For many of the Social Security disability benefits claimants, delays in their case hearings are just ordinary things and somewhat acceptable. However, since the majority of qualified beneficiaries are being greatly affected by this undue and long period of waits, the Social Security Administration must develop a strategy to resolve this issue once and for all.
Several explanations have been heard about the reasons why these delays are very common:
- Large number of claimants filing their cases
- Insufficient funds to augment Social Security’s operations and to hire more personnel in order to double their results
- Unorganized or incomplete documents of the claimants
These are just some of the reasons why most of the applications take around two or more years to be settled.
Just as bad, a confession about the real cause of delays of some petitions being brought to SSA is quite disturbing. According to an article that I have read entitled “A Disturbing Explanation for Why Hearing Schedules are So Far Behind”, a Social Security hearing judge in Atlanta has exposed the true cause why most of his handled cases are not being settled in an appropriate time.
This judge puts the blame on the clerks assigned in scheduling the hearings. Since majority of the disability claims filed under his jurisdiction necessitates the aid of a medical expert, the clerk is having a hard time coordinating his schedules with the claimant’s attorney and the medical expert and/or vocational expert.
As a further consequence, the scheduling clerk is being forced to mark the cases and have them concealed in the file cabinet.
Now, if you are also experiencing a delay on your disability claim, you may also been a victim of this kind of scenario. You are lucky if someone will notice your case in the file cabinet and reopen it for a hearing schedule. If not, you may just have to wait for nothing.
To prevent this from happening to you, it is a must to hire a dynamic and dependable disability compensation lawyer who will make sure that your claim is being processed well. To add, having a qualified representative will even ease your burden of proving your eligibility to obtain your benefits.
