The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) has obtained lists showing the backlogs at each of Social Security's hearing offices. I have reproduced this above. Click on each page to see it in full size. These shows the length of the wait time in days from the time that a Social Security hearing office receives a request for a hearing until the case is disposed of, for each hearing office and for each of Social Security's regions.
As bad is it looks, this understates the backlog, since it only shows the wait time from the date a hearing office receives and logs in an appeal. However, each appeal must pass through a Social Security field office before getting to a hearing office. In most cases, the field offices must do a significant amount of data entry before sending the appeal on to a hearing offices. There are increasing data entry backlogs at the field offices which delay these appeals getting to hearing offices, making the hearing backlogs look less bad than they actually are. The field office data entry backlogs are four months and longer in some locations. As best I can tell, no one is keeping track of the extent of the data entry backlogs. Upper levels of Social Security management appear to be trying hard to ignore the problem.
Looks like SSA needs to update FAQ 1160
ReplyDeleteHow long does the hearing process normally take?
The average amount of time needed to process a hearing request during Fiscal Year 2005 (October 2004 through September 2005) was 443 days. We are diligently working to reduce the time it takes us to process your request for hearing.
"diligently working" more like trying to keep their head above water.