Chicago Social Security Attorneys – SSDI Process

The SSDI Process

Your Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) application is going to be rejected once it’s submitted. Although it’s not always the case, the Social Security Administration have a habit of making people work tirelessly to reap their rewards. This is why you shouldn’t be disheartened when you have to appeal, but just remember it needs to be done within 60 days. You’ll definitely need a social security disability lawyer in Chicago to help you sort everything out if you want to win your case.

Social security disability attorneys in Chicago are there to make sure the appeal is prepared perfectly, but don’t expect it to happen any time soon. Once an appeal has been filed you might be looking at a one year wait until your hearing is scheduled. Thank goodness you’ll get back payments if you win.

Social Security Disability Appeal Hearing Information

Once you’ve appealed your Chicago social security attorney will submit all of your updated information to the judge. They’ll all know to do this well in advance because it will let the judge have time to look through everything carefully. Thanks to the fact you have a Chicago social security lawyer on your side everything will be presented much better this time around, assuming you did everything yourself the first time.

Let’s take a few steps back for a moment and we’ll look at the entire process step by step. It’s unlikely your initial application for SSDI will be approved straight away as all Chicago social security disability attorneys will attest to, but we’ll start there anyway and quickly look at all five stages.

The Application Stage

This is right at the start when you first hand in your application along with the mountain of evidence they’ll need from you. It’s a good idea to bring in Chicago social security disability lawyers at this stage. You’ll have to fill in questionnaires, visit doctors, and answer in-depth questions about your work and medical history.

Everything rests on the Disability Determination Services (DDS) where you live. Not only will your medical records be scrutinized, but you might have to attend a number of consultative exams before they feel comfortable enough to make a decision. You and your Chicago social security attorney will have to wait roughly six months to find out if you’re in the one-third of applicants who succeed straight away.

The Reconsideration Stage

Now your Chicago social security lawyer will appeal within the first 60 days. All of the information you submitted the first time around will be updated before finally being reviewed for a second time. During the reconsideration stage a different employee from the Social Security Administration will ultimately decide your fate, but don’t get your hopes up too much. Not only can it take five months to hear anything, but 90 percent of appeals are rejected.

The Hearing Stage

Once again Chicago social security lawyers will help you let the SSA know you want a hearing within 60 days of the last stage failing. The hearing is different because it will be dealt with by an Administrative Law Judge. They’ll take all the updated information into consideration and you’ll be contacted a few weeks before their decision is due. You can submit extra evidence to help your case, which your social security lawyer in Chicago will work on.

The hearing is going to be close to your home, so you should do your utmost to attend. You could be called up by the Administrative Law Judge to give evidence, and so could medical professionals and any other experts. Your Chicago social security attorney can also interview people at this stage. Once it’s over you’ll eventually be informed of the decision in writing. By the way, it’s also possible to ask the Administrative Law Judge to do everything without a hearing.

The Appeals Council Stage

The last stage is realistically your best shot even though you can ask the Appeals Council to review the decision within 60 days if it’s bad news. They will make sure your disability hearing was conducted properly according to the law. You’ll wait for more than a year to hear anything from them and only one percent of people are successful at this stage.

The Federal Court Stage

This stage where you’ll appeal to the Federal District Court (FDC) isn’t very popular. Social security disability attorneys in Chicago might ask you to be part of the one percent who go through with it anyway. Over two-thirds of appeals are denied, but on the positive side the rest of the cases will be sent back to the hearing stage to give you another shot.

Collecting Your Benefits

If your social security lawyers in Chicago have helped you win your SSDI you’ll have to wait between a few weeks and a few months depending on which level they were awarded at. It shouldn’t bother you much because all the hard work is finally over. The only one difficult thing you’ll need to deal with depends on the severity of your disability. If it’s not going to affect you for the rest of your life you’ll need to be subjected to Continuing Disability Reviews (CDR).