Can I file for Social Security Disability when my Case is at the Appeals Council?

If you have filed an appeal of your disability hearing denial to the Appeals Council, you can file a new disability claim. In fact, the Appeals Council Review is the only appeal level that allows you to file both an appeal and a new social security disability claim or SSI disability claim simultaneously.

You may be wondering why you cannot begin another disability application when your disability claim is at the administrative law judge hearing appeal level (since it often takes months or even years to get to your administrative law judge hearing).

If Social Security allowed an individual to file new disability claims while waiting on an administrative law judge hearing, the system would be clogged with multi-level disability claims for each disability applicant. This would create more chaos within the Social Security disability process, and the end result would be even longer disability processing times.

Generally, an Appeals Council review is going to result in a refusal to review the administrative law judge decision or a remand back to the administrative law judge. Either way, individuals are rarely awarded disability benefits through the Appeals Council request for review. Consequently, Social Security rules allow an individual to file a new disability claim while appealing the administrative law judge decision.

Most disability applicants would be disadvantaged if they had to wait for an Appeal Council decision before filing a new disability claim.

Not only can you file a new disability claim while your file an Appeal Council request for review, you absolutely should file a new disability claim once you have received a social security disability hearing denial. In fact, you should file both simultaneously if possible.

If you have representation, your representative may file your Appeals Council review request for you. However, in most cases you will be responsible for filing your new Social Security disability claim.






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Social Security Disability Benefit Questions



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