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Jun 5, 2007

"Streamlined" Hearing Files -- Bates Stamping Only

I am hearing that the "streamlined" hearing files that Commissioner Astrue was referring to in his appearance before the Senate Finance Committee will have "Bates stamping" only. ""Bates stamping" refers to sequentially numbering each page of a section of a Social Security hearing file -- but without removing duplicate records or attempting to place the records in any sort of logical order. However, it is not clear to me that this is completely mandatory.

In the past, when Administrative Law Judges heard cases on unpulled files, the files were "pulled" if the claim was to be denied. Apparently, there will never be any true pulling of exhibits with these "streamlined" files. The Appeals Council and District Courts should beware. They will not like the looks of these files.

This would help explain the plan for a computer program to "pull" exhibits in scanned files. A program which does no more than stamp a number on each page is no great feat. It appears that Social Security is abandoning "pulling" exhibits, perhaps permanently.

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