In September of 2007, Vicki Speed contacted our office after unsuccessfully trying to work with the Social Security office. She had applied for disability benefits months before, but had not received any word on the status of her application. Any time Ms. Speed would call and inquire about her request, she was simply reminded that the processing time can be lengthy and that she should just continue to wait. After several attempts at getting more information, she was told that actually, there was no record of her application, and that she would have to apply again!

This was, of course, incredibly upsetting to Ms. Speed. Concerned about all of her time wasted and the time it would take to start over again, she called our office. We then contacted the Social Security Administration and asked them to review Ms. Speed’s case. At first it appeared that they didn’t have her application for benefits. However, upon closer examination, it was determined that she had applied for benefits, but that her application had not yet been processed. In fact, the application could not even be located. 

It seems that in converting her paper file to an electronic format, her application had been misplaced. As a result of our call, Social Security became aware of this error and located an electronic copy of the original file. Because the file had gone for so long without being processed, they also sought a ruling on it immediately.

Fortunately, the ruling was favorable, and Ms. Speed began receiving disability benefits right away. She was also awarded several months of back payments as a result of her application’s prolonged process. Without our office’s intervention, it is hard to say how much longer Ms. Speed would have had to wait before receiving her much needed benefits.