E-Mail From Commissioner To SSA And DDS Employees

Note the information about the second national hearing center in Albuquerque and the expansion of the national hearing center in Falls Church. Does anyone not in higher management at Social Security think this is a good idea?

Note also that most of the new employees will be going not to hearing offices or field offices, but to teleservice centers. It looks as if inability to answer telephones at the field offices is not perceived as nearly as big a problem as inability to answer the 800 phone calls.

Note finally the cherry picking of a newspaper article praising Social Security service. Certainly, many offices and individual Social Security employees deserve praise. I am happy to post links to such newspaper articles when I find them. It is just that there are not many of them. I had not seen this particular one.

From: ^Commissioner Broadcast
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 12:43 PM
Subject: COMMISSIONER'S BROADCAST--04/15/08

A Message To All SSA And DDS Employees

Subject: Important Issues Update

Last November, I said that I would update you on important issues. What follows is some information about our staffing situation, our efforts to reduce the disability backlog, our progress on some of our online service initiatives and other recent developments.

Staffing

I am pleased to report that we recently received this year’s appropriation, which gave us an extra $148 million and has allowed me to lift our current hiring freeze and provide some needed hiring flexibility to all components. This is the first time in 15 years that we have received an appropriation above the President’s budget. These resources will put us in a better position in FY 2009 to improve service to the public.

Each component will have at least one-for-one hiring authority; i.e., each will be able to hire as many employees as have left or will leave the Agency this year. We also will use the extra funding to strengthen our direct service components and for our plan to reduce the hearings backlog. To that end, I have given Operations permission to hire 3,900 employees, 1,300 employees more than the expected losses for this year. Also, out of those 3,900 additional staff, we will bolster the 800‑number operation by hiring 835 employees, which is a replacement rate of about two employees hired for each employee who leaves. ODAR will be able to hire 175 administrative law judges (ALJs), plus additional ALJs for a new National Hearing Center (NHC) in Albuquerque and to expand the Falls Church NHC. It also will add 143 additional support staff by the end of the fiscal year. We also will be able to continue with automation improvements.

As you may know, the President recently submitted his request to Congress for our FY 2009 funding. He has asked for $10.46 billion, which is a 6 percent increase over this year’s funding. If we are given that amount, it would be the largest percentage increase that we will have received in many years.

Disability

We have rolled out the quick disability determination (QDD) procedure to the entire country, and the DDSs have done a great job with it. In January, they reduced their processing time for these cases to an average of just six days. I thought you might enjoy reading the following letter to the editor about a case that was processed through the QDD procedure.

A letter to the editor of the Hot Springs, Ark., Sentinel-Record titled “Top Customer Service”:

Dear Editor: “We must commend the Hot Springs Social Security Office for its speed and efficiency in processing our claim. We filed online for disability January 25^th and had a check deposited into our account on February 5^th. The claim had to be processed with some local office assistance, but I don’t think you could ask for better service than this.”

This is a well-deserved compliment on our efforts to improve processing times of the most critical cases.

In addition, the comparable fast-track process, compassionate allowances, is moving along well, and we should begin the pilot in late summer or early fall.

To help with the hearings backlog, we recently hired 135 ALJs and will select another 40 before the end of the fiscal year and additional ALJs for the NHCs. While cases pending continue to rise (although at a lower rate than in the recent past), average processing time is down slightly, and we continue to eliminate the oldest cases in an impressive fashion. Since the hearings staff has increased its production, a difficult situation is improving rather than worsening.

Looking forward, we have reason for optimism about driving down the hearings backlog. By the end of this calendar year, we expect that the paper cases should be substantially gone. Next year, our new ALJs should be fully productive. When we reach these two milestones (and assuming we are not under a continuing resolution for a significant period of time), we expect to hit a “tipping point” and to see the number of pending hearings begin to drop dramatically.

Online Initiatives

The two-stage effort to improve the Internet Social Security Benefit Application (ISBA) is moving along nicely. The application will be significantly streamlined, and the online version significantly more user-friendly. The prototype of the online version looks terrific, and I think you will be excited when you see it. This new online ISBA will take about 15 minutes on average to file over the Internet, instead of the current 45 minutes. We expect to complete the first stage by September 27.

The second stage, which will include automatic adjudication of the simplest retirement claims, won’t be ready until 2010 due to the number of back-end systems changes it requires. Stage two will provide applicants with additional functionality, including the ability to look up their earnings history and expected benefit amounts online. This release will allow some claims to be effectuated without manual intervention. Automatic adjudication will free up about 10 minutes of processing time per application, which will allow us to perform other functions and improve our public service.

We are continuing our efforts to eliminate the need to request routine information directly from applicants for benefits. For example, we have already eliminated the need for retirement applicants to present proof of age when their allegations match the information in the Numident. These changes will not only make us more efficient, but also will allow our field offices more time for those interviews that require subtlety, experience and judgment.

All of you have been great about making suggestions for improvements. We have made a number of changes with iAppeals based on input from employees in the field. In addition, we made one change recently based on a hallway conversation that I had with an employee who suggested that we make better use of the back of our envelopes. Based on that employee’s suggestion, envelopes containing the 150 million Social Security Statements we send out each year will now deliver the message: “Save a trip. Visit www.socialsecurity.gov.”

I am very proud of the imagination, professionalism, “can-do” spirit and unwavering dedication to public service that you bring to work every day. One person who exemplifies these qualities is Deborah Carryer, who this month will receive the Employee of the Year Award from “CAREERS of the disABLED” Magazine. Deb is the District Manager of the Royal Oak, Mich., Field Office and advises, “Take some risks and try new things. You may just find out that you are good at it and like it!” Sound advice that all of us can take to heart. Please join me in congratulating Deb on her well‑deserved award.

As time goes by, I look forward to sharing more information with you on these and other exciting happenings. In the meantime, thanks again for all that you do in service to the American public.

Michael J. Astrue

Commissioner