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Also, Social Security dramatically improved its telephone service as the hearing backlogs soared.
The Acting Commissioner can say she's really concerned about the hearing backlog and that the agency is working hard to reduce it but the numbers suggest that it hasn't been a priority.
9 comments:
View from inside:
They talk quality, want quantity.
There is palpable contempt for ODAR once again and we do not get a fair share of the resources.
Our decisions now require more detail than ever. They are bigger than ever.
The ratio of 4.5 support for each Judge is not sufficient to timely and correctly process the caseload.
TPTB want everything automated and refuse to acknowledge that while technology is great, it cannot do everything.
Bottom line: Colvin is an Operations person and has no affection for the hearing process whatsoever. Ergo ODAR is back to being the red-headed step child it was before Astrue. Say what you will about Astrue, he fed ODAR a decent operating budget.
Until we get a COSS that is ODAR sensitive, it is not going to get any better.
Agreement from outside the agency: Ihave represented claimants since 1976. I agree with Anonymous 6:41.
I would only add that looking back over the long list of men and women who have headed SSA - back to Margaret Heckler - I don't remember any of them being "ODAR sensitive", except Astrue.
DITTO!
The only reason the Claims Pending has gone down since 2011 is because the Claims Receipts went down. The SSA has not actually gotten any more efficient since 2010/2011 when they were able to significantly reduce Claims Pending even while Claims Receipts went up. But I'm sure they will say it was a job well done and hope that you pay no attention to the other 2 graphs...
From the inside:
The backlog is directly related to ALJ hiring difficulties brought on by OPM. Can't hire the judges so the backlog soars. We can hire teleservice reps all day. You recently posted numbers showing staff going back up, those staff are not ALJs. The new hire ALJ are not far exceeding retirees the "corps" still remains around 1500 when we need about 1800.
4:13 is pretty much dead on. Save for the rounding error percentage of FF decisions those 20 or so senior attorneys from the National Adjudication Team project are issuing, no disposition leaves ODAR without an ALJ's signature on it. You couple the lack of ALJ hiring with the ALJ corps slowdown -- likely due to increased quality demands -- and there you go.
There is no reason for ALJs to produce more with the staff limitations they face. And for the outlier deny prone ALJs, they are having a field day because there is no real Appeals Council review any more. Until Colvin goes and a strong commissioner with some leadership skills emerges, the program, claimants, will suffer.
Is it not obvious why processing time and hearings cases are soaring while initial claims pending is going down? Initial claims are denied outright. What choice do claimants have but to use their appeal rights if they are disabled? and so they wait, and wait and wait...
The chart on processing times is described by the Agency as
"For instance, the average processing time for a hearing increased from 426 days in FY 2010 to 480 days in FY 2015"
True, but fails to mention that the processing time had dropped to 353 in FY 2012 before rising to 480 in 2015. By picking 2010 as the supposed base year, the increase is minimized.
And, I also don't believe the 480 figure. By averaging the dismissals (often for things like untimely filed which are done quickly, with substantive decisions, the Agency substantially understates the real processing rate for cases that are heard.
I am now seeing cases not even heard for 22-24 months in an office that reports an 18 month to hearing stat. The published statistics are using deceptive means to understate the real problem. And its getting worse.
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