Kathy Ruffing at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has compiled a report on the many safeguards against fraud and abuse in Social Security's disability programs. The chart to the left is from the report.
The report correctly notes that while there is actually little fraud and abuse in Social Security disability that if Congress really wants to do more to combat whatever fraud and abuse there is, the agency should get better administrative funding. For instance, inadequate funding is limiting continuing disability reviews.
Unfortunately, additional funding is unlikely to happen with this Congress. The GOP is only interested in using the relatively rare cases of fraud or abuse to justify their 80 year old losing battle against the concept of social insurance. They really don't care about the fraud and abuse itself. Good government isn't their thing.
Unfortunately, additional funding is unlikely to happen with this Congress. The GOP is only interested in using the relatively rare cases of fraud or abuse to justify their 80 year old losing battle against the concept of social insurance. They really don't care about the fraud and abuse itself. Good government isn't their thing.
GOP Congressional Guide for Social Security Issues
ReplyDelete1. Search for and publicize any fraud cases
2. Misrepresent the scope of those problems
3. After misrepresentations are debunked wait a little while and try again
4. In the meantime try to influence adjudicator behavior by publicly bullying some higher grant outliers
5. Cut the agency's administrative funding needed to reduce the backlog and provide adequate services
6. Use the above to influence opinion towards cutting Social Security benefits (the ultimate goal)
These numbers threw me off since it included those who are not eligible for "technical" reasons. Does anyone know what percentage of applications where the person is technically qualified are ultimately allowed disability? A few years ago, it was 35% at initial application, 15% at the recon level, and 50% at the hearing level. I know the national average at the judicial level is down to 43%, but what is the rate at intitial and reconsideration.
ReplyDelete"Only" 40%? That's a lot.
ReplyDeleteThe technical denials have no business being included in this graph. These include all the manufactured claims that inflate the initial claims numbers (and for which the district office gets credit), the N01/N04 SSI denials that muck up someone's Title II claim with windfall offset coding and the 090 Title II denials. Take those out of the graph and you have 56% of the initial claims ultimately approved and 34% medically denied.
ReplyDeleteThese statistics are from 2009 - 2011 - I wonder how much has changed.
ReplyDeleteWell, one thing is clear...get rid of the RECON LEVEL!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Max for your math, but I think it is 44% are denied for medical reason. And 12:10 you are right -- reconsideration is a total waste of time. Fortunately where I practice we go straight to the hearing level.
ReplyDeleteI was denied on res judicata technical. Only problem was I never applied for benefits before! (I was later awarded after many years of nonsense)
ReplyDeleteIf we're going to talk about the way ODAR and SSA plays with numbers, lets talk about the average disposition time.
ReplyDeleteODAR lumps dismissals into the calculation. Cases are dismissed for two reason primarily. Untimely filed or no show at hearing. The cases dismissed for untimely filing are dismissed within a month or two of filing. Those cases should be excluded from the calculation of disposition time.
ODAR includes OTR decision, and senior attorney decisions, both of which generally occur six to ten months before a hearing would be scheduled, in the mix. This also brings down the average time to disposition.
I would like to see a chart that breaks out dismissals, OTR's, and cases decided after hearing. I would like that chart to show, for each category, the numbers for each time period. Example 1-90 days, 9-180 days, and so on. I think we would find that the mean time to disposition, for cases that are actually heard is substantially higher than the stated disposition times.
As the old adage goes, ODAR and SSA use statistics as a drunk uses a lamppost, more for support than illumination.
Everyone does. Watch this--have we all, as a group, settled on how we'd like to do the "pay rate" calculation for individual ALJs? Do we count dismissals? Do you break favorable into FF and PF? I'll wait :)
ReplyDelete