Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, Mississippi Social Security Disability Lawyers for SSDI and SSI Claims
A disability hearing request from Jackson, Mississippi is generally handled by the Jackson hearing office in Suite 401 of the McCoy Federal Building, 100 West Capitol Street, but a request from Brandon, Pearl, Flowood or the rest of Rankin County generally goes to the Hattiesburg hearing office, because the field office that serves Rankin County is on Hattiesburg's list. Social Security assigns the hearing office by your residence address, and its hearing office lists are organized by the field offices that serve those addresses.
Downard & Associates represents adults in Jackson and in Hinds, Madison and Rankin counties with Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) claims, from the first application through reconsideration, a hearing before an administrative law judge and Appeals Council review. We are based in Lebanon, Tennessee, talk with Jackson clients by phone or video, and take no fee unless you win.
How we help
What Our Jackson Disability Attorneys Handle
Adults are judged by one disability definition in both programs, and you can apply for both at the same time.
SSDI rests on a Social Security earnings record, ordinarily your own, while SSI depends on limited income and countable resources and needs no work history. Adults are judged by one disability definition in both programs, and you can apply for both at the same time. A parent's record can sometimes support an adult whose disability started before 22, and the record of a spouse or former spouse who has died can sometimes support a disabled widow or widower, including a surviving divorced spouse, age 50 to 59; these depend on rules about the family relationship, the worker's record and when the disability began. Statewide rules are on our Mississippi disability lawyer page.
Downard has no office in Jackson. We meet with you by phone or video, and our attorney generally takes part in your hearing from Tennessee in the same way, even if you appear in person. Our clients are adults age 18 and older. We do not take VA claims or VA appeals, continuing disability reviews, cessation cases or cases about back pay alone, and we refer a case that needs federal court to affiliated counsel.
The local offices
Five Field Offices Serve Jackson and the Surrounding Counties
Social Security's office locator sends Jackson, Madison County and most of the rest of Hinds County to the field office downtown, Rankin County, across the Pearl River, to Forest, and the western and southern edges of the metro to three other offices. Each office below lists weekday hours of 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Social Security posts temporary closures and delays affecting in-person service on its office closings page.
Jackson, Suite 225, McCoy Federal Building, 100 West Capitol Street: Jackson ZIP codes 39201 to 39204, 39206, 39209, 39211 to 39213 and 39216; Clinton (39056), Byram (39272) and Terry (39170) in Hinds County; and in Madison County, Madison (39110), Ridgeland (39157), Canton (39046), Flora (39071) and Camden (39045). Phone 1-866-331-8135.
Forest, 558 Deer Field Drive: Rankin County, including Brandon (39042 and 39047), Pearl (39208), Flowood (39232), Richland (39218), Florence (39073) and Pelahatchie (39145), along with Forest and Morton in Scott County. Phone 1-866-829-2497.
Vicksburg, Suite 132, 4155 Clay Street: Warren County, plus Raymond (39154), Bolton (39041) and Edwards (39066) in western Hinds County, and Yazoo City (39194). Phone 1-866-964-0996.
Hattiesburg, 1911 Broadway Drive: Simpson County, including Mendenhall (39114), Magee (39111) and Braxton (39044). Phone 1-866-331-2186.
Brookhaven, 1392 Johnny Johnson Drive: Copiah County, including Hazlehurst (39083), Crystal Springs (39059) and Wesson (39191). Phone 1-877-405-3568.
The field office takes applications and appeal requests and checks the non-medical requirements, but it does not decide whether you are disabled or hold hearings. In Mississippi, Disability Determination Services, an office of the Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation Services, generally makes that decision at the application and reconsideration stages; at a hearing, the judge decides. Search your own street address in the locator, because assignments can change and a ZIP code can cross office lines.
Hearing offices
Two Hearing Offices Split the Jackson Metro
The data behind Social Security's hearing office locator gives the Jackson hearing office's address as Suite 401, McCoy Federal Building, 100 West Capitol Street, Jackson, MS 39269, phone 1-888-385-8499, and lists six Mississippi field offices: Cleveland, Greenville, Greenwood, Jackson, Kosciusko and Vicksburg. It gives the Hattiesburg hearing office's address as 1901 Broadway Drive, Hattiesburg, MS 39402, phone 1-866-348-5831, extension 21110, and lists ten: Brookhaven, Forest, Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Laurel, McComb, Meridian, Moss Point, Natchez and Philadelphia. Appendix F of Social Security's privacy notice for hearing records lists the same field offices under each.
So a claimant served by the Jackson or Vicksburg field office is generally on the Jackson hearing office's list, which is in Suite 401 of the same federal building as the Jackson field office in Suite 225, while a claimant served by the Forest, Hattiesburg or Brookhaven field office, to which the locator assigns the Rankin, Simpson and Copiah county ZIP codes listed above, is generally on Hattiesburg's. Your Notice of Hearing gives the time and how you take part, and names the place if you appear in person or by agency video.
Social Security's operations manual says hearing office jurisdiction is determined by the claimant's residence address, though you can ask, in a signed statement giving your reasons that the field office sends along with your hearing request, to have the case transferred, and Social Security decides whether to do it. Social Security's hearings manual also lets it reassign some cases to another hearing office to relieve a temporary workload imbalance or increase productivity, only when the other office can hear and decide them more quickly. Social Security does not reassign a case this way when you have properly objected to both a phone hearing and an agency video hearing, have not agreed to online video, and have not changed your residence. If you move while your hearing request is pending, the hearing-format rules in 20 CFR 404.936 and, for SSI, 20 CFR 416.1436 let Social Security decide again how you will appear, including by phone or agency video, despite the objection, and it considers the move only once you send evidence verifying your new residence. In a workload reassignment, its hearings manual says management will still honor the objection after a move when doing so causes no additional delay and nothing else calls for scheduling you another way. When Social Security moves a case to another hearing office for workload or productivity reasons, the office that receives it is responsible for notifying you and your representative of the reassignment as soon as possible. Our hearing office directory lists every office with its field offices, and our ZIP code lookup shows the field office Social Security's office locator assigns to a ZIP code and the hearing office Social Security links to that field office. Your Notice of Hearing gives the address of the hearing office handling your case and, for an in-person or agency video hearing, the place, so go by that notice for your own case.
Mississippi rules
What a Mississippi Provider Can Charge for Copies of Your Records
Mississippi caps what a provider can charge you for copies of your medical records. Under Miss. Code Ann. § 11-1-52, a medical provider, hospital, nursing home or other medical facility may charge patients or their representatives no more than $20 for pages 1 to 20, $1 a page for the next 80 pages and 50 cents a page after that, plus up to 10 percent of the total for postage and handling and $15 for retrieving records kept off the premises. The statute also requires those fees to comply with HIPAA.
The Mississippi Supreme Court held in NewSouth Neurospine, LLC v. Hamilton (2019), a case about records a patient asked to have sent to her lawyers and decided before the 2020 federal court decision described below, that the fee schedule in § 11-1-52 is a ceiling on these fees, and that where a schedule fee is more than a reasonable, cost-based fee, § 11-1-52(4) and HIPAA require the lower fee. When you ask for a copy of your own records, the HIPAA rule at 45 CFR 164.524(c)(4) allows only a reasonable, cost-based fee covering labor for copying, supplies, postage if you want the copy mailed, and an explanation or summary if you agree to one. Since a January 2020 federal court decision, the Department of Health and Human Services applies that limit only to your request for your own records, not to a request to send them to someone else, such as a lawyer. When Social Security asks a non-federal provider for existing medical evidence it needs, it pays the provider's reasonable cost of supplying it, under 20 CFR 404.1514; for SSI, 20 CFR 416.914 says Social Security pays for the medical evidence it requests if there is a charge, and for evidence it asks you to get. The § 11-1-52 caps above limit what a provider may bill you or your representative, and the HIPAA cost-based limit applies when you ask for a copy of your own records; both are separate from what Social Security pays when it requests records itself. Ask each provider what it charges before you order a full set, and keep a copy of what you receive.
Local treatment records
Records From UMMC, St. Dominic and the Jackson VA
VA records can support an SSDI or SSI claim even though we do not handle VA claims themselves.
With your permission, Social Security makes every reasonable effort to help you get records from your own medical sources, which 20 CFR 404.1512(b)(1) (416.912(b)(1) for SSI) defines as an initial request to each source and, if the records have not arrived, one follow-up request 10 to 20 calendar days later. Before finding that you are not disabled, it develops your complete medical history, generally at least the 12 months before the month you apply. You must still tell it about or submit all evidence known to you that relates to whether you are disabled, so a full list of providers, with your own copies where you have them, helps close gaps.
University of Mississippi Medical Center: its medical records page offers an online records portal, or a release form sent with a copy of your ID by fax to 601-984-4044, by email to HIM-ReleaseofInformation@umc.edu, or by mail to 2500 North State Street, c/o Release of Information, Jackson, MS 39216. In person, bring your photo ID to the Main Floor Business Office, room 146, on the first floor of University Hospital. It does not take record requests by phone, the requester must be 18, and it lists a cost of a $6.50 flat fee plus 12 cents a page.
St. Dominic Hospital: its medical records page offers an online request tool, MyChart for current patients, or a Consent for Release of Information form sent with a copy of your driver's license by email to fmol@datavant.com, by fax to 678-459-3498, or by mail to St. Dominic Health, ATTN: Health Information Management, 969 Lakeland Drive, Jackson, MS 39216. Its records partner, Datavant, answers questions at 601-200-6830.
G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center: the VA Jackson health care system's medical records office page offers records online, by mail on VA Form 10-5345a sent to 1500 E. Woodrow Wilson Avenue, Attn: Release of Information, Jackson, MS 39216, or in person at the Release of Information Office in Module A at the same address, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., where you bring a signed request and your Veteran Health Identification Card. It says mailed or faxed requests may take up to 20 business days. VA records can support an SSDI or SSI claim even though we do not handle VA claims themselves.
Hearings and deadlines
Hearing Format and Appeal Deadlines for a Jackson Disability Claim
To object in writing to a phone or agency video hearing, after you receive the Notice of Ways to Attend a Hearing
30days
20 CFR 404.936(d), 416.1436(d)
After a hearing request, Social Security sends a Notice of Ways to Attend a Hearing, and its ways to attend page lists four: in person or by agency video at one of its offices, and by phone, or by online video on your own device, either from a private location you choose. Under 20 CFR 404.936 and, for SSI, 20 CFR 416.1436, an objection to a phone hearing, an agency video hearing, or both must be made in writing within 30 days after you receive that notice. If you do not object, Social Security can schedule a phone or agency video hearing, though it can also schedule you in person or, if you agree, by online video; if you object to only one of those two formats, it can schedule you in person, by the other format, or by online video if you agree, and if you object to both, it generally schedules you in person or, if you agree, by online video. Online video is used only if you agree to it in writing, also within 30 days after you receive that notice, and a late objection or agreement needs good cause. If you move while the hearing request is pending, Social Security decides how you appear and can schedule a phone or agency video hearing despite an objection, though it considers the move only if you send evidence of your new residence; it can also use a phone hearing in a few other situations the rule lists. Our guide to hearing formats explains each choice and when Social Security moves a case to another office, and our disability hearings page describes the hearing itself.
A reconsideration request is due in writing within 60 days after you receive the initial denial, under 20 CFR 404.909 for SSDI and 20 CFR 416.1409 for SSI, and a hearing request after a reconsideration denial has its own 60 days under 20 CFR 404.933 and 20 CFR 416.1433. Social Security treats a notice as received 5 days after the date on the notice unless you show it came later, under 20 CFR 404.901 and 20 CFR 416.1401. A late request needs a written request for more time and good cause, so call us the week a denial arrives.
Common questions
Jackson Disability Claim Questions
Is a Jackson disability hearing held at the McCoy Federal Building?
Not always. The Jackson hearing office in Suite 401 of the McCoy Federal Building generally handles the case for addresses the Jackson and Vicksburg field offices serve, but Social Security can schedule a phone hearing, an agency video hearing at one of its offices, an in-person hearing, or an online video hearing if you agree. You can object in writing to a phone or agency video hearing within 30 days after you receive the Notice of Ways to Attend a Hearing, though in limited cases Social Security can still schedule a phone hearing, and if you move while your request is pending, Social Security decides again how you will appear, including by phone or agency video despite your objection. The Notice of Hearing says where and how you take part.
Why does a Brandon or Pearl address go to the Hattiesburg hearing office?
Because the locator assigns Rankin County ZIP codes, including Brandon (39042 and 39047), Pearl (39208), Flowood (39232) and Richland (39218), to the Forest field office at 558 Deer Field Drive, and Forest is on the Hattiesburg hearing office's list rather than Jackson's. The hearing office at 1901 Broadway Drive in Hattiesburg generally handles those claims. Search your own street address in the locator to confirm.
Which Social Security office serves Madison, Ridgeland and Clinton?
The Jackson field office in Suite 225 of the McCoy Federal Building. The locator assigns Madison (39110), Ridgeland (39157), Canton (39046) and Clinton (39056) to that office, and it is on the Jackson hearing office's list. Raymond (39154) and Bolton (39041) in western Hinds County go to the Vicksburg field office instead, which is also on the Jackson list.
Can a Mississippi provider charge me for copies of my medical records?
Yes, within limits. Miss. Code Ann. § 11-1-52 caps the charge at $20 for the first 20 pages, $1 a page for the next 80 and 50 cents a page after that, plus postage and handling of up to 10 percent and $15 for off-site retrieval, and the fees must also comply with HIPAA, which allows only a reasonable, cost-based fee when you request your own records.
Discuss your claim
Ask for a Free Review of Your Jackson Disability Claim
Call (615) 255-4307 or complete the free review form, and you will hear back within 3 business hours. Have your latest Social Security notice, the date it reached you and the names of the Jackson clinics and hospitals where you are treated.