Why Do SSI Claims Take So Long to Process?
SSI claims often take months or years to get approved because the Social Security Administration (SSA) has strict rules that it runs every case through, a large backlog of disability claims, and seemingly not enough claims examiners.
The government wants to make sure that people only get SSI when they absolutely can’t work due to their health and don’t have significant assets that they can survive on.
Properly evaluating each SSI claim and determining if someone qualifies for benefits takes time.
The pace of this process is beyond your control or the control of your Wisconsin disability lawyer, but there are things you can do to avoid making the wait worse.
It’s smart to know about and avoid these common pitfalls as you submit a disability claim:
- Factual mistakes on application forms
- Incomplete forms
- Missing evidence about your medical treatment history
- Contradicting evidence in your claim (i.e., your description of your health conflicts with your doctor’s records)
- Failure to respond to the SSA’s requests (like requests for additional medical evidence)
You can get denied even if you do everything right. Roughly two-thirds of Wisconsin disability claims get denied at first.
Appealing your denied SSI claim is often your best option to get approved, but this isn’t a quick process, either.
There are multiple stages of appeal, and there’s more waiting every time your claim gets denied.
The wait for a disability hearing can be especially tough. Wisconsinites can expect to wait around eight to nine months to reach their day to make their case directly to a disability judge.
It’s stressful, which is why you need someone advocating for you, fighting for the SSI benefits you deserve, helping you avoid more delays, and taking some of the burden off of you.
Wisconsin disability lawyer Tim Geary and his team can support you for as long as it takes to get approved.
What Happens When an SSI Claim is Finally Approved?
When your SSI claim is approved, the good news is that you won’t just receive monthly benefit checks.
You’ll also receive back benefits meant to make up for time you spent waiting for approval.
Depending on how much you are owed, you could receive these benefits in two or three installments. Spreading out those payments helps you stay under the program’s asset and income thresholds in any one month, protecting your future SSI payments.
You’ll receive back pay dating from the first full month after your disability claim was submitted. If you applied for SSI on January 10, February would be the first month covered by back pay once you get approved.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve had this health problem for years before that. It doesn’t matter if you stopped working months before you applied for SSI.
For SSI, your application date is what matters. It’s crucial to apply for SSI as soon as you realize your health problems stop you from working so you can get benefits as soon as possible and as much back pay as possible.
Act quickly and talk to a Wisconsin disability lawyer to help you apply for SSI.
How a Wisconsin Disability Lawyer Can Help
A Social Security Disability lawyer can help you at every stage of this process.
Our team can:
- Help you fill out SSA application forms correctly and completely
- Identify important medical evidence for your claim
- Help you promptly respond to requests from the SSA
- Keep you up on important deadlines
- Answer any questions you have
- Support your appeal if you get denied
- Represent you at your disability hearing in front of an administrative law judge
- Bring local knowledge about employers, industries, Social Security offices, and disability judges to your case
- Point you to local resources that could help while you wait for your benefits to get approved
Geary Disability Law has helped thousands of people in Appleton, Green Bay, Wausau, Oshkosh and across the Fox Valley and Northeast Wisconsin when they needed disability benefits.
Monthly SSI payments could return stability to your life and give you peace of mind, so don’t leave your disability claim to chance.
Hear from a Geary Law Firm Client
“When I did have a court date, he was confident and knew the law perfectly and was dedicated to my case.”
