There have been many complaints about long delays in releasing fees to attorneys who represent Social Security claimants. These fees are withheld from the back benefits of the claimants involved. The Social Security Administration receives a user fee for their costs in withholding and paying these fees. I hear that in a recent telephone call with Social Security management about the problem the National Organization of Social Security Claimant Representatives (NOSSCR) was told that the agency didn't even consider a fee payment to be delayed unless the delay was more than nine months!
If you were deliberately trying to drive attorneys out of the practice of Social Security law, this would be a good way to do it.
Don't like it, don't do it.
ReplyDeleteFixed
Why do you make it so hard?
or just charge a fee directly to your client!!!! Yes, we know that this is how it is done in lots of other areas of law. But if you want to get paid and don't like the current system, think of another way.
ReplyDeleteWhen we win a claim it goes on a master list. If we don't receive our fee within 90 days of the NOA, our office mgr follows up on the fee. We have fees dating back to 2014 that we're still trying to get paid on. It often takes multiple calls and re-faxing our rep/fee agreement papers over a course of many months to receive our fees on some files.
ReplyDelete@9:25AM And what would your reaction be if your employer just held on to your paycheck for 9 months? Would you just stop working, or would you try to take steps to see what you earned was timely paid to you?
ReplyDelete@11:04AM As has been discussed time and time again on this blog, other areas of the law give the atty a lien on the proceeds and typically issue checks directly to the attorney, not the client, with the attorney then disbursing the client their money. I have never heard an SSA insider suggest this as an alternative. All people say is, go collect from your client. We all know where that would end up.
@11:12 As a matter of fact, the state of Illinois has not passed a budget. I worked in social services. They did not pay our grants.
ReplyDeleteI found a new job.
Easy.
@ 11:42AM. So are you saying you didn't get paid for work you had done, or was it that there was no money available going forward to continue your programs? The two scenarios are very different.
ReplyDelete@11:12: putting a lien on the benefits and having the attorney distribute the funds to the clt would certainly help. Many of the old fees we chase are cases where the payment center "accidentally" sent the entire back amount to the clt without withholding our fee. We're supposed to then chase the clt to pay our fee, which almost never happens. Only then can we request an overpayment, which often takes months/years to finally recoup the fee.
ReplyDelete@11:42 Both. I expect I will never see payment.
ReplyDeleteIf it is so bad why do you do it? If it is so the clients have quality representation, limit your clients to the number that you can afford to not get paid for and represent them well. Make your money elsewhere, perhaps outside of administrative law, I understand many areas are moving to a $15/hr min. wage. Maybe that will supplement your SSA work.
Easy.
@11:12
ReplyDeletewho exactly is your "employer" in this situation. You have an agreement with a client/claimant, SSA helps you get paid. Like I said before, if you don't like this set-up, figure out a better way to get paid. There is nothing stopping you from doing this.
If this process is soooo bad then why are so many representatives around? Something doesn't add up.
ReplyDeleteHey reps--what about this arduous process made/makes you think that you'd get your checks for fees due (many times complicated by multiple rep claims, etc.) in a quick fashion? Please advise.
ReplyDeleteSSA, by withholding the funds from the claimant and approving the fee agreement in a case has created a fiduciary duty to the claimant to see that the withheld funds/fees are in fact distributed, and one would argue, distributed timely. Fiduciaries are not supposed to profit from their duties unless they have the principal's express authorization. By withholding payment for 9 months or greater, and keeping these funds in trust, SSA is profiting from its duty to pay these fees out.
ReplyDelete@3:03 How would SSA be the fiduciary? Are you also implying by directly paying Medicare Part D and Part D premiums they are the fiduciary? Is the bank the fiduciary for every automatic payment you set up?
ReplyDeleteThese 9 month and longer cases are not, by any account, the "norm" of the process, but allows a topic and sentence for bellyaching. Most times the fee agreements are paid rather quickly. Unfortunately we have many who believe the process should be instant in every instance.
I ask that any rep who has never made an error in a claim, ever not had the complete record, been ill informed or otherwise had an error in a case be the first to throw a stone. When one looks at the number of claims that are processed correctly with those that have a problem the error percentage is well within any business model of acceptable.
Get over it guys.
Just like SSA retirement is not supposed to be your entire retirement plan, representing SSDI claims should not be your whole practice.
ReplyDelete@5:30pm. I'm curious as to the basis for your statement.
ReplyDeleteMr. Hall is pointing out the difficulties for attorneys in private practice.
ReplyDeleteAttorneys and paralegal advocates (many of whom are not EDPNA) that work for legal aid groups get their money from grants from local governments to help shift the burden of the disabled poor from welfare to SSI. They are not bothered by this problem, but may not have the same level of credentialing that EDPNAs have or experience that private practice attorneys and EDPNAs do.
EDPNAs can work for advocacy companies that have different interests at heart in addition to the clients that cannot hire attorneys due to potential ethical conflicts. EDPNAs hired by such companies may not have difficulty with delayed payments because this is a side money maker for the parent company.
Attorneys who do not exclusively focus on Social Security practice, in my experience, have a weaker grasp of the rules including the basics (like the grids).
The purpose of the direct payment is to get rid of most of the need for the liens since many claimants are judgement proof before retaining an advocate.
I think it would be foolish to say that only SSI claimants who live in counties or perishes that have excess welfare recipients deserve attorney representation. I think it would be also foolish to say that only claimants who are represented by their insurance company or other entity with a conflict deserve the representation of a EDPNA (rather that an lesser paralegal or no representation at all).
This fee withholding issue hurts private practice attorneys and EDPNAs that are unencumbered by outside interests. We need a greater proportion of these unencumbered advocates, not a smaller proportion. It is a matter of quality of representation, but also a matter of citizens collecting on what they are due from their government through the machinery that exists.
BOOO HOOOOO
ReplyDelete@ 2:17 PM
ReplyDeleteSocial Security does not "help" us get paid, they REQUIRE that they administer the funds. Social Security has made it illegal to charge a fee unless they approve it. Social Security is the one who withholds the 25% of the claimant's retroactive backpay and therefore they are the fiduciary. Social Security is the one who must release the claimant's money upon order of the ALJ or the courts. It is not just attorneys who are hurt by the incompetence of the payment centers. Claimants are overwitheld for YEARS. Please review the OIG investigation on payment errors. Nothing has changed. The worst of these problems with cases that are approved after remand by the courts or the AC. So the folks who were most prejudiced and pushed into poverty due to the "ignore the law, deny everyone" crowd of judges in the past few years gets punished further. It is aggravating to have to explain to those payment center special appeals folks that when a USDC Judge sends over an ORDER to pay xx dollars, NO, you do not send it for six or seven more reviews and signatures. SSA fails to comply with court orders daily and OGC is just over trying to teach the PC that an order is an order! More and more mandamus actions are being threatened. So, just release the money! And, when we do get paid, and there is the remaining balance of the 25% to be released to the claimant, it typically takes a constituent service rep from our Senator's office to get it moving. Incompetence or willful non-compliance with the law?
@truthbtold... It is never wise to have all of ones eggs in one basket. Anyone that has been around the "business" of SSDI claims representing will tell you that there are periodic shifts in the winds at SSA. When those winds blow the wrong way you see a shift in the approval rates, sometimes up, sometimes down. Recently we have seen a dramatic shift. Public opinion is very strong against anyone getting benefits. Some of the largest players in the game have gone under or have had dramatic layoffs.
ReplyDeleteAs a business model for a solo practice, SSDI as the mainstay makes little to no sense. Payment and rules are up to the SSA. Widely open to the whims of which ALJ you get. Same with payments. I have always been puzzled why one would make it the meat of a practice. As a side dish, with very high claim selection there is an adequate revenue stream. After all, a non atty rep, with little or no student loans to pay back can be just as good or better than an atty who is facing more overhead and requirements.
11:31
ReplyDeleteYou sound like a tool.
Failure to timely pay attorney fees is simply a symptom of a much larger and more serious problem. SSA's processing systems are simply incapable of handling the effects of the entitlement of the baby boomers.
ReplyDeleteWhen SSA originally began to try to automate workloads, they created their own unique database structures and tools to update them. Automation tools were created with the goal of handling the simple repetitive stuff, with the rest being labeled as "processing exceptions". The term "Processing exceptions" is interchangeable with "manual action". More and more things are now requiring manual actions to effectuate, and they are really starting to pile up at this point. Several of the payment centers have backlogs of 6 months to a year on correction of many types of very important workloads. The MATPSC is 5-6 months behind on remitting payments the agency has received. Literally, people or their employers have sent the agency money to pay back overpayments and the agency is 6 months behind on cashing the checks. You wouldn't believe the messes this is causing for folks subject to garnishment of wages is causing. For people that are dually entitled and receiving more than one check (because the payments are coming from different trust funds) , lots are are having adjustments done on one record, only to see the adjustments on the other record(s) be delayed for ungodly amounts of time, causing unnecessary overpayments. I've got cases I'm working on now where it has taken me 6 months to change a simple address or cancel a direct deposit.
Mark my words - you haven't seen anything yet. While the Commissioner of SSA is holding her "town hall" video meetings and the folks in charge spend an inordinate amount of time slapping themselves on the back for a job well done, the agency is collapsing around them while they remain totally clueless.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes for Congress to smell a good opportunity to hold hearings. IRS and VA will be old news in another year or two, so SSA will be ready to replace them.
Everything at SSA is a priority, so that translates to nothing is a priority because the people in charge change priorities by the hour. This causes frustration confusion, no one knows what they are suppose to be doing. This all translates into nothing getting finished. It is crazy how the place is being run into the ground.
ReplyDeleteYou my friend hit the nail on the head!
Delete@11:31
ReplyDelete"Some of the largest players in the game have gone under or have had dramatic layoffs."
As a local practitioner, I want to thank you for pointing out the good news in all of this.
If we could replace the word "Some" with the word "All", it would be better news.
No, I'm not happy to see people lose jobs but I believe that the national firms have been bad for both the claimants and the practice.
@12:57 PM. I concur. And I am glad 11:31 only referred to them as the "largest," as they were far from the best.
ReplyDeleteI have gotten a really good response by contacting the RCO (Regional Commissioners Office) offices after the 3-6th time of not getting a response from the payment centers.
ReplyDeleteParticularly if you have issues with PC 2 I suggest contacting Mrs. Williamson 215-597-2464 or Roxanne.Willamson@ssa.gov. I start all my e-mails to her with, "I would like to file a complaint with PC 2 Mod 'whatever'." New York Or PC1 is 212-264-2500 or ny.rpa@ssa.gov.
PC 7, I would just call the RCC, they are really helpful there, 877-626-6363.
PC 5 call 510-970-8440 sf.rpa@ssa.gov or leslie.s.walker@ssa.gov.
PC 3 try 404-562-5500 or patti.patterson@ssa.gov.
PC 4 and PC 6 are usually pretty good and I have never had to resort to reporting them or escalating.
PC 8 for International calls, GOOD LUCK CHUCK, they never answer nor do I know who to call for them.