Most disability applicants are highly aware that the Social Security disability process is a lengthy one. It will usually take a minimum of three to four months to receive a decision about a claim, and the whole process can take over two years or longer, sometimes even as long as three years if a claimant has to go to a hearing in front of a judge.
Why is this so? While it is true that an outdated system, overworked disability examiners and field office claims reps, and a lack of clerical support for administrative law judges are partially to blame, from a processing standpoint faulty or incomplete medical history information, and the time it can take a disability examiner to receive medical records from your doctors are also factors in determining the length of the process.
Social Security disability is determined solely on medical information, meaning records from doctors and hospitals. However, that implies the ability of the adjudicator on a disability claim to actually obtain one's records. This means that if you provide incorrect information about your treatment sources, your claim may be delayed much longer than might otherwise be the case. And if your medical history is incomplete or the disability examiner has a hard time finding substantiating documentation regarding your condition, the process will be harder from the standpoint of winning. In many instances, your claim may be pushed to the bottom of the list because other claims are easier and quicker to process.
The accuracy of your medical history is of utmost importance. And the ease by which the disability examiner can contact your medical providers and obtain your full medical records can certainly have an impact on the length of your claim.
If you are worried about a lengthy Social Security disability process, one of the best things you can do is provide an in-depth, accurate medical history in your application. However, you can take things one step further and become proactive in your case. How? By contacting all of your medical providers and retrieving copies of your medical records for your examiner.
It may sound like a lot of work to do this, but the rewards can be worth it. When you call your medical providers to ask for your medical records, you can be certain that you have taken a step toward providing the correct, most updated information for your medical history. When you retrieve copies of the records yourself and send them to your examiner, the chances of your claim being processed in a speedy manner are also potentially increased.
Even so, most all social security disability claims are denied initially and more than 80 percent of all requests for reconsideration are also denied. This means that, for most applicants, it will be necessary to appeal a denied claim at least as far as the level of a disability hearing with an administrative law judge.
Disability hearings tend to provide claimants who have been denied at the lower levels of the system with the best chance of ultimately winning their SSD or SSI disability benefits. However, the flip side to this is that getting to a hearing can sometimes take up to three years. And it is for this reason--the total time required on a social security disability case--that eliminating processing time, when and where possible, can be very important.
Wouldn’t you rather speed up the process and eliminate the extra time that would be spent on gathering your medical information by simply gathering your records yourself and sending them in with your disability application?
