Hearings for Disability or SSI

If you find yourself in the position of having to file an application for disability benefits, you might as well brace yourself for the distinct possibility that you will, at some point, have to attend a hearing before an administrative law judge.

Typically, when it comes to social security disability (also known as ssd and ssdi, which stands for social security disability insurance) and ssi disability benefits, the vast majority of applicants have their cases turned down.

What is the percentage of individuals who are denied disability benefits? Strangely enough, though ssd and ssi are both federally mandated programs and are, allegedly uniformly administered throughout the various states, the percentage of cases that are denied after an initial filing varies widely. In other words, if you apply for disability in the state of south carolina (just an example), your chances of being approved for benefits may not be as high as if you filed an application, in, say, massachusetts (although, statistically, there is evidence published by the federal government that indicates that states in the south have higher denial rates).

If you are turned down for either social security disability or ssi disability, the chances are strong that, in order for you to eventually get your monthly disability benefits and backpay, you will have to go to a hearing before a federal administrative law judge.

What happens at a social security disability hearing? Basically, this is the point at which you are allowed, either directly yourself or through a representative (a disability lawyer or attorney, or even via a non-attorney--according to the social security administration, non-attorneys are allowed to represent disability claimants at hearings), to have your case heard in person. In other words, this is the point at which your claim begins to wear a face and have a voice, versus simply being a file on a disability examiner's desk (on initial disability applications, the case processing and decision making on an ssd or ssi disability claim is handled by a state-level disability claims examiner at an agency known as DDS, or disability determination services).

At hearings for disability, cases are instead evaluated by federal judges who specialize in making determinations on social security claims. By the time you hearing date has approached, this judge will have already read your medical records and should be fairly familiar with your specific medical impairments. And at the hearing itself, you, the claimant, will be allowed to answer specific questions about your conditions and how they affect you, i.e. how they limit your ability to work and even limit your ability to engage in routine daily activities of living (if you've filed an application for disability, you may have even gotten a call from a disability examiner,during which you were asked about your ability to cook, dress, and do household cleaning tasks. if so, this was an "activities of daily living", or ADL, call that was made as a part of routine case processing by an examiner).

How do you actually prepare for a disability hearing? This information is presented on this page: Preparing for a social security disability or ssi disability hearing