging hurt a person  Differences in averaging for self-employment  

Medicaid is the most important benefit that many people we serve will ever receive.  It provides comprehensive medical coverage and can supplement other health insurance.  Most importantly, it can cover a variety of disability-related services that other insurance rarely if ever covers (or covers adequately), such as home and community-based services, attendant care and community behavioral health services.  Many people are willing to give up SSI, if they’ll be financially better off without it, but only if they won’t lose Medicaid.

Luckily, SSA rules protect Medicaid for certain groups of former SSI recipients who have switched to receiving certain Title II benefits.  Often referred to as “special Medicaid eligible”, they include people whose SSI has stopped due to receipt of Childhood Disability Benefits (CDB, also known as Disabled Adult Child (DAC) benefits) and those whose SSI has stopped when they receive Disabled Widow’s/Widower’s Benefits (DWB).  A third – and widely misunderstood – group have lost SSI for any reason, receive Title II benefits now, and would still receive SSI if they had not received Title II cost of living increases after their SSI payments stopped.  These folks benefit from the Pickle Amendment and are commonly known (God help them) as “Pickle people”.

This training explains eligibility for each of the three groups, how eligibility is determined, how to ensure a person can get or keep Medicaid if they belong to one of these groups, how some people who lose special Medicaid eligibility may regain it later, and the role of a WIP in helping people qualify for special Medicaid eligibility.

The POMS defines deeming as “the process of considering another person's income and resources to be available for meeting an SSI claimant's (or recipient's) basic needs of food and shelter… Attribute deemed income and resources to the eligible individual whether or not they are actually available to him/her.”

How’s that for logic?

Deeming affects people on SSI who are (1) married to spouses who don’t get SSI, and (2) children under age 18 living with parent(s).  A portion of the spouse’s or parents’ income and resources is counted against the SSI recipient for SSI eligibility and payment purposes.  Deeming can make a married person or child eligible for less SSI…or none at all.  You probably knew that much.

But, the specifics of SSI deeming are a mystery for most Work Incentive Practitioners.  This webinar dives deeply into the details, including:  When deeming applies, and when it doesn’t  Types of income and resources that can – or can’t - be deemed  Spouse-to-spouse deeming rules  Parent-to-child deeming rules  Impact of deeming on 1619(b) eligibility.

Best of all, this training provides deeming spreadsheets for both spouse-to-spouse and parent-to-child deeming and walks you through some case examples.