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This is certainly one of the most common mistakes made by disability claimants. They file for disability, get denied for disability, and then, instead of filing a disability appeal, file a brand new application. As a disability examiner, I was able to view a special code on the cases I received. This code was referred to as a unique number and it meant the number of times that an individual had filed a new application for disability. It was not uncommon at all to see a case arrive on my desk with a unique number as high as sixteen. What did a unique number of 16 mean? Simply that a person had been denied up to 15 times and had filed up to 16 separate disability applications. As a disability examiner, I found it puzzling that someone would file 16 times, particularly when all they really had to do was the following: 1. After learning that their disability claim was denied, a request for reconsideration should have been filed. A reconsideration is the first appeal in the disability appeal process. It is handled exactly the same way that an initial claim is handled, only by a different disability examiner. Typically, depending on the state a person resides in, about 80-85 percent of all reconsiderations will be denied. The success rate at this first appeal level is very low; however, in a realistic sense, it should only be viewed as a gateway to the second, and much more successful, appeal step. 2. After learning that a reconsideration appeal has been denied (as we said, most reconsiderations are turned down), a claimant should submit their second appeal, which is a request for a hearing before an administrative law judge. Hearings are held by federal disability judges and claimants can attend unrepresented or represented by either a disability attorney or a non-attorney representative. The success rate at the disability hearing level is substantially higher and claimants who are represented achieve a better than 60 percent win rate. Sixty percent may not sound like a particularly favorable rate of approval, but when children's claims are filtered out of the statistics (children's claims have a higher rate of denial), the actual win rate for adult claims is higher, probably 70 percent or more. Claimants who decide to file a disability appeal after being denied on an initial claim actually improve their chances of winning. The goal, of course, is to get a case heard by a judge at a hearing. Claimants, on the other hand, who do not file appeals, but instead file new applications, will simply get denied all over again (as we pointed out earlier, up to 16 times or more). Their cases will never be evaluated by a judge and they will never have the opportunity to have their case argued in person, either by themselves or by an experienced representative. By applying again, instead of filing a disability appeal, a claimant will effectively give up their appeal rights and, in most cases, almost certainly guarantee continued denials of their claim. 
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