New Attorney Fee Regulations Proposed

Tomorrow's Federal Register will contain new proposed regulations concerning fees for attorneys and others who represent Social Security claimants. Here is the summary:

We propose to revise our rules regarding payment of representative fees to allow representatives to charge and receive a fee from third parties without requiring our authorization in certain instances. We also propose to eliminate the requirement that we authorize fees for legal guardians or court-appointed representatives who provide representational services in claims before us if a court has already authorized their fees. We are proposing these revisions to reflect changes in representatives’ business practices, and in the ways in which claimants obtain representation, and to make more efficient the way we process representative fees.

This seems aimed at helping Allsup and others who represent Social Security claimants at the behest of long term disability insurance companies.

Interesting that this will appear in the Federal Register only a few days after it cleared the Office of Management and Budget, while the new proposed mental impairment listings are still awaiting publication when they cleared the Office of Management and Budget on July 9.

Update: Here is a link to the proposed regulations as published in the Federal Register.