The Portland, Maine hearing office is still #1 in the country, according to the latest statistics released by the SSA and republished in Social Security News. The Portland hearing office has an average processing time of 270 days. Processing time runs from the day the hearing office receives your hearing request to the day a decision is issued.
Since the Portland hearing office gives 75 days notice prior to a hearing, that means that a hearing is scheduled within 6 months of the claim arriving at the Portland, Maine ODAR. That's the good news.
The bad news is that the Reconsideration level in Maine is turning into a black hole. Claims at Reconsideration are going months without even being assigned to a disability examiner.
By comparison, in New Hampshire (which is a prototype state that skips the Reconsideration step), the Manchester hearing office has an average processing time of 379 days, which is 109 days longer than in Maine. But since months are not being lost in New Hampshire waiting for Reconsideration, claims are moving through the system much quicker.
my disablity case has been in the hearing office for 24 months and 4 days it was assigned to a ALJ on april 3rd,2009, and i was wondering if any one knew why it was taking so long to get the actual hearing date. is it taking so long because i live in ohio?
Posted by: sonya | July 29, 2009 at 08:12 AM
Sonya, thanks for your comment. Yes, you are waiting so long because you live in Ohio. The Columbus and the Cincinatti hearing offices have very long processing times. You can check out the full statistics here: http://socsecnews.blogspot.com/2009/07/average-processing-time-at-hearing.html#links
Hang in there!
Posted by: Gordon | July 29, 2009 at 11:04 AM