Financial Assistance
From Pahwiki
[edit] Social Security Disability
If your initial claim is denied, it's important to know the basis for that denial before filing an appeal. With the folder in front of you, it's lots easier to spot missing or incorrect information in the records SSA used, and to argue intelligently with the decision if it was wrong.
Getting a copy of an electronic disability folder (or a paper one, for that matter) shouldn't be hard.
Under provisions of the Privacy Act, you are entitled to have copies of your records held by the agency.
For over a year now, SSA has been able to maintain electronic folders for almost every disability claim filed--better than 95% when I retired a year ago. For these electronic folders there isn't paper anymore. When you ask for a copy, the information is copied to a CD that can be read from your computer.
Getting the CD should be as easy as contacting a Social Security District Office and asking for it. (That said, Congress and the President have been cutting staff at SSA for many years, even as boomers have been setting records for filing disability claims and Homeland Security has piled on additional work. They're good people, but they're swamped. See the AARP article on long lines at [1]
How to contact SSA? The surest method is to go to an office and ask for it in person. Alternately, you can write or call and ask for a copy, but it's likely to take much longer. You absolutely do not want to let the 60-day time limit for filing an appeal expire. Also, if you go to an office you should be aware it will take a "Claims Representative" or higher to access and copy your records. The person at the reception desk is usually a lower-graded employee, so they will need to refer you to someone else rather than just pulling up your record and sending you on your way.
Where to get the 'official' instructions:
Social Security's homepage: [2]. There is a lot of good information there including how to find and office how to file an appeal. You can eventually find your way to these specific instructios, but here are some shortcuts:
SSA's operations manual: [3] These are SSA's operating guides, and are written for them to read. They're not secret or confidential, but sometimes they assume the audience will be folks who already know a lot about Social Security. The Table of Contents includes everything they do, not just the CD's.
Your right to get a copy of your record: [4] This is the introduction to this topic in SSA's operation manual.
How an SSA employee can make a CD for you: [5] If the SSA person you speak with doesn't seem to understand what you want, or thinks you shouldn't have it, this reference (again, from their operations manual "POMS") may help explain. NOTE: SSA may not release a record directly to you if it is labeled "Sensitive". This is pretty rare, and it can still be released to your Dr or other professional representative.
