In May, Allsup is posting a blog series on Disability Insurance Awareness Month, a time when disability and insurance organizations join forces to raise awareness about the importance of protecting your income after a work-disrupting health issue. This series will take you through Five Fast Facts on SSDI that will help you incorporate these benefits into your overall financial protection plan.
Fast Fact No. 3: One of the biggest hurdles when applying for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits—beyond the mountains of paperwork—is how long it may take you to receive your benefits.
Once you apply, you join the backlog of claimants who, like you, are all waiting for a decision on their claim for benefits. Your first decision may be a denial, which means you could appeal your case and seek a hearing in front of an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ).
The hearing level is where we find the longest waits. The national average wait time for getting your Social Security disability hearing is now 600 days. Nearly 1 million people are in line, with some waiting 700 days or longer.
The good news is that representatives like Allsup can help you do it right the first time, when you apply for disability benefits.
Allsup provides expert guidance, advocating to get you the benefits you deserve as quickly and efficiently as possible, increasing your chances of getting approved at the application level, and avoiding the hearing backlog altogether, if possible.
Our online tool combines an SSDI assessment for eligibility and Social Security disability application support, along with return-to-work guidance for those who may medically recover. Allsup has a 53 percent success rate at the application level, compared to the national average of 34 percent.
Our next topic will examine how funding for Social Security could speed up the disability claim process for applicants.
