A notice directed at those representing Social Security claimants:
Redesigned Notices for Certain Fully Favorable Disability Hearing Decisions
Date:
Dear Colleague,
We are pleased to share that we have redesigned the decision documents you and your clients will receive for certain fully favorable disability decisions at the hearing level. The redesign aims to make these decisions more concise, easier to understand, and faster to deliver.
What Is Changing
For certain fully favorable hearing decisions, you and your clients will receive a single document titled, “Decision Notice.” This concise notice will include:
- A statement that the decision is fully favorable.
- The date the claimant’s disability began.
- The reason for the finding of disability.
Your clients will also be able to access the Decision Notice through their personal mySocial Security account. The notice will explain how to request more detailed information about the decision, which will be contained in a Decisional Worksheet available in the electronic folder.
What Remains Unchanged
The Decision Notice will continue to provide information about receiving benefits, filing an appeal, and contacting us for assistance. If a fee agreement is involved, a Fee Order will be included as an enclosure. All other aspects of the process remain unchanged.
When These Changes Begin
In October, we began introducing the new Decision Notice for a limited number of fully favorable hearing decisions, and we will expand its use over time. We will continue to issue decisions using our standard Notice of Decision and Decision and Fee Order documents during this rollout as we monitor implementation.
Anybody else old enough to remember “short form decisions”? Everything old is new again.
1 comment:
I remember this. The ALJ filled out a one-page form with this information and mailed this to the claimant and the representative. Then an attorney advisor wrote a "Memorandum for the File" with the analysis, but this was not sent to the claimant or the representative! It merely went into the ALJ file only.One of the ALJ's who I worked for insisted on sending this to them as part of due process so that the claimant and the representative knew the grounds for the favorable decision when a later CDR was performed (meeting a Listing versus being unable to sustain work for forty hours week, for example). Is this news system the same as that system in the 1970's and the early 1980's?
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