What is the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review?
The Office of Disability Adjudication & Review is a branch of the Social Security Administration. These are the offices that are in charge of scheduling the disability hearings for Social Security Disability applicants who are appealing a denial of their initial Social Security Disability claim.
What Does the ODAR Do?
The ODAR offices that manage the hearings for Social Security Disability applicants experience a significant backlog of claims and, as a result, there is usually a long wait associated with having one of these offices schedule a hearing for an applicant.
Wait times for a hearing range from a few months to more than two years depending on the area of the nation that an applicant lives in and the actual ODAR office that handles that area of claims.
“Video” hearings can decrease hearing processing times. if the ODAR office is willing schedule video conferences.
The SSA’s Office of Disability Adjudication and Review has 10 regional offices and 169 hearing offices. There is also one national case assistance center that falls into the ODAR office category.
The administrative law judges who hear the disability hearings for Social Security Disability applicants are also a part of the SSA’s ODAR offices, with approximately 1,300 administrative law judges being employed by the SSA.
The ODAR office also handles the SSA’s Appeals Council and is in charge of reviewing the decisions made by administrative law judges when a Social Security Disability applicant appeals the decision made by an administrative law judge as a result of their disability hearing.
The SSA’s ODAR offices are headquartered out of Falls Church, Virginia and ODAR is estimated to be one of the largest administrative adjudication systems in the entire world.
What Will You Hear at the ODAR?
When you are at the ODAR, you will usually receive three things:
- Confirmation letter following a request for hearing that has been submitted
- An appointment letter from the hearings office letting you know that a hearing date has been set
- A decision regarding your case that will either be fully favorable, partially favorable, or unfavorable
Office Of Disability Adjudication and Review Locations
If your initial application for Social Security disability benefits is denied, and you move forward with an appeal, your appeal will be scheduled by the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR). There are branch offices of ODAR in many states. ODAR has 10 regional offices and 169 hearing offices. There is also one national case assistance center to help handle cases. ODAR offices handle scheduling disability hearings for people whose initial disability applications were denied but there may be a long delay before your hearing date. There is typically a large backlog of applications that are waiting for a hearing, and with a limited pool of judges, hearings can take anywhere from a couple of months to a couple of years to be scheduled.
When your Social Security disability hearing is scheduled, it will be scheduled for the ODAR office that is geographically closest to you, even if that office is technically in another state. You can find the closest ODAR office here.
In almost all cases, when you go to the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review, you will receive three important things:
- Confirmation letter following a request for hearing that has been submitted
- An appointment letter from the hearings office letting you know that a hearing date has been set
- A decision regarding your case that will either be fully favorable, partially favorable, or unfavorable
You should hang onto all documents that you receive from ODAR because you may need them if your claim was denied and you want to take your appeal to the next level or if you were awarded benefits and you need to keep a record of that.
Find the nearest SSA office.
Talk to a Social Security Attorney
Applying for either SSDI or SSI can be a long and daunting process. Most initial applications for Social Security benefits are denied. Because of this, you might want to consider hiring an experienced Social Security attorney to help you with your claim.
