I'm just curious how people go about this? Do I just call up my local congress person & request an appointment? Does this actually help?

Depends on how available the congress person is. You can either call for an appointment, email and/or snail mail for one.

If you voted for the person, make it known!!!!

I live in a highrise 2 building complex. Our congress person makes it their business to visit at least once a month for breakfast which they provide! The purpose of these visits is to give them a list of your concerns and/or provide updates of them.

Start with his/her website. My Senator had the forms and directions online, and that was many years ago.

no one from congress can ever help you on a social security claim. i've been helping people for 25 years and no one from congress has ever helped a claim. they can't interfere with the process, all they can do is call to see how things are going and then report back to you as if they've done something life changing to help you.

They can help expedite things.

all anyone from congress can do is send the same old follow up forms that they use for everyone to check the status. Someone from congress following up on a claim does not move the ssa or odar one bit. Whatever happened after they may have sent their usual ineffective form letter was going to happen anyway. *admin edit*

My personal experience, and the experience of others say differently. A person must be able to document a dire need or they have to have a stalled file, but they can get a faster hearing date or decision, or a faster payment with Congressional or Senatorial staff help.

I worked for SSA for twenty years in three different Field Offices (FO), two separate SSA Regions. In each Regional Office (RO) there is a Congressional Liaison that deals with Congressional inquiries. The Congressional staffer will contact the Congressional Liaison at the RO. The Congressional Liaison will then contact the manager at the local Field Office (FO) to inquire as to status of the case in question. That manager will discuss and determine the relevant issues involved with the Claims Representative or Technical Expert handling the claim. In almost all cases I can recall, the local FO manager was quite motivated to get issues resolved where there was Congressional inquiries. Cases that were "stuck" for months would often receive higher priority, or would be reassigned to more skilled employees within the office. For those reasons, the claim or issue would quickly be processed or resolved due to the additional scrutiny.