The Accuracy Is "Quite Good"

From the San Diego  Union-Tribune:

The two highest-earning state civil-service employees working in San Diego County made hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses last year reviewing Social Security disability claims.

Both of the psychiatrists work for the California Department of Social Services, which uses federal money to employ dozens of physical and mental health analysts who review claims for disability benefits.


Dr. Robert B. Paxton, 62, made $440,068 last year including $306,315 of bonus, making him the top-paid across California among the analysts in this field and the ninth-highest earner in the overall state workforce.


Dr. Kelly J. Loomis, 45, made $368,917, of which $237,168 was bonus.


The bonuses come from a program that pays them $27 for each case in excess of 18 that they review in a day.

Social Services officials would not say how many cases Paxton reviewed in 2010, what their outcome was or how many days he spent at work. When reached by telephone, Paxton said he was told not to comment for this story.


Assuming Paxton took all state holidays, 21 required furlough days and one week’s vacation, that left him 221 weekdays to work. He would have had to review about 70 cases per weekday, or more than 15,000 in a year, to earn the bonus he was paid. ...


A substantial number of the cases are hundreds of pages long, according to attorneys with decades of experience representing disability claimants. Those attorneys questioned the quality of the reviews. ...


According to Washington, the consultants’ cases are subjected to a quality review process performed by their supervisor, then by the state office, and finally by Social Security. For each review, a sampling of cases is checked for errors and any inaccurate cases are sent back for correction. Social Security spokesman Lowell Kepke said California’s performance is on par with that of other states.


“Generally, our reviews show that California’s accuracy is quite good, and better than 90 percent,” Kepke said.