Disability Reconsideration: How Do You Win the First Appeal?

Reconsideration is the first appeal after Social Security denies a disability claim. You ask for it in writing within 60 days of receiving the denial notice, and Social Security assumes you received the notice five days after the date printed on it. The state agency that denied you, Disability Determination Services (DDS), reviews the whole file again with a new examiner and a new medical or psychological consultant, none of whom worked on the first decision.

The odds are modest. For claims filed in 2023, 15.1% of reconsideration medical decisions were approvals: 17.8% for SSDI-only claims and 11.8% for people who applied for both SSDI and SSI. In August 2026, a reconsideration took 212 days on average. Most people still have to go through it, because it’s the required step before a hearing with a judge, and it’s the cheapest place to fix what was missing from your file.

What reconsideration is, and what it isn’t

Reconsideration is a fresh review, not a check of the first examiner’s math. Social Security’s staff manual calls it a de novo review, a thorough, independent look at all the evidence, including anything that arrived after the first decision. The new medical consultant isn’t bound by the first decision’s findings and can find the same, more or different impairments, rate them as more or less severe, and set a different residual functional capacity.

A few things people often get wrong:

• There’s no hearing and no interview for a denied application. Nobody meets you; the decision is made on paper. The one exception is a benefit cutoff after a medical review, covered below.
• It isn’t the same person looking again. The examiner and the medical and psychological consultants must all be different from the first team.
• Every state has it now. From 1999 to 2020, ten states skipped reconsideration under a test called the prototype and sent denials straight to a judge. Social Security ended that test in all ten by June 26, 2020, so every state now uses the same appeal steps.
• Non-medical denials get reconsidered too. If you were denied for a reason like work credits or income, a Social Security employee handles the reconsideration instead of the state agency.

Approval rates and wait times

Reconsideration approval rates by the year people applied, from Social Security’s annual statistical report:

Figures for 2024 applications aren’t final yet, because many of those cases were still pending. Across claims filed from 2015 through 2024, only about 2% of all disabled-worker applicants were awarded benefits at reconsideration, compared with 18% to 21% at the first decision and about 7% at the hearing level or above.

On timing, Social Security’s performance data put the average at 212 days in August 2026, down from 239 days a year earlier, with about 302,000 reconsiderations waiting. A first decision averaged 188 days, and a hearing request 276 days. Your request goes through your local Social Security office on its way to the state agency, and the case comes back through that office after a decision, so the clock includes time outside DDS.

How to request reconsideration

You have three ways to file, all explained on Social Security’s reconsideration page:

1. Online. If you were denied for medical reasons, the online disability appeal takes about 40 to 60 minutes, saves your answers as you go, and gives you a re-entry number so you can come back. You can upload supporting documents as .pdf, .doc, .docx, .tif or .tiff files, and at the end you get a cover sheet for mailing anything else.
2. On paper. Send three forms to your local office: Form SSA-561, the request for reconsideration; Form SSA-3441, the disability report for appeals; and the SSA-827 authorization that lets Social Security get your records.
3. By phone. Call 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778), Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and say “request for reconsideration.”

Before you start, gather what the appeal asks for:

• the date on your denial letter, and your representative’s contact details if you have one,
• the name and phone number of a friend or relative who knows about your condition,
• any change in your condition and any new conditions,
• every doctor, clinic and hospital you’ve seen since you last gave Social Security medical information, with visit dates and the tests and treatment you had,
• every medicine you take, why, its side effects, and who prescribed it,
• any change in your daily activities, work or schooling.

You only need to report what’s new or changed since you applied. After you file, you can check the status in your my Social Security account.

Watch out: Fill out the SSA-3441 and sign the SSA-827. If you don’t, the state agency treats the missing forms as an unanswered request for evidence and has to follow up with you for them, which slows the whole appeal.

If you miss the 60-day deadline, you can still ask in writing for more time. You must explain why you were late, and Social Security extends the deadline if you had good cause, such as a serious illness, a death in the family, records destroyed in a fire, or wrong information from Social Security itself.

What the state agency does with your appeal

The examiner doesn’t just reread the old file. Social Security’s rules for reconsideration require the examiner to:

• check whether every medical source was fully developed the first time, and request records from any source that was missed or overlooked,
• send new requests to doctors who never answered the first time,
• get records from everyone who has treated or examined you since the first decision,
• document any new condition or worsening you report.

If your appeal form says your daily functioning has changed, the agency asks you for an updated function report or records the change in your file. If you’ve worked since the first decision, it can ask about that job. And if the records are thin or don’t agree with each other, it can send you to a consultative exam at Social Security’s expense, even if you missed an exam during your first claim.

How to improve your chances

The denial letter is your to-do list. It lists the medical sources Social Security used and the reason you were turned down, so the appeal should answer that reason directly.

• Add every source that’s missing. If a specialist, therapist, emergency visit or hospital stay isn’t on the list in your letter, put it on the SSA-3441. Those records were never seen.
• Report everything that’s new. New diagnoses, new tests, surgeries, medication changes and worsening symptoms all belong on the appeal form, even if they seem minor. The agency must document new allegations, but only if you tell it about them.
• Send records yourself when you can. Downloading your records from patient portals and uploading them saves the wait for a doctor’s office to answer. Ask for complete records, not just a visit summary, because you’re expected to submit evidence in its entirety, and medical opinions are judged mainly on how well the records support them and how consistent they are with the rest of the file.
• Ask your doctor for a statement about specific limits. A note saying you’re “disabled” carries little weight, because that decision is reserved to Social Security. A statement about how long you can sit, stand or concentrate, how much you can lift, and how often you’d miss work speaks to exactly what the agency has to decide.
• Go to every exam Social Security schedules. The examiner’s report becomes part of your file.
• Keep treating. Gaps in treatment leave the agency with nothing new to look at.

If you’re 50 or older, Social Security’s grid rules give more weight to age, education and past work, especially if you’re limited to sedentary or light work. They’re part of every decision, so you don’t have to ask for them, but make sure your work history and education are complete, because the result can turn on them.

Can reconsideration make things worse?

For a denied claim, no: the worst outcome is another denial, which you can take to a hearing. It’s different if you appeal a decision that approved you, for example to argue for an earlier onset date. Social Security’s rules count a change from approval to denial, or an approval with a different onset date, as possible results of a reconsideration, so the whole decision is open again. Talk to a representative before appealing a partly favorable decision.

Don’t file a new application instead

While your reconsideration is pending, Social Security won’t take a new disability application for the same program and benefit type. The rule has applied since July 28, 2011. If you file for SSI while an SSDI reconsideration is pending, the SSI application is taken, but its SSDI part is treated as a duplicate of the claim already on appeal. Staying in the appeal also protects your original filing date, which controls how much back pay you can get.

What happens after a decision

If the state agency approves you, the case still has steps before the first payment. The law requires Social Security to review at least half of state agency approvals before paying them, and that review can change the decision, including making your onset date earlier or later. Your local office also checks the non-medical rules, such as work credits for SSDI or income and resources for SSI, before benefits start. A phone call saying you were approved isn’t final; the award letter is.

If you’re denied again, the notice explains why and how to ask for a hearing before an administrative law judge. You have another 60 days, and the hearing is where approval odds are highest.

If your benefits were stopped after a medical review

Reconsideration works differently when Social Security says you’re no longer disabled after a continuing disability review:

• You can have a face-to-face disability hearing with a disability hearing officer, something people appealing a first denial don’t get. You’ll be notified of the time and place at least 20 days ahead, and you can ask to change it if you have a good reason.
• To keep your payments coming during the appeal, you must ask for reconsideration and for continued benefits within 10 days of receiving the notice, not 60. You can choose to continue only Medicare. Family members paid on your record make their own choice, also within 10 days.
• If you lose the appeal, you’ll be asked to repay the cash benefits paid during it, though you can ask Social Security to waive the overpayment. Medicare received during the appeal is never repaid.
• Continued benefits can last through a hearing with a judge if you appeal again within 10 days of the reconsideration decision.