2024 Appeal Council Decisions Data
If your claim is denied after you’ve appeared before a hearing-level Judge, the next stop is the Appeals Council. This group of Judges reviews decisions made by other Judges. A denied claimant can ask for this review, or the council may decide to review a case on its own.
The Appeals Council reviews the judge’s decision based on the record that he considered.
This review is extremely limited. Hearing judges are granted wide discretion in how they consider the evidence for and against disability. There is no new hearing at this level of administrative review and your ability to submit more evidence is extremely limited.
The Appeals Council judge will vacate the hearing decision only if the hearing judge has clearly not followed the rules that govern how evidence is to be considered.
If the Appeals Council does vacate the hearing judge’s decision, it almost always orders a new hearing and reconsideration of the record. In legal terminology, this is called a remand. Very rarely does the Appeals Council simply order that the claim be paid.
The Social Security Administration has just released information on how disability claims were decided in 2024. The data representing the decisions on Appeals Council claims show the following patterns:
- At the Appeals Council level, they approved 1% of claims, dismissed 3%, remanded 16%, and denied 80%.
Although the likelihood of receiving a remand order has increased by 3% since 2023, the chances have only grown to 16%. While remand orders made small gains, approvals remain even rarer at this stage, occurring for only 1% of the Appeal Council cases.
At Goss & Fentress, our attorneys will review the decision to consider the odds of succeeding in having your denial reversed on appeal. Sometimes it makes more sense to not appeal, but instead file a new application for benefits, particularly if your medical impairments have worsened since the hearing judge considered your case. We frequently win claims that have been resubmitted through a new application.
