A recent report from Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) shows that the statistics that Social Security is reporting on processing times at the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR), which is where the Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) work, include cases remanded for a new hearing. Who cares? This inclusion partially masks just how bad the backlogs really are at ODAR. The remands are supposed to be given priority in scheduling. Including cases that are scheduled six months after a remand with cases that are routinely scheduled two years after a new request for hearing makes the backlogs look less bad than they really are. Since remands are 15% of dispositions in some offices, this is not insignificant. Nationally, the difference in 2007 was about 2.5%. OIG recommended that Social Security keep the remand stats separate from the stats for new requests for hearing.
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