This is Part II in our four part series discussing issues not fully addressed in NPR’s article discussing Social Security Disability and Supplemental Security Income recipients: http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/.
By now, most claimants have been denied from their Request for Reconsideration and have waited anywhere between 6-15 months. Upon denial of the Request for Reconsideration, they have 60 days to file for a Request for Hearing.
After someone files a Request for Hearing, their next step is to wait… in excess of one year in most states, to get a hearing. Some states it takes a shorter amount of time (North and South Dakota are taking closer to 8-10 months), however, some states like Wisconsin and parts of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula have been seeing wait times around 15 months.
Some claimants have seen success while waiting, as a few claimants are pulled for an informal review, to see if there is enough evidence on the record to render a fully favorable decision to the claimant. If there is not enough evidence, the claimant is placed right back into the same spot in line for a hearing.
The truth of the matter is that claimants tend to find more success at the hearing level than any other level. For instance, while the national average for an initial application approval is 25%, the average hearing approval in Minnesota is 46%, Wisconsin is 37%, Iowa is 40%, Utah is 59% and Hawaii is 66%. However, not all Administrative Law Judges, even in the same state, share the same approval rating. Minnesota, for example, has one judge with a 33% approval rating, and another with a 67% approval rating.
Furthermore, once the hearing rolls around, the claimant still has to wait. Hearing decisions still take one to three months to be mailed to the claimant.
If the claimant is denied, their next appeal stage is to send the claim for review to the Appeals Council in Falls Church, VA. Wait times here are in excess of one year, with around 20% for a success rate. In most cases, a success is considered getting the case remanded to a new hearing, with the same judge. In rare instances, the Appeals Council will grant review and then completely reverse the decision by the Administrative Law Judge. At this point, the claimant has been waiting, often times, in excess of three years since the outset of their claim.
