Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, today announced that for the first time since 1999, the agency has ended the year with fewer disability hearings pending than in the prior year. Social Security ended fiscal year (FY) 2009 with 722,822 hearings pending compared to 760,813 hearings pending at the start of the year, a reduction of more than 37,000 cases. Over the same period, the average processing time for these cases improved from 514 days in FY 2008 to 491 in FY 2009.
“Our backlog reduction plan is working, and progress is accelerating,” Commissioner Astrue said. “Even in the face of a significant increase in our workloads as a result of the worst recession since the Great Depression, we have reduced the hearings backlog for nine consecutive months. Thanks to the efforts of thousands of hardworking Social Security employees and the additional funding we received from President Obama and the Congress, we have exceeded our backlog reduction goal for this year.”
To achieve its backlog reduction goals, the agency has embarked on the largest expansion in decades of its capacity to hear disability appeals. This year, the agency hired 147 new Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) and 850 support staff and plans to hire 226 additional ALJs plus support staff in FY 2010. To provide flexibility to assist the most backlogged hearing offices, the agency opened three new National Hearing Centers (NHCs) in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Baltimore, Maryland; and Chicago, Illinois. The agency also has aggressive plans to open 14 new hearing offices and 4 satellite offices by the end of next year with the first of those new offices opening in Anchorage, Alaska in the next few months.
In addition to reducing the number of cases awaiting a hearing decision, the agency again targeted the oldest and most difficult cases for processing. Beginning in FY 2007 with 65,000 cases that were 1,000 days old or older, the agency has continually attacked its “aged” cases. This year, the agency targeted 166,838 cases that were 850 days or older and virtually eliminated this entire universe of cases. The goal in FY 2010 has been reset again to eliminate cases over 825 days old.
Social Security’s ALJs also continue to increase their productivity. The agency averaged 570 dispositions (2.28 per day) per available ALJ in FY 2009, an upward trend that has continued for the last three years.
And by the way, the scale on that chart makes it really misleading.
"By the way, the scale on that chart" is 100% linear. What the heck is your beef with the scale of the chart?
ReplyDeleteIt is certainly not Social Security's fault that the initial and recon levels are backed up. It's due to more applications than ever coming in from a lackluster economy and a lack of budget to keep up with them all.
ReplyDeleteActually Charles I don't think the jam up at DDS had anything to do with it. It is not like receipts at OHA were down. The bottom line is we took in a lot of cases like we always do but we managed to move more cases than we normally do. Can anyone say Senior Attorney program? Now can we say Attorney Magistrates? Then abolish DQB and the back log would go down by paying the cases that should be paid at the earliest possible point. Then OHA could take care of the dirty work like always.
ReplyDeleteI think the more pertinent question is. How many claims are accurately adjudicated?
ReplyDeleteTo answer A#3's question: that depends on who you ask. Equivocal evidence combined with byzantine regulations often means there could be any number of "right" answers. According to SSA's Office of Quality Performance, the DDS denial accuracy rate is around 93%. Yet the total number of denials overturned at the ALJ Hearing stage is equivalent to about 20% of those denials. The Appeals Council remands a substantial minority of claims denied by an ALJ. It's also interesting to note the extremely wide variations in the percentage of cases allowed versus denied by individual adjudicators.
ReplyDeleteThe real pertienent question is: Is the system broken, or did it never work to begin with?
More cases are approved at the ALJ level because at that point, the case becomes more legal and technical than medical. I've heard of ALJs allowing ridiculous claims.
ReplyDeleteSince individual adjudicators have caseloads with extremely wide medical variations, their allowance rate will, of course, widely vary.
I agree with the sentiment that part of this good news come from the DDS's being crushed with applications which is slowing down the determinations and therefore the number of hearings to be requested. Our office's monthly receipts are down substantially as our the other ODAR's in our state.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, its quite encouraging that the number of 825 day old cases at the start of this fiscal year is less than the number of 850 day old cases the agency had at the start of last fiscal year.
So tell me Jennifer you think that if the double amputee was paid, it would be ridiculous? Tell ya what, lets cut off your legs through in some kidney disease and see how well you maintain competitive employement 40 hours a week. And make sure that whatever job you find exists in signficant numbers in the applicable economy. No rubber stamping jobs allowed.
ReplyDeleteSee ya at the surgical supply store.
By the way there is no "adjudication" going on at the DDSs. That is a joke, joke, joke. Of course it is more of a legal/technical decision at the ALJ level. At that level we recognize that the deciding factors on which a disability decision is based is set out by regulation which is derived from a LAW.
Am I really the only one that clearly sees that the emporer has no clothes on and is diseased to boot?
Alice