SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY, SSI - OFFICE OF HEARINGS AND APPEALS

The Office of hearings and appeals is where the majority of ssd and ssi disability claims will reach a favorable end. Going by statistics published by the federal government, more than half of all claims that are heard by judges at an OHA, or office of hearings and appeals, are approved for disability benefits.

As an element of the disability adjudication process, the office of hearings and appeals is quite different. The most obvious aspect of OHA is that once a social security disability or ssi claim is transferred there (from your local social security office), it may "sit" for a year or longer simply waiting to be scheduled for a hearing date. Also, when a case is transferred to the hearing office, a claimant will typically hear next to nothing about their case. Usually, the only official correspondence that a disability applicant will receive from the office of hearings and appeals will be:

an acknowledgement or confirmation letter following a request for hearing that has been submitted.
an appointment letter from the hearings office notifying a claimant that a hearing date has been set.
a notice of decision (either unfavorable, partially favorable, or fully favorable) from the office of hearings and appeals following a claimant's hearing (many claimants ask how long it will take to receive such a letter and the answer is often that it may take weeks or months to receive a judge's decision notice).

There is, though, one other piece of correspondence that an office of hearings and appeals (most states have several such offices) may send a claimant. And that is an exhibit list. An exhibit list is simply a demarcated list of everything that is in a social security disability or ssi disability claimant's file, including copies of their applications, copies of medical records gathered by disability determination services, and copies of questionaires completed by a claimant.

Not every office of hearings and appeals compiles an exhibit list. But for those that do, the exhibit list presents an opportunity to quickly surmise what information was viewed (medical records) previously when a claimant's case was denied.

Having such information, of course, can sometimes be beneficial to a social security claimant's disability lawyer or attorney.

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