SOCIAL SECURITY HEARING FORMS

Before being awarded Social Security Disability benefits, most applicants will have to go through an Administrative Hearing. Depending on the backlog in your particular area, you should expect that it will take 12 – 24 months from the time you submit your initial application to be scheduled for a hearing. By the time you receive the Notice of Hearing, you will have a new impairing condition – Form Fatigue.

Form Fatigue is that inescapable condition that results from Social Security’s incessant demands for forms from its applicants. By the time an applicant’s Administrative Hearing is scheduled, he will have been called upon to fill out an Application form, a Request for Administrative Hearing, 2-3 disability forms, 1-2 function report forms, 1-2 work history reports, authorizations and maybe more.

The unfortunate result of Form Fatigue is that by the time the Claimant receives their Hearing Forms, they are tempted to dismiss them or not give them the careful consideration they do require. Succumbing to Form Fatigue is a mistake.

Several months before your hearing date, you will receive your Notice of Hearing, and with it 4 more forms. Most people are so excited to finally have a hearing scheduled they may overlook these forms. They are important, so let’s go through each:

1st: Acknowledgement of Hearing. This one is very simple. All you need do is sign it, check that you will attend your hearing and send it to the OHO(Office of Hearings Operations).

2nd: Recent Medical Treatment: In this form, you are to give detailed contact information for each medical provider you have been treated by since the date you submitted your appeal for hearing and the approximate period of treatment. This includes treatment in hospitals whether it be in-patient or ER visits. Also, you are asked to explain what your doctors have told you about your condition.

[Attorney Comment: Due to Form Fatigue, many give only the barest of information, and leave off medical providers, ER treatment and critical contact information – addresses and phone numbers.]

3rd: Current Medications: For each prescription and non-prescription medication you currently take, set forth: The reason you take the medication, the dose you take, the approximate date you started taking the medication (if remembered) and the name of the medical provider advising you to take it.

[Attorney Comment: Due to Form Fatigue, many leave off medications. Check and recheck it. And, while this is not requested, I suggest that you say whether there are any medications your doctors have had you try but that you could not continue with, especially if it is due to drug intolerance, side effects and/or bad interaction with other medications and/or risks regarding other medical problems. For instance, a medication that may be great for depression may cause increased issues of hypertension. You want your attorney and your judge to know that.]

4th: Work Background: Here you are to detail the work, if any, that you have done since submitting your appeal. It is not necessary to repeat information you have provided in earlier forms.

[Attorney Comment: If you have returned to work, and/or have made a failed work attempt, it is critical that your attorney know about that work as soon as possible. This information will impact the strategy going forward on the case and will require another form…..].

These Claimant Statements/Hearing Forms are important and need to be done with as much accuracy as you can muster. By the time the case is ready for hearing, your file will exceed 300 pages and could easily be as thick as a few thousand pages. The Judge will read your hearing forms for a quick summary of what has been happening with your health in the year or so since the appeal was filed. Depending on your judge’s method of hearing preparation, these forms may be the very first information on your case that your judge sees. First impressions count.

Best cures for form fatigue: Deep breaths, organization and a win at the end.

Submitted by: Tracey Cahn, Esq.

Ms. Cahn has been advocating for Social Security Claimants throughout NJ, NY, CT, and PA since 2002.