In this video Marc Whitehead, Board Certified Social Security Disability Attorney, explains what your chances of winning a Social Security Disability in Texas.
Unless you have been dealing with SS for as long as I have you probably wont know much about allowance rates. These rates tell us the percentage of people who follow a disability claim with the SSA and actually end up getting benefits. Every year the government sends out a report listing both the percentage of applicants who are actually accepted into the program Nationally and the number of individual States and Cities with Hearing Offices. For 2012 the overall National acceptances average was 44.7%, that’s a little less then half and that’s counting both of whom were accepted immediately and those people who won their claim after reconsideration or appeal.
Those numbers might not seem particularly great if you are thinking about applying but, it’s not all bad news. Lots of people win their SSD benefits on reconsideration. Reconsideration is where you have the right to fight your disability denial and convince the SSA to change their mind. Nationally, just under 12% of recipients got their benefits from taking this route. Having to go this route ins’t ideal, but it does go to show that at least SSA is sometimes willing to admit when they make mistakes.
Something else that is lost in those numbers, is whether or not the applicants in question had legal representation. While no such statistics seem to be readily available, I can tell you from my many years of experience that your chances of success increase considerably when you hire a disability lawyer.
The simple truth is that disability claims are complicated and confusing, and when people decide to go the “do it yourself” route they often make mistakes that disqualifies their claim.
If this happens to you don’t compound the problem by just giving up after your denial. You can still win in reconsideration, especially in Texas. Texas allowance rates for disability beat the average. You probably wouldn’t expect a State known for it’s very conservative views to award SSD benefits at a higher percentage of applicants then the Nation wide average, but that is exactly what happened in 2012. While across the Country less then 45% of claimants won that number was 47.6% in Texas.
If you are disabled and living in Texas this is very important to know cause it means you shouldn’t just give up on your benefits just because SS says no the first time around. Ensure you get the best legal team working on your case and fight to get what you know you deserve.
