Options Available If Your Claim Is Denied

In this article, you will learn:

• Common mistakes made when applying for benefits
• The best time to apply
• When to consider hiring an attorney

Once denied, you have 60 days to file an appeal. If you’ve been denied initially, you have 60 days to file a request for reconsideration. If you are denied at the request for reconsideration, you have 60 days to file a request for hearing. If you’re denied at the request for hearing phase, you have 60 days to ask for review from the Appeals Council. So, anytime you’re denied by Social Security, you have a fairly short window of time to file an appeal. If you don’t file the appeal within the time limits, and Social Security doesn’t find there was good cause for you missing the deadline, then you have to start the process over again.

Appealing If Social Security Disability Benefits Are Denied

You don’t have to wait to appeal, and, in fact, you’ve only got that 60-day window. So there is an incentive to move quickly if you’re denied. Since the Social Security proceeding is a quasi-legal proceeding, the general rules of administrative procedure apply. So, any time you sought relief or sought a benefit, then you have an obligation to exhaust your administrative remedies. If you’re denied initially, you should file the request for reconsideration. If you don’t, and you simply reapply, then you’re jeopardizing your eligibility period from the first application that wasn’t appealed. There is a disadvantage to just signing up again, as opposed to appealing as you should, and going through each stage of the administrative process.

Common Mistakes People Make When Applying For Social Security Disability Benefits On Their Own

First and foremost, folks only focus on not being able to go back to the job that they were doing at the time they became disabled. Typically, not being able to go back to work is only one part of the equation. It is an important part, but it’s not the whole part. Particularly for people who are under the age of 50, you have to prove that you can’t do unskilled sedentary work. Nationally, Social Security says there are hundreds of thousands of unskilled sedentary jobs available. If a person retains the ability to perform a sedentary job, they are not disabled. It doesn’t matter if the jobs exist in your local region or state. As long as it exists somewhere in the national economy, then you are not disabled.

Our ideal disability client is someone who is over the age of 50, preferably over the age of 55, because the rules change again at age 55. But for people who are under the age of 50, they have such a hard time grasping that if you think of the easiest job out there, somebody that sits at an assembly line and inspects parts that weigh maybe a few ounces, that’s the type of job that you have to convince Social Security you can’t do.

When To Hire An Attorney To Apply For Disability

A disability application can be filed without an attorney. However, I do think that there is an advantage to having an attorney, because some of the pitfalls that people don’t realize they’re going to encounter are easy to fall into, like once they file the initial application, Social Security frequently will send out lots of paperwork to fill out, and there are lots of forms that ask you about your daily living activities, your pain, and all sorts of things. If people don’t know at the initial level what it is that Social Security is looking for, they can actually make mistakes on those forms, being completely truthful but just not understanding that’s not what their social security is looking for. So, at the initial level, I think that it’s smart to have an attorney because that way from the very beginning, the information that is going to Social Security is the information that will be helpful, and information that’s going to focus on what they’re looking for, not what an individual thinks is the proof of his or her disability.

For more information on Denial Of A Social Security Disability Claim, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (859) 681-9111 today.