After a wait of over two years, our clients are always elated to receive a favorable hearing decision from an administrative law judge. Unfortunately, no hearing decision comes with a check attached. Here’s what to expect after a favorable hearing decision:
- If you have a claim for SSI, you will have a resource meeting over the phone or in-person with Social Security to measure your family’s financial eligibility for SSI benefits.
- You will need to wait for a Notice of Award. This is a letter that spells out how much Social Security will be paying in back pay, and how much they will pay each month moving forward.
- For those who have both SSI and SSD claims (we call these concurrent cases), there is a long wait ahead while they figure out how much SSI and how much SSD a person is entitled to. This results in complicated offsets.
- For folks receiving only SSI, they should expect that they will get their backpay in installments. The first two installments are three times the monthly benefit and will come six months apart. The third payment (which comes a year after the first) will be the entire balance owed to you.
For most of our cases, it takes at least a month from the date of the decision before our clients see any money deposited in their bank accounts. Typically it is closer to two or three months, or even longer for very complicated cases.