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If you file for social security disability or file an SSI disability claim, you should check its status at regular intervals. How often you check may be mediated by what level your claim is at (at the initial claim level, reconsideration appeal level, or disability hearing level) and whether or not you are represented by either a disability attorney or a non-attorney claimant's representative. First of all, why should you bother to check the status of your disability claim at all? The answer to this question is fairly simple, if not a little disturbing. The social security administration will, in a percentage of cases, A) lose the paperwork that has been submitted by a claimant (for example, appeal paperwork) or B) will fail to notify a claimant that their case has been denied. Regarding A, when appeal paperwork has been received and lost in a local social security office, a claimant's case will essentially grind to a halt. It will not make the transition to the next step of the process and may cost the claimant months of valuable processing time. And it may result in a scenario where a claimant will be forced to file a new application (basically, starting from scratch) because they will have "missed the appeal deadline", even if the missed deadline is the fault of social security. Regarding B, a claimant whose case has been denied will have a maximum of 65 days from the date of their denial to file an appeal (this includes the 60 days that are indicated on the denial notice plus an extra five days for mailing time). But, obviously, a timely appeal cannot be filed if a notice of denial is not received. And this type of slipup occurs far more than most claimants would guess. In either case, a claimant can avoid missing an important appeal deadline (due to A) social security losing the forms submitted by a claimant or B) social security failing to send notification of a denial) by simply checking the status of their case. How do you check and when do you check? If your social security disability or SSI disability case is at the initial claim level, you can generally expect a disability decision within three to four months. If you have not received a notice (a notice of approval or a notice of denial), then you should make a disability claim status call. This call can be made to the social security office where you filed your disability claim; however, it generally makes more sense to contact the disability examiner who has actually been assigned to work on your case. The disability examiner is located at the state disability processing agency (in most states, called DDS or disability determination services) that makes decisions on disability claims for the social security administration. How do you get the number for this agency? Call your social security office to obtain the number. Then call the state agency and state that you are "calling for the status of my case". Typically, the person who answers the phone will ask you for your social security number. They will then connect you with your examiner who can quickly tell you whether or not your case is pending. If the case has been decided, the examiner can tell you this. However, the examiner will not be able to inform you as to what the decision was. If your disability claim is at the reconsideration level (the request for reconsideration is the second step in the disability claim process and is also the first appeal available to claimants), you would repeat the steps indicated in the prior paragraph since reconsiderations are also handled at the state disability processing agency. When should you call to check the status on a reconsideration? "Recons" are generally decided faster than initial claims and usually within two months. Therefore, if you have not received a decision within two months of filing the reconsideration request, you may wish to check the status of the claim. If your case is at the hearing level, meaning that you have A) been denied on a reconsideration appeal and have B) filed a request for hearing before an administative law judge, then you can contact the social security office where you filed your claim to check the status of your hearing request. However, in most instances, this will not be productive. Why? Because the hearing office (ODAR, office of disability adjudication and review) functions independently and autonomously and social security office personnel will typically have little information available as to the status of a hearing request. Usually, a hearing status call that is made to a social security field office will simply garner a response similar to "we haven't heard anything". It is usually much more productive to make a status call on a hearing request to...to the hearing office itself. Again, this number can be obtained from the social security office. Individuals who have representation, of course, should not have to make status calls as their representatives should periodically make such calls for them, both for the purpose of staying up-to-date on the case and also to avoid missing deadlines. Having said that, though, even a represented claimant would find themselves better protected by also checking on their case in addition to the efforts of their hired representative. 
Social Security Disability and SSI Disability Information
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