Direwolf, you probably should change your pronoun and use the term "I would call you clueless" rather than include the rest of us in your conclusion. Personally, I think Cameron1958 makes sense.

I am not going to comment on whether or not you were evaluated fairly or correctly (not having any details beyond whatever you post). Claims are approved every day of the week as well as denied. There are people in the world who try to get money for nothing as well as people in the world who can no longer hold jobs.

I think the appeal process takes too long but that would take more staff. If the DDS and field offices and the payment center had more staff, work could be done more quickly and/or with tremendous attention to detail. The pressures of volumes of work doesn't lend itself to long and exacting parsing of the details.

Making a disability decision is sometimes more of an art than a science. There is sequential evaluation that must be followed, but there may not be a numerical method of determining when someone has a marked, moderate or mild impairment.

Having a problem does not equate to being disabled. The SSA staff has no personal stake in whether or not your claim is approved or denied. Their pay is the same. If anyone wanted to push work through without true evaluation, approving everyone would be easier since then no one would appeal the approvals. Less work overall to just say yes to everyone.

I would also observe that people who post on sites like these are almost always those who are denied because those who are approved with smooth sailing don't go looking for sites like these. So IMO, in this kind of forum there will be statistically many more unhappy people looking for answers. So it is not representative of claimants as a whole.

You can disagree of course and it would be based on your own observations. Like the rest of us.