You may have personally been there or at least know someone who has been; applying for social security disability benefits.  You have heard the stories of having to wait for hours in line to fill out forms and then waiting weeks or even months for the SSA office to process the paperwork. 

Sounds terrible, right?

Well how about waiting five years and longer?

That appears to be the current routine for the Oklahoma City SSA office; wait times are apparently measured there not in days, weeks or even months, but in years.

I had previously brought to your attention a case where we had to appeal to the United States Federal Courts for help on a long delayed SSA claim in the Oklahoma City SSA system.  In that claim the claimant had originally filed for disability in 2001.  After a delay of more than two years, the Oklahoma City SSA awarded him disability benefits, only to have the Oklahoma City SSA office then issue a denial of benefits after the SSA Judge held a hearing with herself (the claimant was not present) and decided the claimant was not disabled.  To date, almost 8 years later, more years of bureaucratic delays and two federal court appeals; each overruling the Oklahoma City SSA, the most recent Federal Court Judge himself expressed his exasperation with the SSA Office finding on record that delays and frustration in the SSA system are not the fault of the claimant's but the fault of the SSA office "left hand not knowing what the right is doing."

Apparently the Oklahoma City SSA has yet to figure out which is its right hand and which is its left hand.

In yet another example of the Oklahoma City SSA office's woeful bureaucratic system of errors and missteps, a young severely disabled claimant and his family face dire financial and medical problems as they also wait for the Oklahoma City SSA to figure out which hand is which.  The Oklahoma City SSA office is now approaching more than five years trying to process its paperwork on this one simple claim.  The bungling that has occurred on this, yet another,  claim in the Oklahoma City SSA office is almost too incredible to believe.

The young claimant first filed with the Oklahoma City SSA is 2003.  It took almost two more years for the Oklahoma City SSA then to review this form and to file an "initial denial" of his claim. 

The claimant promptly filed his appeal with the Oklahoma City SSA office.  Seven months later the Office then issued a report finding that the claimant was indeed severely disabled and was entitled to disability benefits.

No benefits were paid.

Instead 3 months later the same Office then issued a written notice finding that the claimant was not disabled and not entitled to benefits.

However, simultaneously, on the very same day and in a written notice from the very same Office that just denied him disability, the Oklahoma City SSA issued a second formal notice finding that the claimant was disabled and was entitled to full disability benefits.

To complicate matters further, the Oklahoma City SSA (after finding on the one hand that the claimant was disabled and simultaneously finding on the other hand that the claimant was not disabled) stated that this denial was the "initial denial"of his claim he had filed three years earlier.  A claim which had already been initially denied and appealed by the claimant more than two years earlier.

Despite having been found disabled once again no benefits were paid to the claimant.

However things continued to deteriorate at the Oklahoma City SSA.  After having initially denied his claim on two separate occasions, more than three years apart; the Oklahoma City SSA then issued a third "initial denial" after the claimant appealed the second "initial denial" of the first "initial denial" of his claim.  Trying to catch up with itself, the Oklahoma City SSA then proceeded to issue second denials of the claimant's appeals, not once but twice; to which the claimant was required to respond with a request for hearing; not once but twice.  All of which despite the fact that the Oklahoma City SSA office previously found the claimant severely disabled and entitled to benefits; not only once, but twice; some three years earlier.

To date, more than 5 years later and still counting, the Oklahoma City SSA is still trying to process this one singular claim.  The Office continues to maintain that the claimant is not disabled and not entitled to benefits despite the fact that the very same Office and its own medical experts had found that the claimant  was severely disabled and entitled to benefits more than three years ago.

Undoubtedly this matter may be yet another example of another US Federal Judge throwing his hands up in disbelief and finding that once again the Oklahoma City SSA left hand does not know what its right hand is doing.