Social Security has issued a press release praising President Obama's proposed Fiscal Year 2012 budget for the agency. Also linked is a 28 page "Budget Overview." I have reproduced a rather startling chart from the report which shows that things have been going very badly over the last two years in one area. Here are some excerpts from the text, the first of which is from the Commissioner's preface:
A critical concern for FY 2011 is operating under a continuing resolution (CR). A full-year CR would erase the tremendous progress we have made in the last few years. We have improved our productivity by an average of 4 percent during my tenure, and we continue to look for ways to become more efficient. Nevertheless, our success is dependent on having enough skilled employees to handle our mounting workloads. A hiring freeze for the remainder of the year would result in a loss of about 2,500 Federal employees and 1,000 State employees in the DDS in FY 2011. This attrition will not occur uniformly, which will leave some offices seriously understaffed. Our backlogs would skyrocket, and people would wait considerably longer to receive decisions. As our backlogs grow, it will become more difficult, expensive, and take even longer to eliminate them. Waiting times in field offices and on our 800-number would increase dramatically. Improper payments would grow. We might even be forced to delay simple retirement claims. ...
Paying Medical Consultants Per Case: We are implementing initiatives focused on increasing the volume and quality of work processed by medical consultants. One of these initiatives focuses on converting the pay structure for medical consultants from pay-per-hour to pay-per-case. We believe this new pay structure could increase productivity, allow medical consultants to review a greater number of disability claims, and ultimately assist in reducing the number of cases awaiting medical consultant review. ...
Reducing Headquarters Staff: We are reducing staff in headquarters components through attrition. Although headquarters staff play an important support role, with our limited resources, it is more important for us to fund our front-line operations. ...
5 comments:
"pay-per-hour to pay-per-case"
Productivity may get better but not quality.
Why can't the commissioner do this "pay per"structure with all his employees,although he would need to change certain job descriptions or titles(alj)but it may improve things.
The IG uncovered an MD in Alabama that signed 100 recons in an hour. What would thst doc do if he were paid by the case?
100 recons in one hour @$20/case= $2000/hour.. not a bad tradeoff.. Let's do more of that!
At $2,000 hour, not a bad idea for the MDs, but since almost all recons are DENIALS, not a good idea for claimants.
The chart mostly shows the ODAR Senior Attorney program again getting the backlog under control.
It requires _goverment_think_ to explain how authority to hire new employees is involved in retaining existing base of "skilled employees".
It involves opposit ends for the career pole.
In practice, short staffing with no replacements comming in, might motivate some long term employees to remain, keeping the "experienced employees".
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