It is time for another version of People Who Don’t Know Speak. Every now and then we like to checkout Social Security’s blog that deals with different topics and programs Social Security offers. One feature these blogs offer is a place to comment about the content of the blog. Typically, if you read most stories on the internet that offer a place to comment you will get some nasty comments about politics, but also some really misinformed comments. The Social Security blog is no different.
It Is A Shame This Type Of Information Is Spread
In a recent blog from a Social Security employee celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day by highlighting how Social Security benefits help the less fortunate it did not take long for those who posted comments to change the subject and offer completely inaccurate information about approval ratings by Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). Someone named Tony posted a lengthy response to the blog indicating that ALJs were approving disability cases at an alarming rate, which of course is not accurate and Tony left a lot of information off the table.
“I never seen such a high approval rate at the ALJ level. The average approval is 44 percent and denial is 36 percent. The attorneys win over 50 percent of their cases,” Tony said.
There is one thing Tony got correct, according to www.disabilityjudges.com the national average for winning a disability hearing is 44 percent, which is correct, but there are a lot of factors that have to be factored in.
Considering that attorneys that take cases only recover a fee if they win, 44 percent is certainly not a very high approval rating. Social Security attorneys typically take good cases where there is plenty of medical evidence to prove someone is disabled, so one would think that a higher approval rating would apply, but this just means good cases are denied on a regular basis. Secondly, Tony mentioned that 36 percent of AJL cases are denied, so what happens to the other 20 percent of cases? That is an easy answer. The other 20 percent of cases come in the form of ALJ dismissals. Typically when an ALJ dismisses a case it is because he or she informs the attorney that they will deny the claim even before the hearing begins, so rather than get a denial, the claimant or attorney requests a dismissal. In all reality a dismissal is the same as a denial, so the denial rate is closer to 56 percent than 36 percent.
Wait Times Are Not That Long
So the headline is a bit misleading because wait times for Social Security disability hearings are extremely long, well over a year and more than 16 months nationally, but the headline referred to a comment from Sherry in relation to a blog detailing Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. Sherry posted “I am still waiting almost 4 years. The whole system is antiquated…they need to work on this issue.”
We agree with Sherry that Social Security needs to work on its massive hearing backlog, but Sherry also may be a bit confused because it rarely takes close to four years for a claim to be decided by an ALJ even if she is talking about starting at the beginning of the process. The more likely scenario is that Sherry has already been denied previously and is now working on a new case. Many times clients are confused about where they are in the process because they have filed multiple claims.
