In a legal settlement that advocates described as the first of its kind, Social Security has agreed to provide staff training and assistance to two mentally disabled San Francisco men who said they lost benefits because they couldn't understand the rules.
The settlement, approved Tuesday by a federal judge, requires the Social Security Administration to assign a staff expert to meet regularly with each man, explain the agency's forms and requirements, and help them respond in ways that protect their rights.
The agency also agreed to pay $900,000 in fees for the two men's lawyers, who have worked on the case for five years. ...
The agency offers no such assistance to at least 2 million Social Security recipients, and an undetermined number of applicants, who have mental or learning disabilities and have to decipher the complex eligibility requirements on their own, Bruce [the attorney for the plaintiffs] said.
5 comments:
Let's keep putting everything on the internet, so those who are most in need of help won't be able to figure anything else. Let's keep cutting staff so that no one has time to help those who need it most. Let's make the job so miserable so that those with the most institutional knowledge leave. Those who were schooled in the real customer service where the claimant always came first, they will all be gone too. Let's make the hearing process as adversarial as possible so that the claimant who needs help the most (not represented) gets bent over the most. Let's treat the reps like dirt so that they don't want to take these cases anymore (except for big hat firms). I work for the Agency and I am GLAD that these men won their suit. I hope it is a sign of things to come because if we keep headed in the same direction we have been, whoa to the claimants.
"How Much Would It Cost Social Security To Give All Disability Claimants The Assistance They Need?"
I understand what you're saying, and you're right, it is unreasonable to expect Social Security to provide personalized service to 2 million people. Perhaps, then SSA should consider simplifying the process so that you don't need to hire lawyers to prove that you are too disable and poor to do important tasks, such as hiring lawyers...
Don't mean to sound unsympathetic, because I understand the problem. But just where will SSA find the money to provide this personal assistance? This is all very nice, and probably justified. But how will this service be provided when the agency doesn't have enough front line staff to assist the non-mentally challenged population?
Why are these mentally challenged adults allowed to manage their own benefits if they cannot do it on their own? SSA has always had the authority to appoint representative payees to help the neediest of the needly. There are also other agencies that are specifically tasked and funded as the assistants for the developmentally disabled and have case workers assigned. Why does SSA have to take on that role in addition to all the other roles that they are inefficient in doing? What other work will remain undone while the staff trains the public? SSA employees are not advocates of the disabled nor should they be. They should be concientiously and fairly applying the rules and regulations that Congress has created. They can be both professional and compassionate in those assigned duties, but are not social workers.
Simplifying the process would probably lead to fewer allowances. ALJ decisions are legal documents that have to stand up to higher level authority. If an ALJ forgets to include a reference to some obscure ruling or doesn't address some small nuance, that gives attorneys the ability to get the decision overturned. Simplifying the process would probably make
ALJ's much more like DDS analysts. Why else are there so darn many agreements made to amend an onset to a later date? Why does a claimant have to agree to such a thing when an ALJ can just make a decision to pick a later onset date because the evidence justifies it? It is because the ALJ doesn't want the claimant to appeal a partially favorable decision and it is harder to write a legally sustainable decision.
Almost a million dollars to attorneys. And how much time did these attorneys spend with these two disabled people and how much money do the disabled get to share?
A million dollars to lawyers and a personal SSA employee for two people. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
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