Which Social Security Office Handles a Memphis Disability Claim at Each Stage

Which Memphis Social Security field office serves your ZIP code?

Your ZIP code decides it. Social Security's office locator data assigns each ZIP code to exactly one field office, and the Tennessee ZIP codes around Memphis read on November 1, 2026 went to three offices in the city. Assignments change, so search your own ZIP code in Social Security's office locator before relying on the lists below. Place names in parentheses are for orientation only; the data itself lists ZIP codes, not towns.

The North office reaches well past the city line. Covington in Tipton County and Oakland and Somerville in Fayette County are on its list, along with Bartlett, Arlington and Millington. Neighborhood names are no safer a guide than county lines: Cordova has two ZIP codes in the data, and they go to different offices, 38016 to Memphis North and 38018 to Monroe Avenue. A ZIP code works the way a school zone does for a family, where the line on the map picks the building and the drive time does not enter into it.

One naming point matters when you compare paperwork. The locator calls the Monroe Avenue office simply "Memphis TN," and its details page places it at the corner of Cleveland and Monroe, in midtown. Social Security's hearing office data, covered below, uses a different label for a Memphis field office.

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What a Memphis field office does on a disability claim

The field office handles the paperwork side of a claim, not the medical side. Social Security's operations manual section on the field office role, POMS DI 10005.001, tells its claims representatives to explain the disability rules for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), conduct the disability interview, complete the application and report forms, and "develop and adjudicate non-medical aspects of the disability claim."

Non-medical means the rules that have nothing to do with a diagnosis. SSA's page on the disability determination process lists your age, your employment, your marital status and your Social Security coverage among the things the field office verifies, and says field offices usually take disability applications in person, by telephone or by mail, with online filing as another route. Our applying for disability page covers what the application asks for.

The office stays in the picture after the medical decision. When the state agency finds a claimant not disabled, the same SSA page says the file is kept in the field office in case the claimant appeals. For SSDI, the regulations on reconsideration (20 CFR 404.909) and hearings (20 CFR 404.933) both let you file the written request "at one of our offices." When the decision is favorable, SSA's page says Social Security finishes the remaining non-disability work, computes the benefit amount and begins paying benefits. Our disability appeals page walks through each appeal level and its deadline.

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Who makes the medical decision on a Tennessee disability claim

A state agency makes it. After the field office checks the non-medical rules, SSA's determination page says the field office "sends the case to a DDS for evaluation of disability." DDS stands for Disability Determination Services, the state agency responsible for developing the medical evidence and making the initial determination.

In Tennessee, Disability Determination Services is a section within the Division of Rehabilitation Services of the state Department of Human Services. The state's page says it processes Social Security and Supplemental Security Income disability claims and operates by agreement between the State of Tennessee and the Social Security Administration. In other words, the medical reading of your claim happens at a state agency working under an agreement with Social Security, not at the field office counter on Austin Peay Highway or Monroe Avenue.

SSA's page says the DDS usually starts with records from the doctors and clinics that treat you, and arranges a consultative examination when that evidence is missing or not enough. That split tells you where a question belongs. A question about your earnings record, your marital status or a missing form is a field office matter; your treatment records and any exam appointment run through the DDS.

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Which hearing office takes a Memphis disability appeal

Your residence address decides it, not the field office you happened to visit. Social Security's operations manual, POMS GN 03103.040, says hearing office jurisdiction "is determined by the claimant's residence address." If you want a hearing at a different office, the same section has the field office take a signed statement of your reasons, and tells staff to advise you that the agency will consider the request and notify you whether the case will be transferred.

Social Security's hearing office data, read November 1, 2026, lists the Memphis hearing office at 309 Monroe Avenue, Memphis, TN 38103, with seven field offices on its list: Memphis (Downtown), Memphis (North), Memphis (South), Dyersburg and Union City in Tennessee, West Memphis in Arkansas, and Olive Branch in Mississippi. North and South carry the same names in the office locator. Downtown does not: the locator results read that day showed no office by that name, and the locator's own name for 1330 Monroe Avenue is "Memphis TN." Matching the two labels is a process of elimination, not something SSA's data states, so go by the hearing office printed on your own notices.

Nearby field offices are not all on the Memphis list. In the same data, Jackson and Selmer belong to the Franklin hearing office, and Paris belongs to Nashville. Our Memphis disability lawyer page covers the hearing itself, the appeal deadlines and the records routes at Memphis hospitals.

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DeSoto County claims and the Olive Branch hearing office question

For DeSoto County, two Social Security sources disagree, and this guide does not settle it. The hearing office data assigns a field office it calls Olive Branch to the Memphis hearing office. The office locator lists no Olive Branch office at all, and assigns DeSoto County ZIP codes, Olive Branch's 38654 among them, to the Hernando office at Ste 115, 2631 McIngvale Rd, Hernando, MS 38632. The other DeSoto County ZIP codes read on November 1, 2026 went there too: 38632 (Hernando), 38637 (Horn Lake), 38671 and 38672 (Southaven).

Neither source says whether the Hernando office is the office the hearing data calls Olive Branch, and neither says which hearing office serves Hernando. If you live in DeSoto County, the hearing office named on your own Social Security notices is the one that has your case.

The two Crittenden County, Arkansas, ZIP codes read that day line up without that gap. The locator assigns 72301 (West Memphis) and 72364 (Marion) to the West Memphis office at Suite B, 202 Shoppingway Blvd, West Memphis, AR 72301, and the hearing office data lists a West Memphis field office under the Memphis hearing office by the same name. Residence still controls, so the notices remain the final word there as well.

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Keeping track of which Social Security office has your claim

Write down three names as your claim moves: the field office that took the application, the state agency that made the medical decision, and the hearing office named once a hearing is requested. Keep the notices that name each one, because the office printed on the paper outranks any list, including the ones in this guide.

We have no Memphis office. We represent adults 18 and older with SSDI and SSI claims at the application, reconsideration, hearing and Appeals Council stages. Consultations are by phone or video, and our attorneys take part in hearings from Tennessee the same way. Our Tennessee disability lawyer page lists the six hearing offices that decide claims statewide and explains the TennCare link to SSI.

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