How long after my consultative appointments will I get a decision on my disability claim?



How long after my consultative appointments will I get a decision on my disability claim?



 
If you have attended a consultative examination for Social Security Disability, you may be assuming it will not be long before you receive your disability decision. This may or may not be the case. Lets just consider the consultative examination process first.

Once you have attended your examination, the doctor who performed the examination has thirty days to get their report to the disability agency, so that will add some time to the wait.

Unfortunately, disability determination agencies are understaffed and they have a high attrition rate. What does this have to do with your wait time for a decision after your consultative examination? It is quite simple really. Once the doctor gets the report back to the disability agency, it has to be reviewed by the disability examiner who is working on your disability claim.



At this point, the disability examiner has a complex disability determination to write and a doctor has to review their decision. This alone takes time, but let's say your consultative examination report gets back to the agency and the disability examiner has a backlog of disability cases to process, or the disability examiner originally assigned your disability case has left the agency. Your disability case will have to wait its turn for processing, or it may even have to be reassigned to another disability examiner for processing. All of these things could delay your disability decision.

Therefore, there is no true way to know how long after you go to your consultative appointment that you will receive a disability decision on your claim. There are too many variables that can affect the time it takes to get a decision so be patient but proactive on the status of your disability decision. It is not a bad idea to check the status of your disability claim about forty-five days after your consultation examination, just to keep the process rolling.


About the Author: Tim Moore is a former Social Security Disability Examiner in North Carolina, has been interviewed by the NY Times and the LA Times on the disability system, and is an Accredited Disability Representative (ADR) in North Carolina. For assistance on a disability application or Appeal in NC, click here.







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