Following an initial denial, a claimant typically has 60 days to request a hearing before an administrative law judge. Each hearing is assigned to one of 38 hearing offices in the Atlanta region, four of which are located in North Carolina:
- Charlotte
- Fayetteville
- Greensboro
- Raleigh
North Carolina claimants who do not live close to one of these offices may have their cases assigned to a hearing office in another state. Such hearings are frequently held by teleconference connecting a judge and vocational expert at an ODAR hearing office with the claimant, claimant’s attorney and other witnesses at a field office or other satellite location. Hearings usually occur 10 to 12 months after the request.
Hearings typically take between 45 minutes and an hour and include one or more expert witnesses called by Social Security — usually a vocational expert and sometimes a medical or psychological expert. These experts evaluate your testimony, the records you have provided as well as any other evidence in the file and render an opinion regarding whether you can work and when your disability began. If their opinions are unfavorable to your case, you or your attorney has the opportunity to cross-examine. Following the hearing, the judge usually enters a written opinion within 30 days.