When you file for SSI benefits or Social Security Disability benefits you will be asked for certain medical history information with your application; this holds true whether you are filing your initial application or whether you are appealing the denial that has been issued on your case. While it may be tempting to only supply the minimum medical history that is required, it can save you a lot of time and hassle if you go above and beyond the call of duty to gather your own medical records and supply them to your disability examiner with everything they will need to fully examine, and hopefully close, your case.

Gathering your own medical records in the initial application stage can speed up the process of claiming your social security disability or SSI benefits, and this simple act can also keep you from having to endure the act of submitting an appeal, particularly so if your case was turned down, in part, due to a lack of medical information. Since disability examiners' are more likely to work on a case that will take less time, providing your medical records is extremely likely to bump your case to the top of their list. Disability examiners' are evaluated by the number of cases that they complete during a certain work period and are far more likely to work on cases that are organized, take less time, and are easily evaluated.

If you only provided a brief medical history with your initial application and you have been denied, it may be advantageous to hire a claimant's rep (non-attorney) or a disability lawyer to handle this task for the appeal process. A qualified representative will know exactly how to gather and present the information you need, based on why the case was denied and based also on what information may have been missing in the initial application. A good legal representative will also know what is needed to prove your disability, and can usually gather the information more easily than the typical claimant. Often, the record-gathering process, as conducted by a representative, attorney or non-attorney, will include attempts to obtain supporting statements from doctors who have a history of providing treatment to a claimant. Such statements can be used quite effectively in hearing settings to win both past due and continuing social security disability benefits for claimants.

It can be tempting not to hire a legal representative and to only provide the minimum information asked of you, yet statistics show that those who do hire a representative are awarded benefits 50 percent more often than those without legal representation. While there are no statistics that show how often those who make the effort to provide their medical records are awarded social security disability benefits as opposed to those who do not supply their records upfront, it is safe to say that this one small, thoughtful step can save you time, money and unneeded frustration. At the very least, even for claimants whose cases will ultimately be denied at the application level, getting records submitted rapidly to the social security administration will allow a case to be processed faster and appealed faster as well.