For fee petitions, the processing center (PC), the Office of Hearings Operations (OHO),
or the Office of Appellate Operations (OAO) authorizes the representative’s fee and
notifies the claimant and representative of the authorized fee amount and the right
to administrative review of the fee.
The PC analyst (e.g., reconsideration reviewer, senior claims processing specialist,
or claims technical examiner (CTE)), Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), or OAO’s Attorney
Fee Branch (AFB) sends the fee authorization to the field office (FO) instructing
the claims representative (CR) for each title, or technical expert (TE) to release
the past-due benefits.