Hearing Wait is Coming Down

Even since I began handling only social security disability disability cases 18 years ago, the wait in Dallas and Fort Worth Texas for an administrative hearing before an administrative law judge has been appropriately 12 months. But in the last 18 months I have seen the waiting time at the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) come down. On average it is now taking less than 12 months from the hearing request to get a hearing before an administrative law judge.

Official reports from ODAR for October 2009, continue to show improvement in reducing hearing level processing times and the number of pending cases as follows:

• Pending cases dropped for the tenth straight month, down to 717,884, about 5,000 fewer than in September 2009. This is the lowest ODAR pending number since February 2008.

• The average processing time is 441 days, the lowest monthly processing time since April 2005.

The table above shows that the Dallas Region has the lowest waiting time for any of the 10 regions in the US. So, 2010 shows real progress for social security disability applicants in Dallas Fort Worth!