Region X of the Social Security wishes to identify vendors who may provide Verbatim Hearing Recordings (VHR) at various locations. The government contemplates the pursuit of up to three Indefinite Quantity Indefinite Delivery type contracts. One contract would provide all VHR needs in the States of Washington and Idaho, one contract would provide all VHR needs in the State of Oregon, and one contact would provide all VHR needs in the State of Alaska. The period of performance would be one year, with four one-year option periods.
There are a couple of things that I find surprising about this notice. First, my understanding is that Social Security has been contracting with individuals who perform this service rather than trying to contract out the service for an entire state. Second, on April 27 of this year Social Security Commissioner Astrue told the House Ways and Means Committee that "We are in-sourcing verbatim hearing reporting to further improve ALJ productivity."
Can someone tell me what is going on? This is not such a small thing to the hundreds of people who work as hearing reporters.
Can someone tell me what is going on? This is not such a small thing to the hundreds of people who work as hearing reporters.
In short the problem is the hearing contractors we use now are not vertatim in any way, shape or form. If a hearing is really needed as part of the record than the hearing needs to be listened to because the accuracy of what is put in the hearing notes cannot be trusted. Sometimes all we get is "Judge Speaks", "Rep talks" "claimant testifies about job". Useless to be kind. I'm sorry but that is the truth.
ReplyDelete