- Submit everything in writing. Telephone calls count for absolutely zero. Put it in writing, keep a copy and verify that SSA has received it.
- SSA is serious about deadlines. Miss a deadline for an appeal, for instance, and your appeal is dead on the spot--dismissed.
- Find out what the government needs to approve your claim and give it to them (on their form if possible).
- Social Security speaks to itself in its own language. Learn the language if you can. Terms like SGA, AOD or EOD are significant. Even simple words like frequently or occasonally don't mean what you think they mean.
- After a reasonable time period, check on your claim by calling the local Social Security office. (Yes, it's OK to call just to check, but not to file anything official).
- Realize that Social Security employees are not your advocates; they work for the government, not for you. If you want or need someone to advocate for you, it will be necessary to get someone outside the Social Security Administration.
A hearing is where most disability claims get approved. If your claim is denied, immediately kick it up the chain of command by filing an appeal. An appeal means different things in different states.
In Alabama and 9 other states (called Prototype States), an appeal is a Request for Hearing Before an Administrative Law Judge.
In the other 40 states (Non-Prototype States), an appeal is a Request for Reconsideration. The claim does not go to an administrative law judge in these 40 states; it stays with the Disability Determination Service (DDS), which will have a different person look at it (and probably deny it again). Then, after the second denial, you can request a hearing before an administrative law judge.
What I want to emphasize here is this: If you are denied, appeal right away. If you get denied a second time, appeal immediately. I don't expect many of my clients to be approved the first time. The odds are better when they go before an administrative law judge.
FOR FREE EVALUATION OF A SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY CASE:
PHONE (256) 431-1599 OR (256) 799-0297
