WHAT WILL A TIMELY APPEAL DO FOR YOU IF YOU'VE BEEN DENIED?

Let's face it.  7 out of 10 applications for disability will be denied for one reason or another.  Very few people get approved with an application.

You must appeal the denial within 60 days.  What does the appeal do for you?

First, the appeal keeps your claim alive.  It protects your back pay, your disability onset date and other benefits under the original claim.  If the appeal is eventually decided in your favor, benefits can go back to the original onset date of your disability.  This can pay you tens of thousands of dollars in past due benefits or back pay.

Second, a timely appeal puts you on track to appear at a hearing before a US Administrative Law Judge (ALJ).  It will take a long time to get there, however, the appeal is the same thing as a Request for a Hearing.

Third, the appeal gives you time to gather new or additional evidence.  You should keep seeing your doctor(s) and submitting the new records to your file.  

Finally, the appeal allows you to appear in person before a judge who will give you a new decision without being bound by the negative decision already made on your claim.  The judge will review all the facts in your case, including new evidence, including your testimony, including your attoney's arguments.  You are entitled to be represented at these hearings and you should be.  It won't guarantee a victory but it will increase your chances of winning.

I come in contact with claimants who have been denied three, four or even five times.  They keep filing new claims and getting denied over and over again.  This is the worst way to approach an SSDI claim.  A new application goes to the same people who denied it previously.  The same people make the same decision again.  Another denial.  Spinning your wheels, getting nowhere.

The 3 must do rules for a denied claim are:

1.  Appeal
2.  Appeal
3.  Appeal