If you've filed for SSDI (social security disability insurance) benefits, or plan to file soon, you may already be aware, through others you've spoken with, that most cases are denied at the disability application level. In most states, the denial rate on disability applications actually hovers around seventy percent.
What you may not be aware of, though, is the fact that the first appeal you are eligible to file for (the request for reconsideration) also has a low approval rate. And, in actuality, these appeals are denied more often than initial claims, sometimes exceeding a denial rate of over 80 percent.
Why does the social security administration even bother to have this level of appeal if so few claimants get denied at the reconsideration level? The question itself makes a lot of sense, so much so that members of congress, disability attorneys, and even officials within the social security administration, have wondered if reconsiderations should simply be abolished.
If reconsiderations were removed as a level of appeal and not replaced with something else (in a recent initiative, it was proposed that reconsiderations be done away with, but since they would have been replaced with something very similar, known as federal review, it made little sense), then claimants could move on more quickly to the appeal level that most claimants and their attorneys are trying to reach. This is the disability hearing.
How much quicker could you get to a hearing if you did not have to go through the process of filing a request for reconsideration beforehand? On average, most claimants would probably save about 3 months.
To disability claimants who are running into severe difficulty paying mortgages and buying groceries, cutting three months from the disability process could mean a lot. Unfortunately, its not likely to happen. For one thing, there is the fact that even though most claimants are denied on a reconsideration, approximately 15 out of every 100 reconsideration appeals actually do get approved. Secondly, there is the fact that disability hearing offices around the country would simply develop greater backlogs, and more quickly, if claimants did not have to file a reconsideration request (in the current system, before a claimant can ask for a hearing, they must go through the reconsideration phase).
Reconsideration appeals will probably be around for some time. I base this conclusion on the fact that, even 20 years ago, arguments were made regarding the need to eliminate this step of the process. Yet 20 years later, reconsiderations are still here.
What should you do if you get denied for disability on your disability application? File a request for reconsideration immediately. Not because you stand a great chance of being approved on a reconsideration (only 15 percent of all reconsiderations are approved), but because going through the reconsideration phase will allow you to request a hearing and have your case heard by an administrative law judge.
