Social Security Disability & SSI: Approval, Denials & Back Pay

If you appealed a denial for Social Security disablity or SSI benefits, and had a hearing in front of an administrative law judge (ALJ), the ALJ will issue a decision on your disability claim several weeks or months after the hearing.

Award Approval Letters

If the judge's decision is an approval, the claimant receives two letters:

• Notice of Decision letter from the judge (from the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review).
• Notice of Award from the Social Security office.

The Notice of Decision letter may be fully favorable or partially favorable. In both cases, you were approved for some disability benefits. The difference has to do with the onset date, or when the judge decided that the disability began (referred to as the date of onset). If you are awarded benefits, but the judge decided you became disabled later than you had stated, that's a partially favorable decision.

While the Notice of Decision is a "decisional" letter, the Notice of Award sent from the Social Security office discusses benefit amounts: how much the claimant will receive in monthly benefits, how much the claimant is owed in back pay benefits, and when those benefits will commence. (But whenever Social Security tells you your benefits will begin, take this with a grain of salt. SSA forecasts are seldom very accurate).

Onset Date and Back Pay

 The date of onset is important in Social Security disability cases since it determines how much in past due benefits, or "back pay," a claimant may receive. (It's not applicable in SSI cases, since SSI benefits are awarded only back to your appliction date.)

The date you state on your disability application that you became unable to work is your alleged onset date, or AOD. The date the SSA finds you became eligible to receive disability benefits is called the established onset date (EOD).

Depending on the date of onset, a person could receive several hundred dollars in SSDI back pay, or several thousand. Because there can be so much money at stake, the issue of the onset date is a good reason to have legal representation. A knowledgeable and experienced disabiity lawyer or claimant's representative knows how to argue for the most favorable onset date possible based on the medical evidence. (More than half of all cases are heard by administrative law judges are approved and many disability representatives win monthly benefits and backpay for 80-90% of their claimants, making representation a useful option.)

Denial Letters

If the disability case is denied at the hearing level, the letter received from the ALJ will be titled "Notice of Decision--Unfavorable."

You can appeal Social Security Disability claims that are denied by ALJs to the Appeals Council, an SSA body that reviews all denials made by ALJs. Such appeals are often an uphill battle, though, since percentage-wise, few ALJ denials are overturned.

It is at this point that some disability lawyers will advise a claimant to start over with a brand new claim.