Everyone knows that the Social Security Administration (SSA) and state Disability Determination Service (DDS) agencies that process your disability application are not able to keep up with their work in a timely way because they don’t have enough people to do all the work. Millions of people file for disability every year, and the government just isn’t giving the SSA enough employees to process the applications. Although the under staffing of the agency is the principal reason for delays in Social Security Disability cases, we know that many delays are also caused by claimants, those people filing for disability benefits.
Delays in Contacting You Will Delay Your Decision
If the Disability Examiner (DE) reviewing your case at DDS or the judge’s clerk at the SSA is trying to reach you about your case and they cannot get you because of old contact information in your file, it will delay your case. These people are overworked, and will usually only make minimal efforts to locate you before they give up and your case just sits waiting for you to update them.
You need to take responsibility for making sure they can always contact you. You should be sure to update DDS or SSA with your new contact information if you move or get a new phone number.
If you work with a disability law firm you will only need to update the firm, they will then update DDS or SSA. When you have representation, Social Security will contact your lawyer if they can’t contact you. So at least your file will not just sit there for months, once the law office knows that Social Security is looking for you they will try and contact you by all means available to ensure your case doesn’t stop moving forward to a decision.
