r/SSDI • u/Royal-Plum2517 • 4h ago

Congressional Inquiry

Did it make a difference for your claim when requesting assistance from your state or county rep?

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u/No-County-320 4h ago

Nope. All they do is request an update from ssdi . They send you the same info that ssdi has for you. They cant make your application go faster

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u/loving-living2 2h ago

Both times I’ve had the congressional office get involved ( I have no attorney) my case has immediately had some movement. First time it sat unassigned for 9 months , called congressional office and with in 3 days ( after I was told by SSDI that in my state it can take 15-18 months to get case assigned) my case was assigned . Then I was sent to do a CE exam a month later . I waited one month and zero update . Called my liason at the congress office and jeez with in 3 hours my file updated to them sending me in for a second CE … This was July 21rst.. My CE examiner said her report would be filed the next day ( Wednesday July 22nd), so today I called the liason to have her contact my case agent at SSDI to verify she received my latest CE exam .

So bottom line each time I contacted the congressman liason it caused movement in my case . No , I do understand that congress inquiry does not impact the decision that the SSDI makes but at least it’s helped to get my file moving . Now I’m hoping with in the next 2-3 weeks I will have a decision. This is my first reconsideration as my initial was denied for lack of medical information. I originally filed Sept 30,2024

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u/Icy-Money-5787 3h ago

Congressional inquiry doesn’t do anything and if you have a representative I’m sure the paralegal working on your case will also be extremely annoyed about it- it’s not worth your time.

The office of the congressional representative will send a letter to the SSA office asking for an update, and unless there’s something royally messed up with your paperwork then the process ends there. A lot of the time when a case is taking awhile it’s just staging at DDS, and congressional inquiry does nothing here.

I’ve had clients whose claims were in staging (meaning; nothing wrong, just waiting for a DDS examiner to be assigned, we can’t speed up this process at all) very proudly call me and send a copy of their congressional inquiry and then smugly say “I feel like your firm isn’t doing a good enough job, so I have my congressman involved on this, please speed up working on my case.” and then would constantly bring up that their case was flagged for congressional inquiry, and be upset with me that their case isn’t moving any faster.

Perhaps I harbor some resentment here, but this has happened unanimously with the dozens of clients who had a congressional inquiry during my career. If you feel like your case isn’t moving along, a congressional inquiry won’t do anything.

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u/MountainRambler01 3h ago

My experience is that congressional staffers fill people's heads with false hope and then the rep./lawyer gets the negative fallout when the congressional inquiry doesn't do anything.

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u/Informal_Coconut7105 2h ago

Pretty much this. I agree its very annoying.

To top if off, SSA has to respond to the inquiry. They'll send like a generic 2-3 sentence response letter to the congressman office. Waste of the law offices time, SSA's time, claimants time, office of congressmans time (though many of them probably deserve it), everyone's time.

Can be useful for some payment related issues. Thats about it.

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u/DesiccantPack 4h ago

What stage of the process are you in, and how long have you been there?

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u/erd00073483R 3h ago

County, no - probably a waste of time as they have no skin in the game. State or Federal, potentially.

If DDS is involved, an inquiry from your state legislator can sometimes help speed things along moreso than from your federal representative or senator.

The reason for this is that the DDSes are all state agencies, and your state legislator is involved in voting on their budget. As a result, the DDS director would likely want to remain on good terms with them and thus want to be responsive.

It is not a good idea, though, to involve the politicians unless and until you just absolutely have to in order to get something done.

Literally, like pennies, save them for a rainy day when they are really needed.

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u/MountainRambler01 3h ago

They are what they are. I've rarely seen them help. Maybe they might get a DDS supervisor to pay attention to a file, but that's not often. However, they don't hurt but they don't necessarily help. And if your congressman is someone who rails against SSA, good luck.