Author: Mollie Angel
Last Updated: February 18, 2026
Read: 3 min read
A disability claim does not remain with one employee or even one office. It moves among several government components, each responsible for a different part of the process. This division of responsibility creates delays and confusion. Information sent to the wrong office, department, or employee does not always reach the person handling the issue.
Local Social Security Field Offices
The local field office receives applications, verifies nonmedical eligibility, and communicates with claimants about forms and basic case status. Claims specialists and customer-service representatives work there. They are trained in Social Security procedures but generally are not doctors, lawyers, or disability decision-makers. The field office can deny a claim for technical reasons, including disqualifying work activity or failure to meet SSDI or SSI eligibility requirements. It then sends medically eligible claims to DDS. [SSA describes this division of responsibility here.](https://www.ssa.gov/disability/determination.htm)
Disability Determination Services
Disability Determination Services, known as DDS, is a state agency working for the federal Social Security disability program. Although SSA is federal, it relies on a DDS agency in each state to develop medical evidence and decide claims at the initial and reconsideration levels. The federal government funds this work, and DDS must apply federal Social Security rules.
Disability examiners collect records, send questionnaires, arrange consultative examinations, and analyze the evidence. Medical and psychological consultants provide professional medical review. These employees are hired and managed at the state level, but they make determinations using federal disability standards. They are not judges and generally are not attorneys. This federal-state structure also creates another handoff in the claim process, which can contribute to delays and communication problems.
Office of Hearings Operations
After reconsideration, an appealed claim moves to the Office of Hearings Operations, known as OHO. Hearing-office staff schedule hearings, organize exhibits, process evidence, and communicate procedural instructions. Employees include legal assistants, paralegals, attorney advisers, decision writers, and administrative staff. The decision-maker is an administrative law judge, a legally trained federal adjudicator who conducts a new review of the case and issues a written decision. [OHO’s legal staff have distinct supporting roles](https://www.ssa.gov/careers/paths/legal.html), but the judge makes the hearing decision.
Appeals Council
The Appeals Council provides appellate review of administrative law judge decisions from all 50 states. Unlike local field offices, state DDS agencies, and regional hearing offices, the Appeals Council reviews cases nationally. Its employees include analysts, support staff, appeals officers, and administrative appeals judges with advanced knowledge of Social Security law and appellate review.
The Appeals Council does not ordinarily conduct a new hearing or reconsider the entire claim from the beginning. It reviews the hearing decision and record for legal errors, procedural problems, unsupported findings, and other grounds for review. It can deny the request for review, dismiss it, issue its own decision, or remand the claim to an administrative law judge for additional proceedings. It is the final level of administrative review within Social Security.
Payment Center
After many SSDI approvals, a payment center calculates past-due benefits, monthly payments, offsets, and attorney fees. Claims authorizers, benefit authorizers, and technical employees handle this work. They apply complicated payment rules but do not decide whether the claimant is medically disabled. SSI payment processing requires field-office action, so concurrent SSDI and SSI claims involve multiple offices that sometimes must work together to pay out approved claims.
Why the Contacting the Correct Office Matters
No single office controls every part of a disability claim. A medical-record question belongs with DDS or OHO, while a delayed SSDI payment often belongs with a payment center. Getting a request to the correct office, department, and employee is a major part of navigating the system successfully.