What are the procedures used by SSA to determine eligibility for SSDI or SSI benefits?
While it is impossible to exhaustively describe these procedures here, the reader should understand that SSA is a bureaucracy. As such, it often has convoluted, tedious and repetitive procedures. Once a person submits an application for SSDI or SSI benefits, the application is sent to a local State agency for development of medical evidence. There, staff will collect information concerning the Claimant’s medical condition. The Claimant may be sent for at least one consultative examination performed by SSA’s doctors. If the initial application is denied (about 70% of them are denied outright), the next step in New York is to apply for a hearing by an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). Until recently, NY also had the reconsideration stage, which has now been eliminated. Most other states have retained the reconsideration stage, which is a review of the file by a different claims examiner. Most of these reconsiderations also result in a denial affirmance. It can take well over a year for the
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