I could not come up with a good idea for a poll this week, so I thought that I would just set up an open thread. Post your comment to respond to this question:
If you had the chance to meet with Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue what would you most like to tell him or ask of him?
18 comments:
That ODAR needs more clerical staff and that he should adopt NTEU's senior attorney proposal while moving along with the alj plans. Also if he does not hire sufficient support staff for new aljs, there will be no dent in the backlog and it may increase.
He needs to spend more time listening to those he meets with. Too much of the discussions with him are one-way.
Talk about the need to eliminate the independance of medicare as an independant agency due to all the overlapping conflict in cordination between the 2 agencies. So that SSA can more oversight of Part C & D.
I would tell him two things:
First, he needs to lobby Congress to rethink the purpose of Social Security ALJs in the context of the unprecedented backlog of claims awaiting hearing and in the context of the job duties of ALJs. Too many ALJs consider themselves demi-gods subject to no master. ODAR is overflowing with ALJs who cannot or will not produce even 40 legally defensible dispositions per month. Some ALJs cannot even produce 20 per month. They should be given a reasonable amount of time to learn their job, and failing that, they should be discharged. An independent (non-Social Security Administration, non-peer review) body should be established to perform ongoing quality review of ALJ decisions. This body should be responsible for establishing minimum performance standards for ALJs. Such standards must include qualitative and quantitative production standards, and they also should include standards of courtesy and civility required of ALJs in dealing with the disabled populace and their representatives.
Second, I would tell him that the agency needs to stop wasting resources on having agency staff draft fully favorable decisions. This burden should be shifted to representatives. If a representative is qualified to represent a claimant, a representative should be qualified to draft a fully favorable decision. Efforts should be undertaken to convert the FEDS program to an online, fully functional program so that the fully favorable decisions can be drafted and submitted online (thereby being independent of the software representatives have on their computers).
Ralph Wilborn
Pardon my slip in the above post. My reference to FEDS should have been to the FIT system, although, either one would suffice for FFAVs.
Ralph Wilborn.
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Why is SSA so discontected from the people you serve? Why is the two year rule still in effect for Medicare AFTER someone is approved and receiving SSDI benefits - obviously they are not going to get Health Care from their work?!
Medicare is under CMS, not SSA, so you to b*tch at them and Congress about the two year waiting period.
Why such a focus on hearing backlogs only? What about the backlogs at the payment center? focusing everything for more ALJs, will just shift the delays from the hearing process to the payment center, in the end, changing little about the overall length of the process.
Why is it that no one can get in contact with the payment center directly? The only way is email and leaving messages, neither of which are replied to. Why does the payment center seemingly answer to no one? Why is it that people can not get information on their case with whomever they speak to? It seems everyone you speak to knows nothing about the status, they submit requests for updates which never are replied to or even acknowledged.
I find the issues with the payment center equivalent or as bad as the ones with the hearing process. If they are not addressed now they will just get considerably worse.
If I took my own case into consideration and I could talk to Mr. Astrue myself, why am I waiting almost 6 months after my approval letter and have yet to see an award letter or any benefits at all whether monthly or backpay. No one knows how long it will be till I see anything, doesn't that seem like a little bit of a problem? For me, I just want answers, what is going on? Waiting is one thing, waiting without knowing anything of what is going on is another.
You have an enormous job ahead. I hope that you will consider looking at reinstituting some of the practices that helped ODAR get rid of backlogs a few years ago including decision writers. SSA is one agency and all components are ready to assist.
(1) eliminate recon and give those funds to the field offices for staff to do better up front development
(2) make better use of ODAR attorneys - all offices should be using them to screen for development and pay on the record decisions
(3) greatly increase clerical staff at ODAR offices. All the judges in the world won't help if there is no one to work-up cases or do final processing.
(1)Performance standards for ALJ's with flexiplace options tied to productivity. (2)Higher pay grade/more accountability for HOCALJ positions to generate competition among rank and file ALJ's to get those positions. (3)Significant weigh given to Social Security program experience in hiring new ALJ's to reduce training time. (4)ODAR attorneys at GS-13 and GS-14 pay scale with Senior Attorney signature authority for qualified attorneys.
I agree with the payment center question. The backlogs in PSCs are ridiculous. Even FOs cannot contact them most of the time. FOs refer cases to PSCs, some workloads are high priority but others will take months.
I would ask him how he could leave the FedROs in limbo--in some cases people who moved families across the country. We don't know what will happen to our positions--all we get is repeated entreaties to crank out large numbers of cases. We are attorneys, for heaven's sake--be honest with us, and avoid the rumor mill. (This may be news to some of you, but I don't believe it is).
Propose legislation to remove SSA ALJs from OPM's control. I believe Congress would be amenable.
OPM has demonstrated over and over that it does not care about the public's interest -- only its own short term interests.
I know your job is overwhelming and you cant do everything at once. So I pray that God gives you creative and strategic ideas on how to handle the matter of "backlogs at the payment centers" My mothers case has been setting at payment center 7 for a while(I have learned patience!) I would just like to know how the process flows or goes and the lawyer has already been pd. back in Jan.07 and I haven't heard anything!
Abolish work at home.
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