Getting SSD benefits seems to vary wildly throughout the country.  I live in Westchester County, NY and my son applied for SSD on 02/13/07, had an interview with them on 3/15/07, returned a long questionnaire to them on 4/16/07 and received his first check from them a few months later.  He had already been diagnosed with RSD and we had a lot of reports about his illness and many different doctors had confirmed his diagnosis.  In fact, the SSA interviewer was quite dismissive of the doctor my son had originally seen who told my son he had nothing wrong with him.  We have been told that the federal government considers RSD to be incurable.  If true, it should help one's case for getting benefits.

As for hearings, we did not need one for SSD but have had 3 for workers' comp benefits.  We won every time.  WC no longer seems to bother requesting a hearing.  I think we were very lucky with our judge who was angry with the insurance company when they did not comply with one of his orders.  I now communicate directly with our claims adjuster (the sixth one on our case) and don't bother to get our WC atty involved since that takes too long.  But still it takes many phone calls to get anything approved and we are still waiting to get reimbursed for the stair lift we just put in.  Also, the pharmacy is having trouble getting approval for the last prescription for methadone which my son has been on for nearly two years.  I think they deny a drug every so often to see what the reaction is (the pharmacy told me this).  It all takes a lot of time and energy and I do not see how any one who is ill could possibly do it all.

 

Confused_Mom - good luck with getting SSD.  I related our experiences with hearings to give you hope that you will get a ruling in your favor - we always did with our WC claims.  Also, now that your daughter has been diagnosed with RSD I hope getting SSD will be easier.  I just hope you get a good judge.  Good luck, Linda