Once a disability hearing has taken place, the judge provides his decision and the basis of his determination to a decision writer. The decision writer formulates a written disability hearing decision. Once they complete the written hearing decision, they send it to the judge for a review. The judge makes any necessary corrections and returns it to the decision writer for completion. After completion, the hearing decision is sent to a payment center for adjudication. As you might imagine this process can take some time. In the past, there have been times when disability applicants did not receive their hearing decision for a year or more.