Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report on Social Security's Strategy for Reducing The Initial Claims Backlog. Basically, the report says that the prospects for achieving the agency's goals are poor because the agency expects to be badly underfunded over the near two years at least. The poor prospects are despite the agency's projection that the number of disability claims filed is about to drop dramatically. Does that sound realistic?. See below for the agency's chart:
14 comments:
I think it is interesting that SSA believes it can improve efficiencies by using video conferencing for psychological consultative exams. I doubt that is a good idea.
No, it is not likely that disability claims receipts will drop significantly in the next few years. SSA is not experiencing a short term spike of claims, but is rather seeing a long term pattern of growth in the disability program. This growth will likely continue until the majority of baby boomers reach retirement age.
Dream on, oh SSA.
The chart on Receipts Projections is somewhat deceptive because the bottom line for receipt numbers ("y axis") is not zero, which the eye tends to assume.
Also some earlier year SSA projections of anticipated receipts would be enlightening -- and probably show that SSA has a history of low projections.
Even after the projected decline, the FY14 filings would still be higher than the actual filings of 2,686 in FY09.
Maybe the number of disability claims will drop because part of the large baby boom generation is moving into retirement eligibility, therefore they won't be filing for dib.
You are still eligible to file for DIB up until full retirement age.
In fact, SSA routinely encourages people who file for earlier retirement to file for DIB.
A closer review of all data is warranted. SSA has long based staffing on claims receipts. Staff is constantly encouraged to take technical denials even when it is obvious the client is ineligible. For example Title II claims from low birth weight babies with no work history.
I doubt the truth in the claim that SSA is taking TII applications from children with no work history.
12:43 -- I'm a retired manager from the agency and had one particular manager tell me that they took technical denials on everyone possible. The manager even made his CRs take SSI Aged claims from claimants filing for Retirement benefits (if the claimant was age 65 or older). It's true. The additional work seemed crazy to me as we could barely get the basic work done with the staffing. However, the manager was praised for his "high work units" and even though my boss was his boss, I know she knew the truth, but did nothing. That small office of his did not have the service area to generate that many SSI Aged claims. It was out and out cheating to try to get more staff (and it worked). Meanwhile, when we were able, we helped that office with a less productive workload that they put on the back burner because they couldn't 'get to it'. Additionally, my fellow manager admitted to taking T2 tech denials for claimants who had no work history. So, yes, SSA is taking claims from those they know are not eligible. Meanwhile, the public suffers with unprocessed work CDRs (getting overpaid more and more while the case sits on a CR's desk). The CRs were doing what they were told to do. This particular manager was wrong to do this. I'm sure he's not the only one out there doing needless work to generate work units to try to get more staff.
Anon 12:43..the thing that bothers me most about that is that we've forced unsuspecting ineligible claimants to disclose all kinds of personal info about income & resources just to bump up our SSI claim numbers. It's one thing to take an uninsured T2 claim to get claim credit, but it's just plain wrong to make an ineligible person tell us all of their income and resource info for an SSI claim, just to get the numbers up. But I've sat in enough meetings where the manager has gone on and on about our WUMPY's or whatever the heck that acronym is for our claims credit (I don't care, I just do my work), so I know that Regional Office doesn't really care how the numbers get there, just where an office is on the list.
The official agency policy is that a T2 claim must be taken if the SSI claimant has even $ 1.00 of earnings in his/her lifetime. There is a weekly management information list that flags SSI claims where this policy was not followed so that the T2 claim can be taken. The public has no idea of the amount of waste and mismanagement that exists, and when the union speaks up, it is roundly castigated.
Anon 3:42 - As in any office there is going to be different policy. I am sure it differs even from state to state. In NY, there is an eye watching these types of claims to inflate numbers. I can't possibly see why establishing a record for a child with no work history would be productive. I am sure since you've retired this has been clamped down.
I had to discipline a CR for taking incorrect T2 tech denials even though the previous DM had blatantly encouraged the policy. Realizing that we'd be blown out of the water had this matter gone up the line, I scaled down the penalty to the anger of my AD, who knew of the practice and expected it to be "officially" discouraged while out of the other side of her mouth bleated constantly about the need for more work units. The corruption and inefficiency in my former agency is still mind-boggling to me. It's why I'm not there anymore.
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