Attorneys who represent disability claimants used to be able to tell claimants with strong cases that they likely would not have to wait two years for a hearing to get approved. We told folks about “on the record decisions”, also known as OTRs, a process by which senior attorneys in Social Security could approve a case without waiting for a hearing, based on a legal brief we would submit.
Things have changed. A lot. According to a recent article, 54,000 OTRs were decided favorably in 2010. By 2013, that number had dropped to 18, 625. And in 2014, a whopping total of 1872 favorable OTRs were issued.
Now there’s no choice but to wait. And in Oregon, that wait for a hearing is 477 days.