What You Need to Appeal a Social Security Disability Denial
Fighting a denial of Social Security Disability benefits is more complicated than filing your application in the first place.
Appeals often take months or longer, so you want to submit everything correctly.
These ingredients go into a Social Security Disability appeal:
- Speed: You have 60 days from when you received notice of your denial.
- Medical Updates: You’ll need to send Social Security new records on the status of your medical condition.
- Identifying Errors from Social Security: You need to show why the original decision to deny your benefits was wrong. We often find wrong information that Social Security copied into your file, and we explain those errors in your appeal.
- Building a Legal Strategy: You have to fill out many forms again, but, because you’re now disputing a decision from Social Security, you need legal arguments too, not just a lot of information.
- Preparation for a Hearing: A key moment in many disability appeals is when you speak to a Social Security Disability administrative law judge. You need to be ready to testify and answer questions.
For many parts of the appeals process, we believe it’s best for you to work with a disability attorney.
For example, an experienced Social Security Disability lawyer knows how to spot the errors in your Social Security file and use those errors to argue for your appeal.
Don’t spend time and energy trying to figure this out on your own.
The disability lawyers at Empower Disability from Workers’ Compensation, LLC, know what information is and is not important to your appeal.
And you will pay no attorney fee until you win benefits. You can start with a consultation that costs you nothing.
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Steps to a Social Security Disability Appeal
If you get denied, you’re not alone. Like we said, most people are denied.
The good news is that you have several chances to appeal Social Security’s decision.
These are the levels of appealing:
- Reconsideration. Your first step to appealing is asking Social Security to reconsider. Someone different in the government will give your application another look.
- Disability Hearing. Next, you can take your appeal to a hearing with a Social Security administrative law judge. This is one of the most important moments in your case because you get a chance to explain, directly to the judge, why you need benefits.
- Appeals Council Review. If you disagree with the ruling from the disability judge, you can ask a Social Security group, called the Appeals Council, to review the judge’s decision.
- Federal Court Review. Finally, you can leave Social Security’s process and sue the Social Security Administration in federal court. You need a lawyer to do this.
This appeals process can take a long time.
But know this: if you stick with it and win in the end, you will be awarded back pay for all the months you were waiting on a decision.
Having a lawyer by your side makes the process easier for you. One government study found that people who had representatives in their disability hearings were almost three times more likely to be awarded benefits.
Getting denied is painful. Waiting for an appeals decision is painful. But being awarded benefits in the end changes your life for the better.
It’s best to get started as fast as you can.
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