On Friday I attended a continuing legal education session put on by the North Carolina Association for Justice (formerly the NC Academy of Trial Lawyers) which included Ethel Zelenske from the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and several speakers from the Social Security Administration. Here are some news items I picked up.
Ethel Zelenske is the Director of NOSSCR's Government Affairs Office in Washington. She reported that Social Security entered the 2009 Fiscal Year (FY) on October 1, 2008 with an 8,100 man year (or in government terms Full Time Equivalent or FTE year) backlog of work apart from the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review. Note that I did not say man hour backlog, but man year backlog. (Update: This 8,100 man year backlog figure was used earlier by Senator Baucus as the size the workload backup may grow to in FY 2009.)
Zelenske brought with her some statistics from Social Security on average Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) dispositions per day per hearing office and average age of pending at each hearing office. You can view these on the separate Social Security Perspectives Blog. Please note that that the average age of pending number is potentially misleading.
Zelenske mentioned that Representative John Lewis of Georgia, an important member of the House Ways and Means Committee, has promised to introduce legislation to raise the cap on fees for representing Social Security claimants and to index that cap for inflation.
Reginald Jackson, Social Security's Acting Deputy Associate Commissioner for the Office of Disability Policy, talked about various policy issues, one of which is that Social Security is updating its medical listings for disability. I inquired about the status of the mental impairment listings. Social Security had obtained approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for new mental impairment listings in July but has not published the proposal in the Federal Register. Jackson's response was essentially, "Oh, you mean the 12.05 proposal? We were told that was on hold because of the transition to the new administration." Listing 12.05 is for mental retardation. It has become the most controversial of listings. I have no doubt that Michael Astrue intended to make it dramatically more difficult for mentally retarded people to qualify for disability benefits, but realized that he would never be able to get this past OMB as a final regulation in an Obama Administration.
Susan L. Brown, Social Security's eDIB Coordinator, told the group that Social Security hopes to roll out attorney and representative access to the electronic files over the internet nationally by this time next year. Interestingly, she mentioned that attorneys and representatives would be assigned an ID code for access to electronic files. Attorneys and representatives have objected to being required to use their own Social Security numbers as a unique identifier with Social Security, as is now the case. The concern is that this gives their own staff, Social Security staff and even their clients access to this confidential information. An ID number other than a Social Security number would be welcome news for people like me. I would be willing to bet that because they have ready access to my Social Security number several Social Security employees have already looked up my earnings record. They could get fired for it, but human nature being what it is, they have probably already done it.
Ethel Zelenske is the Director of NOSSCR's Government Affairs Office in Washington. She reported that Social Security entered the 2009 Fiscal Year (FY) on October 1, 2008 with an 8,100 man year (or in government terms Full Time Equivalent or FTE year) backlog of work apart from the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review. Note that I did not say man hour backlog, but man year backlog. (Update: This 8,100 man year backlog figure was used earlier by Senator Baucus as the size the workload backup may grow to in FY 2009.)
Zelenske reported that Michael Astrue appears to want to stay in his position as Commissioner of Social Security.
Zelenske brought with her some statistics from Social Security on average Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) dispositions per day per hearing office and average age of pending at each hearing office. You can view these on the separate Social Security Perspectives Blog. Please note that that the average age of pending number is potentially misleading.
Zelenske mentioned that Representative John Lewis of Georgia, an important member of the House Ways and Means Committee, has promised to introduce legislation to raise the cap on fees for representing Social Security claimants and to index that cap for inflation.
Reginald Jackson, Social Security's Acting Deputy Associate Commissioner for the Office of Disability Policy, talked about various policy issues, one of which is that Social Security is updating its medical listings for disability. I inquired about the status of the mental impairment listings. Social Security had obtained approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for new mental impairment listings in July but has not published the proposal in the Federal Register. Jackson's response was essentially, "Oh, you mean the 12.05 proposal? We were told that was on hold because of the transition to the new administration." Listing 12.05 is for mental retardation. It has become the most controversial of listings. I have no doubt that Michael Astrue intended to make it dramatically more difficult for mentally retarded people to qualify for disability benefits, but realized that he would never be able to get this past OMB as a final regulation in an Obama Administration.
Susan L. Brown, Social Security's eDIB Coordinator, told the group that Social Security hopes to roll out attorney and representative access to the electronic files over the internet nationally by this time next year. Interestingly, she mentioned that attorneys and representatives would be assigned an ID code for access to electronic files. Attorneys and representatives have objected to being required to use their own Social Security numbers as a unique identifier with Social Security, as is now the case. The concern is that this gives their own staff, Social Security staff and even their clients access to this confidential information. An ID number other than a Social Security number would be welcome news for people like me. I would be willing to bet that because they have ready access to my Social Security number several Social Security employees have already looked up my earnings record. They could get fired for it, but human nature being what it is, they have probably already done it.
The true backlog is always much larger than the agency can measure - workload that comes in on paper, for example, can sit in someone's inbox for weeks before it gets entered into the system and until it is entered into the system no one knows it is there. SSA used to do a quarterly PE (post entitlement)inventory during which each employee had to go through everything at their work station and count how much of particular workloads they had. This often identified work that no one knew was out there. SSA has become so dependent on computer systems that work that comes in on paper often gets delayed or even unrecognized by newer employees may of whom have never seen a paper disability claim. Shortly before my retirement I saw a young claims representative deny a paper disability claim because he thought he had paperwork for a claim that did not exist on the system. This dependence on systems is necessary because of the extreme understaffing.
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