Average Wait Time Until a Hearing is Held (as of April 2016)
The average waiting time for a Social Security Disability hearing has increased significantly this year. The chart below shows the average wait time – in months – between the date a hearing is requested and the date a hearing is held for the hearing offices in Northern California, Reno and Honolulu.
In the last weeks, the federal government began to send out notices to 387,000 individuals, including people approved for Social Security disability benefits, who are facing burdensome student loan debt while also experiencing severe, permanent disabilities.
The Social Security Administration announced its plan to hire 250 new Administrative Law Judges per year to help reduce the backlog of Social Security disability hearings. Currently, over one million claimants nationwide are in the pipeline waiting for their Social Security disability hearings to be held.
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Terry LaPorte, of LaPorte Law Firm, has been selected to the 2016 list as a member of the Nation’s Top One Percent by the National Association of Distinguished Counsel. NADC is an organization dedicated to promoting the highest standards of legal excellence.
The waiting time for a hearing on a claim for Social Security Disability benefits in Reno, Nevada, is just under the national average of 15.2 months. The Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) conducts Social Security Disability (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) hearings in its Reno, Nevada office.
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a report in July 2015 stressing the importance of Social Security disability benefits. The report characterizes the SSDI program as “an important and vital lifeline to millions of American workers and their families” that “helps pay the rent and put food on the table.
If an individual is overpaid SSI or SSDI benefits, what happens? When the Social Security Administration (SSA) finds that it has overpaid disability benefits, either due to a calculating mistake, change in circumstances or other factors, it will issue a Notice of Overpayment which instructs repayment of the overpaid amount within 30 days.
The Social Security Administration has recently implemented changes in their Medical Listings for the child and adult listings formerly “Malignant Neoplastic Diseases,” now simplified to “Cancer,” in order make the name more recognizable to the public.
Clients often ask how long it will take for their SSI or SSDI disability benefits appeal to be scheduled for a hearing before a Social Security administrative law judge. The chart below shows the average wait time – in months – between the date a hearing is requested and the date a hearing is held for the hearing offices in Northern California, Reno and Honolulu.
Despite the media’s focus on the large numbers of disabled workers applying for Social Security disability benefits (SSDI), the actual numbers tell quite a different story. For each the past five years, since 2010, the number of applications for disability benefits from people who have been employed has declined.
