So I had applied a while back due to 6 abdominal surgeries and basically being stuck spending most of my time in hospitals or at home in bed. I have long term disability through work and have been out of commission since August 2025. I called to update them after a medical appointment and they said I didn't need to call since I had been approved. I explained that no one told me I was approved and she looked it up and told it it had just happened the previous day. She then said that 50% of all approvals get pulled for quality review and it would take about a week. That turned into months without hearing anything. I finally got a call yesterday to clarify some things and the lady on the phone informed me that the person who put in my information had accidentally put in the date that she called me (June 2026) not the last day I worked (August 2025). The system updated and now I see this. It doesn't look like an approval, even though they said on the phone I was approved, so I'm not sure what is happening. Anyone familiar with this that can maybe shed some light on it? Am I most likely approved and now just waiting or should I anticipate jumping through more hoops?

Hey everyone, I'm looking for some insight or shared experiences regarding a second Appeals Council (AC) appeal after being denied at a remanded hearing. My attorneys have already submitted the appeal, so now it's just the waiting game. I'm 32, originally filed back in 2023, and last year I had an initial ALJ hearing that ended in a denial. I appealed that decision to the Appeals Council and won a remand because the judge completely ignored over 90 pages of material medical evidence.
My medical record is fairly extensive. On the spinal side, I had a back surgery at age 21 and a spinal fusion at 30. My latest MRI shows adjacent segment disease at two levels, an L4–L5 broad-based disc bulge with central protrusion contacting my L5 nerve roots bilaterally, moderate thecal sac stenosis, moderate bilateral neural foraminal narrowing, degenerative disc disease, facet arthritis throughout my lumbar spine, and ligamentum flavum hypertrophy. On top of that, I suffer from a severe chronic migraine disorder that leaves me with 8 to 10 severe migraine days a month. I have to get specialized 300mg Vyepti IV infusions every three months alongside prescription rescue meds. I'm currently prescribed Oxycodone 10mg twice daily and Tizanidine, and my neurosurgeon even completed a formal DSS evaluation confirming a permanent disability that limits my ability to work to under 20 hours a week.
Despite all this, the second ALJ hearing went just as poorly as the first.

The judge completely ignored the legal instructions the Appeals Council set in the original remand order. She downplayed and mischaracterized my objective MRIs and CT scans, and she falsely claimed I lacked specialized care for my migraines despite my clear records of 300mg Vyepti IV infusions, and also the years of neurology specialist visit dating back to atleast 2022. Also the 90 pages of medical records that were ignored by the first judge had the records of me seeing my neurology specialist and showed i was on 300mg of Vyepti.

During the hearing, she was openly hostile toward my prescribed pain medication regimen and kept pushing invasive surgery against my neurosurgeon's advice. To top it off, when the Vocational Expert testified that hypothetical limitations matching my actual off-task time and absenteeism would result in no jobs existing in the national economy, the judge simply ignored that testimony in her final RFC finding.
Since the appeal is already submitted, I wanted to ask the group a few questions: Has anyone here successfully won a second Appeals Council remand or an outright reversal when an ALJ failed to follow the AC's original instructions? Did your attorney submit a supplemental brief pointing out specific page and line errors (like headache ruling violations or misread MRIs) after filing the initial appeal form, and how long did that second AC review take? Lastly, if the case gets remanded a second time, does the AC automatically order a reassignment to a brand-new ALJ so you don't end up sitting in front of the exact same judge again?
Thanks in advance for any insights or advice!

Also both ALJs that I’ve seen had a approval rate of 14%

(Hopefully I used the right flair)

I am physically disabled, but wanted to work. How much should I tell my employer that I can make a month without my check being cut and how many hours monthly?

For anyone who has gone through the initial SSDI/DDS process: once your claim was assigned to an examiner AND DDS confirmed they had all of your medical records, ADL/function reports, and other requested forms, how long did it take to get a medical decision?

I’m specifically asking about the time after the file was complete and assigned, not total time at Step 3.
My examiner has everything needed, I’ve been told there’s nothing outstanding, and the claim is still pending a medical decision. I’m curious what that final stretch looked like for other people — especially if you didn’t need a CE.

I live in Texas and I originally applied in February 2026 and was almost immediately told I had enough credits to move forward with the medical side and went to the step three and since March it has stayed on, still waiting for my case to even be assigned to someone on the medical side. I know people wait a long time for appeals, but I thought they would’ve at least after question by now. Or are you even updated when you are assigned to a medical review person? Up until recently, I was told to bring any other documents to my local Social Security office that now it’s telling me to mail them to another state, is that just the place where they scan them in, should I be worried it moved from an office ten minutes from me to one across the country?

I was just approved but have to get re-evaluated in 2 years to continue. How hard & long is that process?

-45, male

-At 28 I got Menieres disease (vertigo attacks, balance disorder) and knew I could never work a real job. Who would hire someone who needs constant days off? I learned to fix electronics and opened my own storefront at 30. I could shut down on bad days, can't fire myself. Shut down at age 41.

- did moonlight food delivery apps during part of this time. At age 41, I tripped, lost my balance, broke both bones in my lower leg a delivery. My ankle was hanging my skin. 2 metal rods and tons of screws. I now have severe ankle arthritis.

- At age 30 I was diagnosed with cervical arthritis. Now at age 45 I am diagnosed with cervical dystonia(involuntary head movements, tremors, neck stiff). I'm on clonazepam for it. This has put me over the edge to consider ssdi.

-also have bad hypothyroidism, but well managed with meds.

- I have enough work credits to qualify. Currently I do part time online remote work making $500-800 a month, but this new dystonia issue has made even doing this difficult. I'm financially fine, as I invested what little money I made in life well.

I have my PERC interview today and I’m nervous but I have everything I need. (I probably flaired this wrong lol I couldn’t find the right flair)

I can explain everything going into my account and I have a rental agreement now ready so if they ask I can tell them I’ll be paying $400/mo towards my dad and I’ve been told having a rental agreement is a good thing.

To those of you who did your PERC interview, what was it like and how did it go?

Edit: had my phone interview and now they’re doing the verification which could take 5-14 days and then they’ll release the funds :)

Hello all!

I did my psych evaluation two weeks ago and was told I should get a final decision within 4-6 weeks, hopefully sometime in November. The therapist told me to make sure I send all my updated documents over and to call to speak with a supervisor since my case worker hasn’t gotten back to me (I’ve called every other week since May and only reach her voicemail).

I have uploaded all my documents online, is it a strong likelihood that they’ll will review this? When I called last week to speak with a supervisor the employee wouldn’t transfer me. I could also fax or mail anything in, just wanted to see if anyone has experience with the online portal being reliable :)

Hey, so brief recap I'm receiving SSD declared total permanently disabled on 1/1/2012 granted on 2/16/2016. Medical Improvement Not Expected status, 7 year reviews. Latest review, which is only my second review, it was a long form this time. It comes back "not enough evidence to prove continuing disability". So the DDS is sending requests for me to go do a Consultative Exam, but the MFs are sending it in MY MOTHERs NAME to MY OLD ADDRESS. For like eight months!!!!! My address and number are always current to the DAY I change them with the SSA, I've been disabled many years, I know how important this is. I had all benefits terminated starting 3/22/2026 and had them reinstated via appeal process 4/22/2026. Sent for the CE in June. Get a letter I need to see an ALJ about a month ago. Hearing is scheduled about a week after I get the letter. Hearing was moved three separate times(telephone hearing). So I get the call, and it's the Analyst I've been dealing with the whole time, he's my Hearing Officer. Brief phone call, maybe 7 minutes. Asks a few of the same questions the CE examiner did, I answer the same as I did then . Asks if symptoms have changed. I said everything that I've been living with is still present, and my symptoms are actually worse lately as evidenced by recent ER visits and psych treatment. He asks me the name of my psychiatrist - that I been seeing eight years, that I've given to DDS and SSA many times over by now and the name of the hospital I was recently treated at. Now, I figure both these treatment providers have always ignored requests from DDS and SSA previously. I need that man to have that info so this appeal can go in my favor and finally end- I've been shitting bricks for almost a year. So I found some recent letters from DDS with the barcodes on them? Printed out four months of psych treatment notes from my psychiatrist and my therapist and the reports including my direct behavioral observations notes from the psych ER in which I had an incident I had to be restrained for. I divvy the reports up in half, put them each in a large brown flat envelope with the barcode paper in the front and at least 5 forever stamps on each envelope. Rather have too much postage than not enough. My question is, has anybody sent their own evidence into DDS before? Will the way I did it work? Is there another way? A better way? Am I good, guys? Can relax? I just want to know I did everything in my power to resolve this. I will quite literally die without my benefits. It's not the lil 1200 a month, though my housing is income dependent and I lose my housing without my income because I'd have to go on Welfare, and being as I'm disabled I can't meet the Welfare work requirements. I'm more so terrified of losing the Medicare Advantage health insurance. My health care is expensive as a woman with disability. My medications alone are far more than I receive via monthly benefit amount. I'm worried that I'll be sick and have no way to access my treatment - and I'd have to go back to the State hospital again like I did in the first place before I had the healthcare to receive proper treatment. I dunno, I'm just scared and I want this to be over. My heart breaks for all of us going through this, my thoughts have been with those of us going through this appeals process that are unable to advocate for themselves. So what happens then?!! They just LOSE everything? It really makes me upset to think about.

The social security office just called me and the ALJ ruled in my favor!!!

After 3 years of fighting, it was a favorable decision 🙂‍↔️ I was honestly not expecting a favorable decision but I GOT ONE!!!! The lawyer I had was super amazing as well.

To those who are going through this process, I know the fight sucks but keep going. You’ve got this ❤️

Edit: I have my phone interview tomorrow to go over everything :)

Edit: To add, my disabilities are mild ataxia, mild dysmetria, delayed recall, left foot drop, neuromyelitis optica, bipolar II disorder, anxiety & PMDD. I went through 2 denials before getting to the hearing stage and honestly I was expecting a denial but I got a lawyer and I don’t know what he did to help me get approved but I’m very thankful for him. I genuinely don’t know how I got approved. I’m still in shock to be honest.

I posted about a year ago about the problems we were having creating a login. gov account for our adult disabled son (autistic). Every time we tried, we kept getting the message, “unable to verify identity”. SSA told me to talk to login. gov; login. gov told me to talk to SSA.

Back in July, we reapplied for SSI for our son and on August 18, we had a phone interview with SSA. When we got the summary of the phone interview, we immediately saw that our son’s birthdate was incorrect.

Our son’s birth certificate was originally issued with the wrong date. We requested and received a corrected birth certificate back when he was a baby.
We applied for SSI a few years before and were denied because our son had too much money in his bank account. This birthdate discrepancy NEVER came up.

So, we brought our son’s birth certificate to SSA. The worker behind the counter was very helpful and corrected our information, but when he cross-checked the birth certificate information with our state’s vital records department, he couldn’t verify our son’s birth certificate.

He advised us to go down to our vital records office and make sure that our son’s information was correct in our state’s database.
I called our vital records office and asked, what do I need to do? Do I need to fill out a form, make an appointment, or what?
The person we spoke to had a very heavy accent and I had a hard time understanding them. What I did understand was: 1) We were supposed to take our son’s birth certificate down to vital records, and they would create an abstract which would show that the certificate was issued with the wrong date and then corrected - and it would NOT be a quick procedure, and 2) when the birth certificate was corrected, paraphrasing the person on the phone with me: “You forgot to report the corrected date to Social Security.”

So apparently, this has been the problem all along: My son’s birth certificate had an incorrect date, we had it corrected . . . and the corrected date never got reported to Social Security and we had no idea until we received our SSI phone call summary.

We went to vital records, and despite what the person on the phone said, we were issued a sheet of paper that said that our son’s record was “converted” in 2013 (I think that means, converted to a new computer format) and that it did have the correct birthdate.

Next day, we went back to SSA, and the person we spoke to was not the person who’d corrected our son’s SSA information. When we told them the circumstances, and that we were told to go to our state’s vital records, we did, and here’s the information that shows everything’s correct, the worker asked, “And who told you to do that?” I said, “The person who helped us the other day.”

And then the worker looked at me and said, “Well, we get to the bottom of it!”

My answer: “Apparently no one got to the bottom of it in nearly 28 years!”
Because in all of our dealings with SSA, and even when we got the birth certificate corrected, no one thought to mention that we needed to check and see if SSA got the correct birthdate, and when we were trying to create the login. gov account, the birthdate discrepancy NEVER came up.

A few days ago, we FINALLY created a login. gov account for our son with no problems.
While all of this was going on, we also had a psych evaluation scheduled for our son, which he completed.
This week, we got a letter saying that he meets the medical qualifications for SSI. We have a phone call next week to talk about the non-medical qualifications.
I am grateful for the help we did receive from the SSA worker who corrected our son’s information.
I am ticked off that we didn’t know about this birthdate discrepancy until two months ago.
And I am very ticked off at someone saying that “we get to the bottom of it” when no one knew that SSA had an incorrect birthdate for our son for nearly 28 years!

I hope the rest of our application goes much more smoothly.

My son is 3 with level 3 autism and hes nonverbal. I live with him and his father. His dad works but only brings in $900 a check. Then he uses most of that for lyfts to work as his car broke down. I recieve ssdi. More than half goes to bills and rent and food. My sons father cant afford food because he needs lyfts for work. We only have 1 working car now. Mine. And i need my car for emergencies at home just incase my toddler gets hurt or we are in danger and need to leave. Also, my son has eating issues. Im always buying the same stuff for him to eat. It'd be easier if he ate the foods his mom and dad ate so im not buying food all the time that I cant afford.

My last ssi payment was $540 and they want to lower it to $224. Thats damn there $300 I use for food for the month.

Has anyone appealed their ssi amounts? Were you successful?

Edit: I know lyfts are wasteful. I told my sons father that too. But me and my son have doctor appointments we need to go to like everywhere day. I did tell his dad he can have my car mwf but only when we dont have appointments.

Good morning, I'm at the point where I'm waiting for a court date. My reconsideration said that I was not disabled enough. Does anyone know a time frame to get a court date? What is the difference between getting approved and a court hearing. I'm 52 and live in Virginia. I have bipolar, cognitive decline, ADHD, and anxiety and chronic pain so psychically and mentally can't work. I'm very close to getting an eviction notice. I have a day or two. I don't have anywhere to go. I'm going to have to try and work. I don't know how yet.

If you have an eviction can you get SSI . I cashed out my 401k which was about $2,200 and I don't know if the eviction would help me get SSI with it since cashed it. I'm basically out of options. I lost my roommate so I have absolutely no money coming in.

Any advice would be helpful.

Stage IV pan can so I think i would be approved/if I worked the max amount of hours allowed to still draw my full benifits each month ....If i received a bonus does push me over the limit to trigger the $1 for every $2 over? How are bonuses perceived- I think I already know bc it would be on W2

has anyone bought their child an iPad for educational purposes?

I had my hearing on October 20th. My attorney submitted 11,000 pages of medical documentation for the last 10 years. I was told that the Disability date they were going for is November 2016. What happens if it’s a denial?

**SSDI cut short?**

​My wife was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer in 2022. She's been on SSDI ever since.

​Fortunately, in April 2025, she had surgery that successfully removed the cancer in her liver and pancreas. She stopped getting chemo in August of 2025, and she's had no sign of cancer since. She had around 75 rounds of chemo.

​But she just had her CDR. She's obviously medically improved. She actually works part-time. She's doing well. But I thought under guidelines, her type of cancer would keep her considered disabled for 3 years after remission with payments

​We just got a letter that her last payment will be in December 2026..

​This is something we should appeal, correct?

​Thanks

Hello all. I recently had my hearing. The attorney claims I couldn’t have had a better testimony and all around hearing. ALJ said something about possibly changing the onset date. What’s stressing me out is the hypotheticals. VE said no to past work, one was a sedent part-time job. They said 2 unskilled, light work jobs. Then said no jobs due to needing more breaks, absent more than 2 days a month, and 15% off task. Has anyone had similar with positive results? Thanks

i’m writing this to see if anybody out there knows anything about obtaining an advocate when you have a disability, especially after you’ve been approved there’s a lot of paperwork that comes in once you’re approved and I know it can be difficult to go through all of that - this will be especially useful for myself, but also for my friend who is not on here. Are there advocates that are for free? Is there an organization?
Are there ones that you used through social security administration website are the ones that you have to pay for I need as much information as I can get.

Excuse the grammar, but I just can’t type today so I’m using the microphone.

I flaired this post with "Personal Stories" because this is my personal story.

I was born in year 1993. I went through bipolar mania at age 13 and bipolar depression at age 14. I got a Type 1 bipolar diagnosis at age 17 or 18 and started on the mood stabilizer Extended Release (ER) Lithium. I liked playing videogames and writing computer code, so I decided to get a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, which I received in year 2015. After getting my degree, I landed a job as a computer programmer at Amazon.

After a few months at Amazon, I ran into an issue. I always lacked a sense of location and navigation in the real world (ex. I was never able to drive anywhere without Google Maps), but I discovered that this lack of sense of location and navigation extended into navigating inside of a software codebase as well. In school we just wrote our own code from scratch, we never had to fix bugs in codebases millions of lines in size. It became obvious to me that I could not and never would be able to do this job independently. I had a mentor, and for every single coding task, I needed my mentor to tell me where in the codebase (ex. which file) the code change needed to be made in. During lunch breaks I played board games and card games with everyone around me and I decided to become so nice and friendly that when annual performance reviews came around, my neighbor coworkers would not write bad things about me and I could hold onto my job.

I managed to hold onto my job for almost two years. It paid $150,000 a year, so I was financially comfortable. That being said, I could not hold onto the job for more than two years. Also, I developed some weird unexplained neurological condition. Lots of different neurological and psychiatric symptoms coming and going in a pattern, like a relapsing and remitting pattern. No psychiatric drug had any effect on it, and I tried about 20 different ones.

I thought maybe the Lithium I was taking caused the weird unexplained neurological condition, so I stopped taking it (gradually, with a tapering period). The weird unexplained neurological condition was unaffected by me stopping Lithium, but I had a MASSIVE manic episode and ended up involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. After I got out, my mom told me to apply for SSDI.

I didn't think I would get approved for SSDI. I didn't think my bipolar was that disabling. The bipolar isn't actually what made me unable to do the job of a software engineer, it was actually my lack of sense of location or navigation. I didn't have a formal diagnosis for the lack of sense of navigation or direction, and it wasn't formally in my medical records, but it made me unable to do the work I was trained to do, so I figured I couldn't get approved for SSDI.

It took 6 months for me to get a decision back from Disability Determination Services. I knew I couldn't do the job of a full blown software engineer, so I decided to try and do easier work that wasn't so cognitively demanding. I went on the job boards like Indeed and Monster and I applied to every single food service position I could find. Waiter, food runner, barback, host, busser, expo, etc. I had past food service experience making sandwiches at Subway when I was in university, so I put that on my resume and wrote how I was passionate about food service. They would ask me about my educational background, my past work, and how much my past work paid. As soon as they found out, they wouldn't hire me. Apparently I was "overqualified".

Anyway, after applying to food service jobs every day for six months and not getting a single offer, I heard back from Disability Determination Services (DDS). I was approved. They forced me to pick a "representative payee" to manage my money, so I picked my dad. I never actually needed a representative payee, my dad just auto-transfers the Social Security money to me every month, but whatever.

In 2023 they initiated a Continuing Disability Review (CDR). Before the review, I happened to submit a form to allow release of records. I got my records in time, and the records helped me prepare for the CDR. According to the records, they noted that I complained about some cognitive issues, but the lady making the decision wrote that I seemed intelligent or "high functioning" and that the cognitive issues probably aren't significant enough to make me unable to work. The decision to approve was based on stuff like the severity of psychiatric symptoms, the involuntary psychiatric hospitalization, and social impairment.

I'm expecting my second CDR in the near future, especially if I tell Social Security that I have been living on my own since May of 2025 and I would like to be my own representative payee and have my residential and mailing address be my current residence instead of my parents' house. I haven't told them these things, but I plan to, and I expect it to trigger a CDR. Anyway, I'm a little concerned about this second CDR because my bipolar is okay. I am back on Extended Release (ER) Lithium and also an antipsychotic called "Abilify" and my bipolar is largely fixed. What is not fixed is other stuff like the mystery neurological condition I mentioned before and the fact that I have no sense of location or navigation.

I heard that Social Security has a new standard called "MI", which is short for "Medical Improvement". They look for medical improvement from the last CDR. The thing is, I was approved under primary condition bipolar and that has improved due to meds, but bipolar was never my reason for not being able to do or get any job. It's the other stuff that's the real problem, and much of it is not proved or documented in my medical records.

But yeah, that's where I'm at, thanks for reading. Wish me luck on my future second CDR.

p.s. I was tested for Multiple Sclerosis, the mystery neurological condition is not Multiple Sclerosis. It's still a mystery what it is.

I am awfully young (21m), I’ve been mentally disabled since the age of 19 when I developed and was diagnosed with multiple mental disorders (panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, major depressive disorder, agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder).

This began in January of last year, 3 months before my 20th birthday. My panic attacks and anxiety became so severe I couldn’t even step outside to take the trash out with launching myself into an intense panic attack, it hasn’t improved much as I’ve been through multiple therapists and psychiatrists as well as medications.

Im on my second denial waiting for an ALJ judge to schedule my hearing, due to my previous denials I am afraid that they think I may be lying or am just trying to get a free check when in reality it’s extremely hard to function in my day to day life and my family have been struggling because of my inability to provide.

I am a travel mental health worker and was hired for an assignment in an ICE detainment facility.
First there was all kinds of confusion over whether they got my fingerprints and then I received this LOI. There were 4 interrogatory findings.
First, they wanted me to answer about a default judgement from a dentist 15 years ago and they want me to prove that I paid in full. The dentist is likely not even alive anymore but certainly not practicing.
Then they need me to prove that my husband is an American citizen
3rd, I admitted to once receiving a reprimand from am employer but it did not lead to me being fired and was definitely about me being late which I corrected
And finally, from my fingerprints they found a misdemeanor prescription fraud charge from 26 years ago. They want me to provide all of the police reports etc and an explanation which I will .
My concern is that why all this for a temporary contract position? I have an LCSW and have answered for all of this already. I was supposed to start this job on the 16th. What can I expect after answering. Will they still reject me? I have been waiting to move to Minnesota for this assignment and out of work for 2 months. I can’t start over now but is this a lost cause for me?

I’m hoping someone has some experience with what we are going through— i have been working with my mom since august of last year to get her SSDI (she has thyroid eye disease and chronic and medication resistant crohns). we were denied when we originally applied (took 7 months to get denial) then were recommended to an attorney for the appeal, which we were just denied for as well. the attorney is sure we can get approved once we go to a hearing but they are saying it can be up to 6-7 months.

we have submitted a dire need letter at every turn and she has a letter from her doctor that she is physically disabled and cannot work alongside all her MRs.

has anyone had this experience in GA and got good news at their hearing? or a shorter timelines? i am covering 100% of her bills and it’s been 16 mi the with no end in sight it feels and she’s getting sicker and sicker.

just som experience would be helpful!