Filing A Reconsideration Appeal With Social Security

However, there are some missteps that are fairly common among those filing a reconsideration appeal with disability determination services (DDS), the state agency that decides disability cases for Social Security.

If you are filing your own reconsideration appeal with Social Security, be sure to do the following:

1. File your appeal within 60 days of your denial date (this date is usually found stamped at the top right-hand corner of the first page of the denial notice). Social Security allows a claimant 60 days, plus a 5-day grace period for mailing time, to file an appeal. If your appeal is not in the Social Security office within the deadline, you will lose your right to file an appeal and will be in the position of having to start over with a brand new claim.

2. Be sure to keep a copy of anything you send to Social Security, including copies of all medical records, and, of course, the appeal paperwork itself. This will save you the trouble of gathering and reproducing the material again if it is lost, as well as allow you to keep track of everything that you have submitted for you disability case file.

3. Do not confuse a reconsideration appeal with a brand new application for disability. If your initial application for disability is denied, you should not, in the vast majority of instances, begin the process of filing for disability all over again. Instead, you should call the Social Security office and inform them of your intent to appeal, and request that the appeal paperwork be sent to you.

Many claimants become confused about the difference between the first social security disability (or SSI) appeal and the filing of a new claim for disability, but they are very different: statistically, your chances for approval will go up as your case advances through the disability appeals system to the level of a hearing held by an administrative law judge. By contrast, your chances for approval on the basis of filing a brand new claim are slim at best.

Typically, the only situation in which it makes sense to file a new claim rather than an appeal is if your initial claim was denied due to a non-medical eligibility issue, such as the possibility that you were earning too much at the time you filed, or you owned what the social security administration considered to be excessive assets (the latter applies to SSI, which currently requires that your total "countable" assets are valued at no more than $2,000).

4. Include any new information, particularly any new medical documentation, in your appeal paperwork. Social Security should be made aware of any new treatments, diagnoses, or test results that may bolster your claim for disability. In the case of new medical treatment sources, the social security disability examiner who is processing your claim will not be in a position to gather records from new hospitals, doctors, or clinics if these sources have not been indicated at the time of the appeal.

5. If you file your reconsideration appeal online rather than by mail, be sure to include form SSA-3441 (the Appeal Disability Report) as well as form SSA-827 (the medical release form). Without signed medical release forms, your request for reconsideration appeal will be hung up in the Social Security office, rather than transferred to DDS for consideration by a disability examiner, which will needlessly delay work on your case and will, therefore, also delay a decision in your case.

Written by Tim Moore
mooreorlesstim3@yahoo.com
http://www.disabilityblogger.blogspot.com