Fact 1. Over 1 million claimants were denied by Social Security, which is why there are so many claims waiting for a hearing.
Fact 2. Many of these claims will be approved in the appeal process. Otherwise, attorneys and advocates could not afford to labor for months or years on these appeals because they would not get paid for doing so.
Fact 3. If you put Fact 1 and Fact 2 together, the obvious conclusion is that hundreds of thousands of disability claims were recently denied that should have been approved in the first place. Otherwise, an appeal process would be a waste of time.
Conclusion: Social Security disability claims are seldom approved at the first step. Getting an approval requires skill and knowledge of the appeal process. The claimant should be represented by a professional who understands evidence, regulatory processes, burden of proof and how to present a legally sound case that can be paid by an administrative law judge.
If a case is not paid at the hearing level, the representative should have laid a foundation for further appeals that may give the claimant a chance of recovering benefits from the Appeals Council or, in some cases, in a Federal District Court.
So, in one sense, it's quite a shame that a disabled person needs a legal representative to help him or her get disability benefits. In the practical sense, however, that is the system we are dealing with. The reality is that you will probably need an experienced legal representative to help you collect the benefits to which you are entitled. There are just too many errors you can make if you try to "go it alone." You don't know what you don't know--and walking blindly through the Social Security disability process is like walking through a mine field blindfolded. You might win but the odds are highly unfavorable.
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