The Sixty Minutes piece on the Social Security disability programs has run. It didn't seem fair or balanced to me that what I do for a living was represented solely by Binder & Binder and Eric Conn. I don't think that anyone familiar with this field of legal practice thinks that Binder & Binder (which isn't a law firm anyway) or Eric Conn is representative of Social Security attorneys.
I've never had a physician examining claimants in my office. I don't know anyone who does. That arrangement presents obvious credibility problems that seem to me to make doing it worse than useless. Why was this presented as if it were a common practice?
I was displeased to see two Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) trying to throw Social Security disability claimants and their attorneys under the bus -- and the ALJs didn't even get to promote their government representative plan. I hope that they realize that throwing other people under the bus didn't make ALJs look good in anyone's mind.
The biggest problem with the show is that it relied heavily upon Senator Coburn's report saying that he found that many Social Security disability recipients weren't disabled. Coburn's report never revealed who made those determinations that Social Security got it wrong. I think it can be taken for granted that the people making this determination for Coburn had an ax to grind but beyond that is the question of whether they were even familiar with the definition of disability in the Social Security Act and regulations. Clearly, Coburn has only limited familiarity himself. He wanted to emphasize that a claimant should be denied as long as they could do any job. No, it's any job existing in significant numbers in the national economy considering age, education and work experience. This is far from a trivial distinction since consideration of "age, education and work experience" play heavily in most disability determinations. Social Security isn't supposed to deny the claim of a retired coal miner because he can still be a nuclear physicist.
There will be a Senate hearing tomorrow. I hope some Democratic Senators bother to show up and challenge Senator Coburn. I also hope the witness list is balanced, unlike this Sixty Minutes piece.
17 comments:
Don't be shocked if the hearing tomorrow is postponed. Also, it's Carper's committee, and he's not unfriendly to the agency or its mandate.
Charles, if 60 Minutes were to ask you what deficiencies in SSDI were worth exploring in a 15 minute segment, what issues would you point them toward?
As a former claimant's rep and cuurent ALJ, I found your comments, in general, accurate, especially those about the review of the ALJ decisions by Senator Coburn's staff. I've shared them over at the ALJ Discussion Board forum.
Maybe Coburn's medical examiners got it wrong. But isn't that what you base your practice on? The fact that social security gets it wrong?
No one is criticizing you Charles. Did you ever consider that everything isn't about you? Obviously, Coburn probably has a limited view and a clear agenda. Nevertheless, the program is being mismanaged in my view. People throw around the word fraud to loosely. The vast majority of laimants are not frauds, but extremely desperate. Even Coburn acknowledged this. He correctly stated the system is being misused by some long term unemployed. Nobody in the story judged people harshly for being so desperate to file for benefits. But this system is not meant for that. And Coburn wants Congress to address it. What could possibly be wrong with Congress having a discussion about this? I grant you Coburn is out for blood on this issue, but he makes some valid points. For you to sit here and act like the issues raised in this piece do not need to be addressed by Washington is baffling.
Having a stable social security is something workers nowadays need.
Just nonsense.
Just like many SSD attorneys, I was surprised (kind of shocked) how unbalanced the 60 minutes piece was. As a former newspaper reporter, I understand the piece. Conflict sells. Fraud sells.
Yeah, there is fraud in the SSD system just like any field or business in the world. But to just focus on that does not make sense. Gotta sell TV ads I guess.
Just nonsense.
I'm not surprised that "60 Minutes" went with a right-wing hatchet job. "60 Minutes" tailors its content to fit a corporatist agenda. Have you ever seen "The Insider"?
The 60 minutes piece was a perfect depiction of the public's tax dollars at work.
One point: re Conn's use of doctors to do exams for his clients. Change a few nouns in the presentation and you would be talking about the CE's SSA hires, especially those done by the corporate volume providers: rent a chiropracter's office for a Saturday morning, rent a doctor who for some reason cannot find honest work as a physician, schedule 10 - 20 exams and, lo and behold, claimants all say the exam took 2 - 5 minutes and yet there is a five page report with many precise findings such as "normal" range of motion measurements.
There is fraud and then there is fraud.
The "f" word was used quite frequently without any documentation. That did not seem to bother the TV "journalists". Lots of allegations and innuendo; no proof, even with Mr. Conn. His apparent story seems to stink but what are the facts?
One could go on and on but we must remember the primary purpose: sell ads, make money for CBS.
Senator Coburn asking where are all the disabled people coming from is about as dumb as asking why more people than ever are on Social Security retirement. The secret answer senator is DEMOGRAPHICS. There is a small cabal of conservative Ph.D.s who twist the data every which way to try to get away from this, but no matter how hard they try demographics is the main driver.
Why don't we just pass an "acceptable" fraud limit and call it a day? Since fraud is inevitable, and most on here seem the think acceptable I'm the case of disability, why not just set the threshold at 25%? Getting 3 our of 4 right seems pretty good right?
to 8:17 AM: Isn't funny how, too, everyone 50-54 has a light RFC and everyone 55-59 has a medium RFC? Hmmmm! Pre-ordained results???? I THINK NOT!!!!!
I am not an attorney but is this ethical for an attorney OR a claimant representative?
"Steve Kroft: Out of the hundreds of people that you represented, how many of these cases involved strong cases for disability?
Jenna Fliszar: Strong cases I would say maybe 30 percent to 40 percent. And then I would say half of my cases were not deserving of disability.
Steve Kroft: How many of them ultimately ended up getting benefits?
Jenna Fliszar: Half."
I am confused as to why this attorney would boldly throw clients under the bus on national television.
The whole system needs some reform. Offices are overstaffed and salaries are too high in many instances. Taxpayers dollars should not be inappropriately used to pay people 6 figure salaries (some of which have little or no education). If stories are done on the disabled, attorneys, etc; they should also be done on the salaries and credentials of some of the office staff. Its ironic that "public interest" jobs pay more than what people working in the private industry earn. SSA pays paralegals more than what attorneys and many of the people in the medical field earn.
Hey, don't talk about our highschool graduates that way. They are paid the same as their attorney buddies..
HOWEVER, I hope that SomeOne realizes that throwing other people under the bus IS absolutely what MY so-called ALJ did to ME ~just a few days before that show and this poor-us article !! As well as committing FRAUD and FORGERY within his own courtRoom? Then smirking and spewing degrading humiliation comments AT me, asking that the recorder be turned OFF; this devil knows he will KEEP getting by with such behavior - because he IS appointed FOR LIFE** and answers to NO one, much less the LAW ! Those whom he has giddily TAKEN all hope and Life FROM - won't ever have the massive funds to expose him! The very most that I can hope for now: that my own ugly Suicide will happen close enough to him or someone he Cares about (IF such exists) that it causes them to THINK about what a creepy protected scoundrel he truly IS? I'm sure that he isn't the only* one that thrives on throwing-citizens-UNDER-the-BUS, either. ..
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