After your Social Security disability hearing, the administrative law judge will make a decision within about 60 days. However, you won't get the decision at that time.
After a decision has been made, it goes to a process called decision writing. Here, an attorney or assistant will write the judge's decision into the proper format and give the legal reasoning behind the decision. This decision writing process usually takes another 30 to 60 days. Neither you or your attorney can see the decision while it's in the writing process, so you can't know if you are approved or not.
When the decision writing process is complete and the judge signs the decision, a letter will be sent to you and your attorney/representative in the mail.
So, from the time of your hearing, you could wait another 90 days or more to receive the decision.
We assume here that there are no outstanding or post-hearing requirements that will delay your case. Sometimes, there may outstanding evidence that's not available at the hearing. When this occurs the judge will hold the record "open" to wait for the additional evidence. This can add even more time to the delay in getting your decision.
Your attorney-representative will try to obtain all the evidence prior to your hearing. You can help by giving your representative all your recent medical appointments 60 days before the hearing, giving your representative time to order, receive and submit evidence before the hearing date. This can shorten the time you wait to get a decision.
Final question: After the decision arrives in the mail, how long must you wait for your pay from Social Security? There is no set or predictable time for this. Payment centers (the places which write the checks) are terribly backlogged. It can take them 30 to 90 days to write you a check or make a deposit into your bank account (after you reach the decision). Some claimants may get paid sooner but it's unpredictable.
Important: After you receive the judge's decision in the mail, the Social Security office will mail you followup letters letting you know when to expect your payments and how much the payments will be. This doesn't happen immediately after the decision arrives, however. Social Security has up to 90 days to send you the followup letters.
Patience is the name of the game when waiting on Social Security. It is the S-L-O-W-E-S-T agency in the US Government and you just can't speed up the process. Neither can your attorney in most cases.
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