Once you\’ve reached the point where you know you\’re eligible to claim disability you then need to start the process – which can take several months – of filing for and getting your disability payments from the Social Security Administration. There\’s a lot of detail and information required as part of any social security disability claim, but one of the most important elements of your claim will be the medical records and documents you\’ll need to submit as part of your application for disability payments.
What we\’re going to look at in this article is how a disability claim is typically processed, and just how important it is for you to provide timely and correct medical evidence and documentation with your claim in the first place.
Determination Phase
The first phase of your disability claim is where the Disability Determination Services (DDS) team request your medical records to start processing your claim for disability payments. The problem here is that it\’s not uncommon for the DDS to not receive all the documents they request from your doctors, hospitals or clinics, with the main reason being administration errors or just the sheer volume of disability requests that any given doctor, hospital or clinic is receiving each day.
What then happens is that the DDS staff have to make a decision on your claim based on the medical documents they actually have, instead of all the other documents they need. Once the DDS examiner has what they consider \”sufficient\” documentation they\’ll then process your claim, meaning it will probably be declined and enter into the appeals process almost immediately.
Unnecessary Delays
Social security staff are graded on how quickly they process disability claims which arrive on their desk each month, so based on that claims which include all the documentation they actually need will be put at the top of the processing list simply because you\’re making the life of the that member of DDS a lot easier. In claims where no documentation is provided an examiner can be left waiting several months to receive even just some of your medical documents, which results in these claims being given a lower priority in that examiners workload.
Getting Your Records
This involves simply requesting your medical documents from your doctor, although a small fee might apply for copies of the documents you need. The vast majority of medical professionals are familiar with disability claims, so there\’s no reason for them to refuse a request for documents of this type. Obviously if your doctor is difficult to deal with when requesting copies of your medical records then they could easily do the same thing with the SSA/DDS requests – it might be working changing doctors to speed the process up.