Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) was asked to do a study to determine whether the agency's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) has been following a First In First Out (FIFO) policy in reviewing claimants' requests for hearings. The report is now out. OIG was reassured by ODAR's regional management teams that ODAR was following FIFO "as much as possible." OIG was informed, truthfully, that there are many legitimate reasons not to review cases FIFO. As best I can tell from reading the report, OIG reviewed only 20 actual case files to see whether hearing offices were actually doing what its regional management teams thought they was doing. OIG concluded that they were.
A few thoughts: First, what in the name of goodness made OIG think they could find out anything about the situation by asking the regional management teams? If ODAR offices are diverging from FIFO, it is not happening at the regional level but at the individual hearing office level. Second, this study took 10 months and all OIG could do was to review 20 individual case files to see what is going on at ground level. On its face this seems grossly inadequate.
I cannot say how widespread the problem is but I see many dramatic departures from FIFO with no apparent justification. This report seems inadequate to me.
My understanding is that at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) appeals are assigned a serial number. Basically, VA does not go on to the next serial number until it takes care of the earlier serial numbers. I wish that ODAR were doing this.
A few thoughts: First, what in the name of goodness made OIG think they could find out anything about the situation by asking the regional management teams? If ODAR offices are diverging from FIFO, it is not happening at the regional level but at the individual hearing office level. Second, this study took 10 months and all OIG could do was to review 20 individual case files to see what is going on at ground level. On its face this seems grossly inadequate.
I cannot say how widespread the problem is but I see many dramatic departures from FIFO with no apparent justification. This report seems inadequate to me.
My understanding is that at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) appeals are assigned a serial number. Basically, VA does not go on to the next serial number until it takes care of the earlier serial numbers. I wish that ODAR were doing this.
3 comments:
A careful reading of teh report reveals that OIG reviewed way more than 20 cases. The 20 case mention came froma comment where the report indicated "as an example" that 20 cases in a particular HO were reviewed for a particular reason. It did not say, imply, or suggest, that only 20 files were reviewed in toto by OIG.
many cases are not fifo'd b/c some claimant reps routinely request "critical" status. In fact, all the cases are critical, but under the laws of statistics, many "less than" critical cases will be placed in front of the line due to the number of baseless requests.
And some of those reps routinely request OTR decisions, even if there is no basis for the request. Cheapens the whole concept and often moves the case up in the order of hearings.
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