Last updated · Facts sourced to SSA's published policy manual. We are not affiliated with the Social Security Administration and nothing here is legal, medical or benefits advice.
SSA names three ways to get disability evidence into a claim from outside the agency: mail, fax, or the Electronic Records Express website. Email is not one of them — SSA’s manual tells staff who receive records by email to warn the sender that email is not secure. Send your pages to the office that wrote to you, at the fax number on its letter, grouped by source and legible after scanning.
Where does disability evidence actually go?
A disability claim or review is handled in two places. The field office takes the claim, handles the non-medical side and screens the case; if a medical determination is needed, it transfers the case to the state disability determination services (DDS) office, which gathers evidence and decides (POMS DI 13005.001). Both receive paper, and both scan what they receive into the same electronic case folder.
That matters for one reason: send your evidence to whoever wrote to you. A packet faxed to the field office when the DDS examiner is waiting for it does arrive, but it arrives in the wrong queue.
Fax, mail, ERE — or email?
SSA’s instruction to DDS staff is unusually direct, and it is the clearest statement of the agency’s order of preference that exists in public policy. When evidence arrives by email, the examiner must “inform the sender that email is not secure and advise the sender not to send any additional personal information to the DDS via email”, and must “advise the sender to mail or fax copies of the records, or use the ERE website” (POMS DI 81020.060).
| Route | What it is good for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Fax | Returning records against a deadline, from anywhere, with a transmission result as proof. | Needs the right office’s number; pages must survive scanning; films and tracings are excluded. |
| Electronic Records Express | Providers and appointed representatives adding evidence straight into the electronic folder. | Requires correct indexing including the Social Security number; not a general public upload portal. |
| Very large packets, and anything SSA sent a return envelope for — including scannable mailer forms. | Transit time, and no proof of arrival without tracking. | |
| Nothing. SSA tells staff to warn senders off it. | Not secure, and you will be asked to send it again another way. |
The SSA-827 is the form that unlocks everything
SSA lists the SSA-827, Authorization to Disclose Information to the Social Security Administration, alongside the claim or review form as a document the field office must obtain (POMS DI 13005.040). It is the signed permission that lets SSA and the DDS request records from the sources you named — which is how most evidence in a disability file actually arrives. If you send records yourself and the SSA-827 is missing or stale, the parts you did not send stay missing.
What happens to a page after it arrives
Nothing stays on paper. Incoming documents are imaged into a Certified Electronic Folder, indexed by document type and source. SSA staff index faxes using barcode cover sheets that encode the case, the document type and the section of the folder the page belongs in (POMS DI 81010.090). Paper that is scanned locally is destroyed once the image is confirmed accessible in the folder.
Two practical consequences. First, your pages are read as images, so image quality is evidence quality. Second, identifiers on the cover sheet are what attach your fax to the right file, because the person indexing it is not the person waiting for it.
How much can you fax, and what should stay out
SSA does not publish a page limit for the public, but its internal rule is a useful proxy. For expedited case types — terminal illness, presumptive disability, quick disability determination, compassionate allowance and special-arrangement cases — a field office faxes evidence of 15 pages or less directly into the electronic folder and routes larger packets for scanning instead. SSA adds that where local arrangements exist, or where time permits, more than 15 pages may be faxed (POMS DI 81010.125).
Two categories are excluded outright:
- Do not fax x-ray films or raw test tracings — EEGs, EKGs, pulmonary function studies. SSA handles those separately.
- Original films and ultrasound images are returned to the sender as irrelevant evidence; the interpretation report of the same test is relevant evidence and goes into the folder. Send the report.
How to fax disability claim documents, step by step
- Work out who asked, and send it there. Disability claims move between a field office and the state disability determination services office. Evidence should go to whoever wrote to you, at the fax number on that letter. If you have no letter, find your field office through SSA's Office Locator and call to ask where evidence for your claim should go.
- Make sure a signed SSA-827 is on file. The authorisation is what lets SSA request records from your providers. If you are sending records yourself you still want the SSA-827 signed and in the file, because much of what a reviewer needs will be requested directly from the sources you listed.
- Separate the evidence from the forms. SSA does not treat every disability-related form as medical evidence — function reports, for example, are not. Put completed forms in one group and clinical records in another, and label each group on the cover sheet so whoever indexes the fax files it correctly.
- Group records by source, in date order. One provider at a time: name, then that provider's pages oldest to newest. SSA indexes evidence by source, so a packet that interleaves three clinics costs a reviewer time and risks pages being filed under the wrong source.
- Leave out films and raw tracings. Send the radiologist's report, not the x-ray film; the interpretation, not the EKG strip. SSA says not to attempt to fax films and test tracings, and returns original films as irrelevant evidence while keeping the interpretation report.
- Scan grayscale and check every page. Flat, well lit, grayscale, at a normal document resolution. Then open the PDF and read every page. SSA staff verify legibility after faxing; do that work before you send, because an illegible page is treated as no page.
- Fax with a cover sheet and keep the result. Cover sheet: claimant name, the identifiers the letter asked for, the claim or review it relates to, number of pages, your callback number, and the batch number if you are splitting it. Send from an online fax service, then keep the transmission result showing the number, pages and time.
Why a shared sending number is a problem here
Disability casework is correspondence, not a single transaction. Examiners ask for more. If an office faxes you back, that fax goes to the number the original call came from — there is no reply address on a fax. A dedicated number means the reply has somewhere to land and arrives as a PDF in your email; a shared sending line means it does not reach you at all. That is the entire reason to have a number of your own rather than only a way to send: what a fax number is and how receiving works cover the mechanics.
One packet and done: $2.99 for up to 10 pages, no number, no subscription. Expecting correspondence: Solo at $19 a month ($15 billed annually), one dedicated US number, 300 pages, 7-day trial, no card. See pricing.