Social Security Disability Deadlines: Real and "Faux"

Like all administrative processes, the social security disability assessment process has lots of deadlines.  Though the system was initially intended to allow claimants to handle their own claims, it did not take long for the process to become very unfriendly for the individual claimant.

In my experience as a social security disability attorney in Dallas Texas for 19 years, I see first-hand the dire consequences of claimants not understanding just how important deadlines really are.  The social security disability assessment process has rigid appeal stages.  If the claimant is denied initially, they have the right to request a reconsideration.  If the reconsideration is denied, the claimant has the right to request an administrative hearing before an Administrative Law Judge.  If the judge turns the claimant down, the claimant may ask the Appeals Council to review the case.  If the Appeals Council refuses to review the claimt, the last step in the process is to take the claim to the US Federal Court.  At each step the claimant has 60 days to appeal the case. Failure to appeal within the 60 days means the claimant must either start all over again, or prove to the Social Security Administration that they had "good cause" for failing to appeal the claim withn the 60 days .  "Good cause" is loosely defined, but typically is confined to proof of non-receipt of the denial letter, a major hospitalization in the 60 day period, etc.  Simply not getting around to dealing with the denial, misreading the denial letter, or misplacing the letter are generally not going to be found to constitute "good cause".  And even more importantly the finding of "good cause" is totally within the discretion of the Social Security Administration.  A claimant cannot appeal a finding by the Social Security Administration that "good cause" for missing a deadline did not exist. So missing an appeal denial is a big deal.

But there are other deadlines in the disability assessment process that Social Security presents as critical that are not in fact as important.  For example, when the Office of Disability Adjudication & Review (ODARS) sends the claimant notice of the hearing, they routinely state that certain forms must be completed and returned within 10 days.  While there is no real reason that the claimant should not do so, there is no major problem if the claimant fails to get those forms back to the judge in 10 days.  The hearing will not be canceled, nor will  the judge automatically deny the claimant. This is an example of what I would call a "faux" deadline ("faux" being French for "false").

Deadlines in the social security disability process are an example of why claimants need competent legal counsel who know when which deadlines are deadly serious, and when they are not.