Take a look at the sort of thing that comes from claiming that because Social Security pressures you to hold more hearings and issue more decisions that the agency is forcing you to approve more disability claims. You're not getting back at your enemy, Social Security. You're not reducing the pressures you face to hear and decide cases. You're only aiding those who really want to influence how you decide cases or who just want to do away with your jobs altogether. The enemy of your enemy isn't necessarily your friend.
I'm writing this as someone who agrees with you that ALJs are expected to hear and decide too many cases and that this reduces the quality of the process. I encourage you to stick to that message. I think it's a message that most people involved with the program have sympathy for. The "I'm being forced to approve claims" message is ridiculous.
12 comments:
If we ever got anyone at the top of the aalj with any real knowledge of its newer membership and with any semblance of political skill, the union could be a real force for fixing the process. Alas, all we ge are old school judges who want to return to paper cases and deciding 15 cases a month.
That's complete BS. No one wants to go back to the paper files; no one thinks 15 cases a month is an appropriate number of cases to decide in a month. Hyperbole like this helps no one.
The union does take posititions without polling its membership, advocating for adversarial hearings. They also filed their current lawsuit RE: Qoutas without giving its membership a headsup, and the arguement that ALJs are being forced to "pay" cases make us look ridiculous and incompetent.
However, that newspaper article, blaming Obama's managment style for SSA's dealing with the backlog is hyperbole run amuck and not worth the paper its written on.
I'd hope a claimant's rep in the Oklahoma area would correct this "editorial" writer's inaccuracies, misstatements and lies. The approval rate actually dropped approximately 3% btw '07 to '10. The reason many claims are approved by ALJs after being denied earlier is that they're durational denials, especially SSI only claims. Others are approved because - especially after the claimant reps-up - better records are submitted, supporting statements and PCEs from treating sources are submitted, medical evidence from the initial and recon level is reviewed de novo, etc. ...and there's plenty more to find fault with this "editorial," including its inflammatory tone and the faulty connect-the-dots tying of the SSA disability program to the President's managerial style.
perhaps one of the 10th Circuit NOSSCR board members.
it is especially ridiculous since the judges don't write their own cases. What does it matter how the case is decided if someone else is drafting the decision?
Pretty much nonsense. I have always wondered why there is a 500-700 quota (it seems more like a guideline). It does reconfirm what I believe the SSA only cares about ALJs - How many cases they can decide. I really don't think there is any pressure to pay or not pay cases. Just make a decision.
So the recommendation NOT to read the evidence is very troubling if true. This is especially about VA medical records. Those can be voluminous but they are coming from another US agency. Very troubling if true.
Very few judges, not just SSA ALJs, write their own decisions.
@ 3:55.
Not sure why you find it troubling that ALJ's are recommended to skim, skip some documents. SSA rules say that decisions must address medical opinions. The documents that they are skimming/skipping typically don't contain opinions of functional ability and are therefore largely irrelevant to the decision making process. To the extent that they do support/contradict a claimant's claims, that can be determined by an extremely cursory glance.
Additionally, if it's really relevant, just highlight it in your brief. Also, as noted herein, ALJs rely on writers to draft their decisions. All the writers I know review all the evidence, so even if an ALJ skims/skips, relevant evidence would be identified by the writer and included in the decision.
"Very few judges, not just SSA ALJs, write their own decisions."
Not true of ALJs in other federal agencies. The SSA ALJ work is not remotely similar to the work that real ALJs do in other federal agencies. Instead, it is more akin to high volume claims processing. In contrast, ALJs at other agencies devote much more time to legal research when they are deciding cases. At SSA, doing legal research is not really a significant part of the job when churning out 500+ decisions a year. ALJs at other federal agencies always edit and proofread their decisions before signing them, whereas SSA ALJs commonly blame their decision writers for decisional errors rather than take responsibility for the documents that they sign.
Unfortunately, SSA has too many self-interested individuals fighting desperately to maintain the SSA ALJ position. If anyone really cared about improving the disability claims process, the SSA ALJ position would be replaced by a hearing examiner job, which is more appropriate in a non adversarial disability administrative proceeding.
That sounds about right to me.
You say "not true" that other Fed ALJs don't write their own decisions, BUT then you go on to say that other Fed ALJs edit and proofread their decisions, and say nothing about them writing their own decisions. SSA ALJs also edit and prooread their decisions. Each decision written by a decision writer is placed the EDIT queue and guess what? The ALJ edits and proofreads, before either signing it, or sending it back it to the decision writer. Guess what, ALJs also do their own legal research on cases before them. They may not have to do it as often as the ALJs in the rarefied air of other, highfallutin (sic?) agencies, but they do do it.
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