New maps produced by the Social Security Administration (SSA) show the areas where disability appeals are taking several hundred days to process.
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As part of the recently launched SecurityStat program, the SSA has revealed the hearing offices where appeals for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) have taken the longest. SSDI claimants are able to appeal decisions made by the SSA if they disagree with a judgment regarding their benefits.
The recently launched service tracks "the agency's progress towards achieving its top customer service goals," showing significant improvements being made in service across the country in the last seven months.
The government agency has a goal of completing SSDI appeals within 270 days, which no hearing office was achieving in September 2023. At the time, the SSA took 458 days on average to complete a hearing, with none of its offices hitting the 270-day mark. But marked improvements to SSA services have reduced the nationwide average to 347 days, albeit still 77 days behind its target.
The maps show that, as of September 2023, of 161 offices located throughout the country, 29 had a waiting time of more than 556 days for SSDI appeals. Hearing offices with the worst stats were concentrated in the West, with all centers in California exceeding the 270-day goal. The map also shows a smaller concentration of considerable delays in the north and eastern states of New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
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Now, only two offices are still well beyond the 270-day goal, with 29 offices now completing disability hearings within that timeframe, as of April 2024. Significantly more are approaching the target, with the majority, 90 hearing offices, completing appeals within 270 to 370 days. Thirty-two offices are taking between 371 and 470 days, with an additional 14 taking between 471 and 555 days to process claims.
Two offices, one in California and another in Puerto Rico, are still taking in excess of 556 days to process SSDI appeals. Newsweek has contacted the SSA for comment via email outside of normal working hours.
SecurityStat has also made improvements to other SSA services. Since November, the agency has reduced the average waiting time for those calling the National 800 Number from "40.8 minutes to 24.5 minutes over the most recent month [March]," the agency said in a press release issued this week.
"SecurityStat offers a new and unprecedented level of transparency for Social Security's stakeholders and customers," said SSA Commissioner Martin O'Malley.
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"Now, on our new SecurityStat website, the public can easily view the progress we are making on certain priorities, like our 800 Number performance, average processing time for disability determinations, and average processing time for retirement, survivor, and Medicare benefit claims," added O'Malley.
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Aliss Higham is a Newsweek reporter based in Glasgow, Scotland. Her focus is reporting on issues across the U.S., including ... Read more
