Being Considered for Social Security Disability

Someone wrote this in a forum recently. "I'm being considered for social security disability, what should I expect?". There are so many different ways to answer that question. I'll deal with the negatives first.

Regardless of whether or not a person is filing for social security disability or SSI disability (for claim processing purposes, applications in either program are handled exactly the same way), once an application has been filed, they should reasonably expect that...

1. The claim will take a long time to process. How long? At the disability application level, it is routine for a disability application to take 3-4 months to process. What does processing include? Typically, this means the gathering of medical records (medical record gathering constitutes the biggest delay in disability case processing). But it also includes getting additional information (beyond what a claimant supplied on their initial paperwork) on a claimant's work history, medical treatment history, and ADLs, otherwise known as activities of daily living.

Is three to four months processing a reliable average? Yes, however, it is not unusual for an SSD or SSI disability claim to take six months or longer, due to extenuating circumstances. As a disability examiner, I had a number of cases that stretched beyond the half year mark due to extreme difficulty in obtaining medical records. In one instance, a case took exceedingly long because the claimant, whose application was based on visual impairment, kept having corrective surgery. This meant, that in order to evaluate the claimant's residuals (in other words, their remaining vision after each surgery), the case was continually postponed. However, such instances are rare and most cases will be decided in approximately 3-4 months.

2. The odds of being denied for disability are fairly strong. Each state has its own statistics on approvals and denials of disability claims that have been filed with the social security administration. But, nationwide, the average denial rate is 70 percent, meaning that only three out of ten applicants will be approved at the initial claim level. Of course, claimants who are denied should file an appeal (known as a request for reconsideration) and if this appeal is denied claimants should also file a second appeal, (known as a request for hearing before an administrative law judge). The chances of being approved for benefits at a disability hearing are substantially higher and federal statistics indicate that more than half of all claimants who have been previously denied and pursue their case to the hearing level are eventually approved.

3. The time required to wait on a social security disability or SSI disability claim will be financially taxing, and often destructive. As a disability examiner,and in my involvement in representation, I found it quite common to speak with individuals who had lost everything because they were unable to work as a result of a physical or mental impairment and yet were still waiting on their claim to be approved by social security.

Those, of course, are just a few of the negatives associated with the claim process. In an upcoming post, I'll address the topic of this page in a different fashion, focusing on what the social security administration actually considers in a social security disability or SSI case.

More information at:

Social Security Disability Questions Page
Social Security Disability SSI Blog