30 Apr Appealing a SSDI decision

The road to a successful Social Security Disability claim can be quite a long and tough battle. For those who do not win their claim on their first try, do not worry there are other options you can take from there on. Just because you do not win your claim the first time does not mean you can’t file a claim again. Here we will be talking about appealing your initial decision on your SSDI claim. There are 4 stages that go into appealing your denied claim.

The first stage we will be covering is called “reconsideration”. This is where a brand new disability examiner will be assigned to you to help review your claim. In this stage you are also permitted to provide or bring forward any new medical evidence that will help support your claim and prove your disability even more. 

The new examiner given to you can also request for additional information to help get a better decision about your medical condition.Next stage is where you can request to have a hearing in front of an administrative law judge. These ALJs will review all the collected evidence in your disability case. Once reviewed, they will finalize a decision.

If still not a favorable decision then afterwards is the “Appeals Council”. You would move to this stage if your hearing with an administrative law judge does not go in your favor. The appeals council is a panel of members put together by the Social Security Administration who take the findings found from your ALJ.  

At this stage the Appeals Council can alter the ruling that was set in place by the Administrative Law Judge. They also can make a request for a new hearing to take place with the same ALJ you previously had a hearing in front of.

The last stage is the Federal Courts. If you are to move to the Appeals Council and not have a favorable decision, you would then file with the United States District Court. 

Another tool would be to acquire the proper representation in the form of an SSDI attorney. With the proper representation, it may speed up the process and will help simplify all the work required. Filing a claim on your own and having no professional legal help can be very intimidating and difficult for you to handle. With specific dates and timing that are present within the claims process, having a professional lead you through the process helps to nearly guarantee a smooth transition throughout each stage of your claim. 

With that in mind, Victory Disability lawyers can help you in your claim effectively. The only way you pay is if you win your claim! Since most of the time you will not win on your first claim and will need to appeal the denied claim, you might as well already have an attorney from the beginning since you will need one afterwards if you do not win initially.

 If you are to not appeal a denied claim in the allotted time of 60 days, you must start from the beginning and file a brand new claim. Restarting will only take your disability claim a longer time to be processed and reviewed, so we strongly suggest sticking with the initial claim and appealing it if you are to receive a denial notice.