What's going on with re-recon (also known as informal remands) and senior attorney reviews? These have been efforts to cope with Social Security's backlog in hearing disability cases. Non-Administrative Law Judge personnel have done reviews after a request for hearing to see if the cases can be paid. My impression earlier in the year was that these cases were being reviewed under a standard that guaranteed that few would be approved. It seemed close to being a waste of time. Now, it seems like these reviews have slowed down. What's going on? Lack of staff to even do reviews? A decision that these reviews weren't worth the effort? Even more restrictive standards for approving a claim?
3 comments:
We just had a favorable review of a case sent back from ODAR to a Disability Examiner. The review was processed quickly, and the examiner was very pleasant to work with.
An ALJ trainer informed me that 7% of informal remands were being paid. She seemed quite frustrated with the process. 32
Good heavens, how many times has the agency done this? Send cases back to the DDS's that seem to be "obvious pays"? I'm a geezer and can hardly remember how often this has been done under numerous "initiatives." A few get paid, but frankly, OTR decisions are usually quicker. It's mostly smoke and mirrors for upper management: Oh look, we are REALLY doing something.
Sigh.
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