ALJ To Plead Guilty To Having Sex With Claimant

     From the Birmingham News:

A former Social Security Administration judge in Alabama allegedly had sex with a woman claimant at the federal court house in Tuscaloosa, according to charges involving a public official accepting a gratuity, theft, and obstruction filed against him Tuesday.

Paul Stribling Conger, Jr.,73, of Akron, Ala., also entered a plea agreement Tuesday with the U.S. Attorney's Office to the charges of theft of government property, obstructing justice, and accepting a gratuity, according to court documents. ...

In July 2013, Conger was presiding over the hearing of a claimant, a woman identified as T.M.

T.M. was subsequently approved for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, which included future monthly payments and retroactive benefits. In November 2013, T.M. discussed Conger with a mutual acquaintance of theirs, identified as Individual A.

"Individual A" related information to T.M. about Conger that led T.M. to approach Conger in an effort to receive her retroactive SSI benefits, totaling about $10,000  in a lump sum because T.M. needed the money all at once.

On Nov. 19, 2013, T.M. met Conger in his chambers at the federal courthouse in Tuscaloosa. T.M. was seeking to receive the retroactive SSI benefits she had been awarded in a lump sum. ...

At the federal courthouse, on that occasion, the two engaged in a sex act and other sexual contact. T.M. and Conger remained in communication by phone, including calls and text messages over the ensuing weeks. ...

During the month of December 2013, Conger met with and paid a person only identified as "Individual B" money to obtain T.M.'s phone and destroy it. Conger provided information from T.M.'s SSA files, including T.M.'s confidential medical information and social security account number, in order to assist Individual B in locating T.M. ...

Your Social Security Account Card

A Longevity Benefit?

     From John Turner at the Pension Policy Center:

In the United States, poverty rates for seniors increase at older ages.  The rates are higher for persons age 75 and older than for persons age 65 to 74.   Poverty rates increase at older ages because relatively more people fall into poverty as they age than exit poverty due to death. Persons who live longer may fall into poverty because of various life events -- their spouse dies, they have higher medical or long-term care expenses than expected, or their investment returns are worse than projected. As Americans live longer, they face an increased risk of outliving their savings.

This outcome of poverty rates increasing at older ages is not inevitable. In Ireland and Poland, poverty rates actually decrease for those age 75 and older compared to those age 65 to 74.  The explanation for lower poverty rates at older ages is a low-cost targeted policy intervention called a longevity insurance benefit. A longevity insurance benefit is a benefit that starts at an advanced age, such as age 82. Both Ireland and Poland provide such a benefit for their oldest citizens.  ...

Triple Amputee Denied Social Security Disability And I'm Not Surprised

     Social Security recently denied a disability claim filed by a triple amputee. I'm not surprised. The problem is that the woman had been a stay at home mom for ten years prior to the illness that led to the amputations. Generally, you must have worked five of the last ten years before becoming disabled in order to draw Social Security disability benefits based upon your own earnings.
     For decades some have called for some sort of caregiver credits as part of Social Security. This idea has never received serious attention in the past and probably won't in the future. However, should Hillary Clinton not just win but ride into office on a tsunami that brings Democrats into control of both houses of Congress, anything's possible. Clinto has called for unspecified improvments in Social Security.  The Iowa Electronic Market gives Democrats an 18-25% chance of gaining control of both houses of Congress.

Proposed New Regs On Medical Evidence Coming

    The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has cleared a set of proposed new regulations on medical evidence considered in Social Security disability claims. Below is the agency's brief description of the proposal. We won't know exactly what's in the proposal until it's published in the Federal Register, which should happen soon. Remember it's only a proposal. A new administration can change it significantly or can it.

We are proposing several revisions to our medical evidence rules. The proposals include redefining several key terms related to evidence, explaining what is and is not evidence, revising our list of acceptable medical sources (AMS), revising how we consider and articulate our consideration of medical opinions and prior administrative medical findings, revising who can be a medical consultant (MC) and psychological consultant (PC), revising our rules about treating sources, and reorganizing our evidence regulations for ease of use. These proposed revisions conform with the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (BBA), reflect changes in the national healthcare workforce and in the manner that individuals receive primary medical care, simplify and reorganize our rules to make them easier to understand and apply, allow us to continue to make accurate and consistent decisions, and emphasize the need for objective medical evidence in disability and blindness claims.

The Biggest Doofus

     Eric Conn is facing a malpractice lawsuit filed on behalf of a class of 1,487 of his former Social Security clients. It's been going on for some time now. However, as of a few days ago, Conn still hadn't notified his malpractice insurance carrier, even though he was facing a hearing on the case.  I know that if you're facing criminal prosecution some civil things might fall between the cracks, but this is still hard to fathom.

    If you want to think that all Social Security attorneys are crooks and that Conn just got caught, I can't stop you, but I can tell you that everything about the Conn fiasco seems incredibly weird to me. I have trouble believing the allegation of bribery because the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) he is alleged to have bribed was approving almost all claims anyway, not just for Conn's clients but for everyone's clients. Why bribe a man to do something he was going to do anyway? I have trouble believing that an ALJ would be able to assign to himself large numbers of one lawyer's cases and then approve them. That couldn't be hidden and is so obviously improper that there would be many people who would send complaints up the line. It would be like making a daily trip to a Walmart store, picking up a big screen TV and walking out the door with it without stopping to pay for it. You might get lucky and get away with that for a day or two but not day after day. There would be too many people watching. We'll see how the prosecution goes but as I've said before, to me Conn looks more like a doofus than a criminal mastermind. His failure to notify his malpractice insurance carrier is more proof of how big a doofus he is.

Last Call For Single Decisionmaker

     From a notice that Social Security is publishing in the Federal Register tomorrow:

We are announcing the extension of tests involving modifications to disability determination procedures authorized by 20 CFR 404.906 and 416.1406. These rules authorize us to test several modifications to the disability determination procedures for adjudicating claims for disability insurance benefits under title II of the Social Security Act (Act ) and for supplemental security income payments based on disability under title XVI of the Act. This notice is our last extension of the “single decisionmaker” test, as we will phase out the test until elimination in 2018 . This notice also extends the separate “prototype” test.

She Was Right

     The Washington Post is reporting on an 80 year old woman who has been living on the D.C. streets for 16 years complaining that she couldn't get Social Security to straighten out her benefits. It turns out she was right. Social Security did owe her money. They've just paid her $99,999 and probably owe her more. Yes, if you know much about Social Security, it's obvious that she should have done things differently but people make dumb Social Security mistakes all the time and this woman has a better excuse than most. Despite the lady's protestations to the contrary, it's obvious that she has serious psychiatric problems. The bigger issue is that Social Security field offices often fail people like this who need extra help. That would happen some even with good staffing but it becomes more frequent when staffing is as tight as it is now. The consequences of failing to adequately serve people who have special needs can be terrible.

EAJA Payments Doubled In Five Years

     After a Social Security disability claimant gets denied, appeals, gets denied again, appeals again, has a hearing and gets denied again, appeals again and is denied one last time by the Social Security Administration he or she can file a civil action in United States District Court saying that Social Security's final decision was in error. There are several thousand of these civil actions each year. If the claimant wins outright in District Court, which doesn't happen much, or if he or she succeeds in getting the case remanded for a new hearing, which happens a lot, Social Security will probably be liable for the claimant's federal court attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). Social Security has to release a report on EAJA payments. Here's the numbers for recent years.

 

Year	Amount
2010	$19,743,189.12
2011	$21,668,646.47
2012	$24,666,171.13
2013	$27,720,951.87
2014	$31,637,462.36
2015	$38,132,381.48

Taking Claims Over The Phone Is Tough

     A view from someone who takes social security disability claims over the telephone:

This morning I spoke to a cancer patient, a woman with kidney failure, and a young man who had just lost the mother of his children. Each of them thought I was trying to help them. I wasn’t really though, because helping them would take longer than 23 minutes. ...

These are people who need my help to navigate the complex claims system so that they can get a meagre payout. They’re often vulnerable and desperate by the time they reach me. My job is to fill in a new claim form for [benefits] based on the information people give me and then send that form off to the benefit centre where the claim is processed. ...

[F]or me, the only thing that’s really important is how long each call takes. We are measured on our average handling time (known as AHT) and if this slips beyond 23 minutes per call we face performance management, which is code for “you’ll get in trouble”. This involves anything from stern words and increased micro-management from your line manager right up to written warnings and dismissal. ...

[W]e staff are singularly ill-equipped to actually offer any help or support. I have had absolutely no training in how [disability] benefits work. I don’t know what happens when I send a claim to be processed, so I can’t answer any questions about what will happen next or when somebody will get a payment....

  [T]here is no break between calls, the headset beeps again immediately and this time it’s a woman with kidney failure. I’m failing her too, and afterwards I will fail the bereaved young father, and this afternoon there will be more and more people I fail to help. And this will continue presumably until the government finally finds a way to do away with benefits entirely, at which point our sick and disabled people will be left with nothing, not even my hurried 23 minutes of script.

     If something didn't seem quite right when you read this (notice the use of "centre"?), it's because the woman who wrote this works for the British equivalent of the Social Security Administration.

To No One's Surprise Trump Lies About Social Security

     From the Washington Post:

The Donald Trump campaign released its first political ad of the general election, focused on immigration. It begins with a hypothetical situation of what immigration would look like under Democrat Hillary Clinton’s America. 

The narrator says: “In Hillary Clinton’s America, the system stays rigged against Americans. Syrian refugees flood in. Illegal immigrants convicted of committing crimes get to stay. Collecting Social Security benefits, skipping the line. Our border open. It’s more of the same, but worse.”  

Is the claim about undocumented immigrants collecting Social Security benefits accurate? ...

Unauthorized immigrants, who are not granted any deferred-action status, are not eligible to receive Social Security benefits or any other federal means-tested benefits. But they pay taxes and pay into the Social Security system. 

Even though the majority of unauthorized immigrants can’t collect the benefits, they paid about $12 billion into the cash flow of the Social Security program in 2010, according to the Social Security actuary. (Some undocumented immigrants could theoretically collect benefits — illegally — if they’ve overstayed their visas or falsely obtained a Social Security number.) That means the U.S. government gets far more than it pays out when it comes to unauthorized immigrants. ...

Privatized Chilean Social Security System Not Working So Well These Days

     From Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times (emphasis added):

Promoters of privatizing the U.S. Social Security system have never tired of holding up Chile’s privatized program as an example of how this can make workers rich. The trick is that they never ask ordinary Chilean workers and retirees how they feel about it.

That may be because they know what the answer would be. It was visible last month in the streets of the capital, Santiago, where crowds estimated at 100,000 to 200,000 marched to demand reform. ...

The Chilean program was promoted relentlessly by its creator, Jose Pinera, who got himself a sinecure at the Cato Institute [a right wing think tank in the United States, not Chile] out of the deal. From there he fed American conservatives’ fantasies of “an obvious free market solution that works,” he wrote for a Cato audience in 1997. (In that same article he declared that “America’s Social Security system will go bust in 2010.” Umm, no.) He boasted of how he single-handedly “decided to undertake a structural reform [of Chile’s bankrupt retirement system] that would solve the problem once and for all.” ...

Pinera and his fans talked up the Chilean workers’ apparent gains during the system’s early years, when it seemed to be delivering double-digit returns and lavish pensions to its lucky beneficiaries. What the promoters never much emphasized was how the program actually had been made to work. As I explained in a 2005 book, everyone entering formal employment after 1981 was required to deposit 10% of earned wages into individual accounts managed by a handful of investment companies appointed by the Pinochet regime. Workers enrolled in the old system were goaded into abandoning it by cuts in existing benefits. Chile financed the transition by draining its large government surplus. An unprecedented bull market in Chilean stocks did the rest. 

But the seams soon showed. The World Bank determined that fees charged by those favored investment firms consumed fully half the pension contributions of the average worker retiring in 2000. The government surplus disappeared, and those outsized stock market gains faded away.

Interesting Study On Federal Court Litigation

     The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), a federal agency that does legal research and makes recommendations for federal agencies, has released A Study of Social Security Litigation in the Federal Courts. Here are a few excerpts (footnotes omitted): 

• This investigation revealed one obvious fact: federal judges know little about the path social security claims follow from initial filing to their chambers.
• District and magistrate judges tend to march in lockstep within districts. Districts with one judge who remands a lot of cases to the agency tend to have other judges who do so as well. Very few individual judges have decision patterns that depart significantly from what their district colleagues produce.
• Circuit boundaries are associated with a good deal of district-level variation. For example, the fact that the Eastern District of New York remands more cases than the Southern District of Florida seems to be significantly related to the fact that, over all, districts in the Second Circuit remand a greater share of cases than do districts in the Eleventh Circuit.
• A number of factors – judicial ideology, the degree of a district’s urbanization, the assignment of cases to district versus magistrate judges, ALJ [Administrative Law Judge] case loads, and others – have little association with case outcomes. 
• Most of the twenty-four ALJs we interviewed subscribe to what one labeled a “just in time” approach to case review.  An ALJ using this method first looks at a case anywhere from one day to a week before the hearing. 
• The agency can always appeal the district court’s decision, but it almost never does so. The courts of appeals might receive somewhere in the neighborhood of 650 social security appeals each year, no more than twenty of which are affirmative appeals by the Commissioner. In FY [Fiscal Year] 2014, the agency filed exactly one appeal. Several reasons might explain this low incidence of appeal, but one institutional fact is surely important: the Solicitor General of the United States must sign off on any appeal the SSA [Social Security Administration] might want to take.
• The hearing office that we studied in the low remand district came off as a model of institutional health. “I can’t begin to think of a better place to work,” one decision writer told us. The office has stable management, with a long serving Hearing Office Chief Administrative Law Judge (“HOCALJ”), and ALJs tend to stay once they are assigned there.
• Most of the hearing office personnel from the high remand district described a very different and more problematic work environment. Several ALJs complained of poor quality decision writing, and several expressed a preference for decisions written off-site in national case assistance centers. An ALJ described unstable, volatile management at a hearing office for much of the past decade, and ALJs and a claimant representative complained of the office’s capacity to perform basic administrative tasks. Some personnel described communication difficulties between ALJs and decision writers.
• Recommendation 1. Congress should give the Social Security Administration independent litigating authority. 
• Recommendation 2. Congress should enact enabling legislation to clarify the U.S. Supreme Court’s authority to promulgate procedural rules for social security litigation. The Judicial Conference should authorize the appointment of a social security rules advisory committee, and the U.S. Supreme Court should approve a set of social security rules drafted by this committee.
• Recommendation 3. A uniform set of procedural rules for social security litigation should contain (a) a rule requiring the claimant to file a notice of appeal instead of a complaint; (b) a rule requiring the agency to file the certified administrative record instead of an answer; (c) a rule requiring the parties to exchange merits briefs instead of motions; (d) a rule setting appropriate deadlines and page limits; and (e) a rule creating a presumption against oral argument. 
• Recommendation 4. The Administrative Office of the United States Courts, the Federal Judicial Center, the Administrative Conference of the United States, and the Social Security Administration should cooperate on several initiatives to improve communication among the agency, claimant representatives, and the judiciary, and to educate the judiciary in important aspects of the claims adjudication process. These initiatives should include the creation of social security standing committees for each district and the drafting of an introductory manual on social security law and processes.
• Recommendation 5. Congress should not replace the existing system of judicial review with a specialized court for social security appeals. The Appeals Council should issue opinions in a set of appeals each year that will benefit from Chevron deference and thereby reduce circuit-level variation. 
• Suggestion 1. The agency should investigate further the relationship between hearing office performance and work environment, on one hand, and remand rates in district courts, on the other. 
• Suggestion 2. The agency should add bottom-up, localized experiments to their quality assurance initiatives. This experimentation could include a pilot project in several hearing offices that uses district court decisions for guidance and critique.
• Suggestion 3. The Social Security Administration and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts should provide the federal judiciary with a database listing district and magistrate judge decision rates. 
• Suggestion 4. The Social Security Administration should attempt to quantify the “false positive phenomenon,” or the number of court remands that, once adjudicated again, do not result in the payment of benefits. 
• Suggestion 5. To the extent possible, the Social Security Administration should require that hearing offices assign court remands to the same decision writers who worked on the cases the first time.
• Suggestion 6. The Social Security Administration should study the issue of an OGC [Office of General Counsel] attorney’s ethical obligations and, where appropriate, provide clearer guidance.
• We nonetheless believe that only a dramatic reduction in ALJ caseloads could permit significant, across-the-board improvements in decision-making quality sufficient to cause the federal court remand rate to plummet sharply. To avoid a spike in the backlog of claims, the size of the ALJ corps would have to increase. Ultimately, this may be the most important reform of all.

Click on chart to view full size

No More CDs

     Social Security has sent out a directive that Social Security employees will no longer provide CDs of hearing files for attorneys and others representing claimants at the hearing level. The only exception of consequence is for cases that are not electronic.

     I wish the directive had said explicitly that this does not apply to prior case files. Many, perhaps most, hearing office employees are unaware that Social Security's systems do not allow electronic access to prior files. They can easily see prior files on their system but attorneys and others representing claimants cannot see prior files unless someone at the agency provides them on a CD. This is one of many annoying problems with the current system.

Sounds Legit: Beneficiaries Serving as Rep Payees Who Have Their Own Rep Payee

     I think the title of this report from Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG), Beneficiaries Serving as Representative Payees Who Have A Representative Payee, tells you the story. It's only 381 representative payees nationally who have their own representative payee, which really isn't that many considering how many representative payees there are, but it's still 381 too many.
     In fairness to Social Security, in many cases it's hard to find anyone who is able and willing to be a representative payee for an incompetent claimant.

Social Security Backs Away From Requiring Text Message ID Verification

     USA Today reports that Social Security is no longer requiring that claimants using its online systems verify their identity by copying a code from a text message they receive on their cell phone. It turns out that many people don't have cell phones or have poor cell phone reception or found the new process cumbersome.

Proposed Rules Of Conduct For Appointed Representatives

 The Social Security Administration will publish proposed Revisions to Rules of Conduct and Standards of Responsibility for Appointed Representatives in the Federal Register tomorrow. The summary provided by Social Security includes a sentence that seems to encapsulate their approach: 

The changes to our rules are not meant to suggest that any specific conduct is permissible under our existing rules; instead, we seek to ensure that our rules of conduct and standards of responsibility are clearer as a whole and directly address a broader range of inappropriate conduct

     Social Security thinks it's important to point out that there's no representative conduct that they find permissible but plenty they want to forbid because they believe it's inappropriate? That certainly suggests as attitude.

     Here's a couple of excerpts from the proposal:

A representative should not withdraw after a hearing is scheduled unless the representative can show that a withdrawal is necessary due to extraordinary circumstances , as we determine on a case-by-case basis. ...

Disclose in writing, at the time a medical or vocational opinion is submitted to us or as soon as the representative is aware of the submission to us, if: ...

• (ii) The representative referred or suggested that the claimant seek an examination from, treatment by, or the assistance of the individual providing opinion evidence.

     Why would these be a problem?
     As to the withdrawal provision, the agency insists on recognizing only individual lawyers as representing claimants, not law firms. Prohibiting the substitution of one attorney for another after a hearing is scheduled makes it difficult for a law firm to properly allocate its resources and makes it easy for individual attorneys employed by a firm to pick up and leave their firm with the files of their clients after the firm has spent large sums of money on the cases over the many months or years that the firm has represented the claimants. I don't know what the point of this is other than to harass law firms. Let me anticipate the response from a government employee. "Law firms don't spend much money on Social Security cases -- only a few dollars obtaining medical records -- so that's no big deal." Anyone who thinks this has never run a law firm. Law firms spend almost all of their money on salaries and other overhead. The problem is that a law firm may spend thousands of dollars on the office overhead associated with a case only to see an attorney waltz away at the last minute pocketing the entire fee. Is it unreasonable for a law firm to try to make this difficult? What exactly is the problem with a law firm substituting one attorney for another after a hearing is scheduled? It doesn't delay anything.
     As to the requirement that attorneys notify Social Security if they suggest medical treatment, if I tell my client that he or she ought to get in psychiatric treatment, I'm supposed to disclose this to Social Security if the psychiatrist later offers an opinion? What if I tell my client to get back to the doctor he or she used to see? Am I supposed to carefully track the advice I give clients about medical treatment?
     This is just overkill. I'm not Eric Conn or Charlie Binder. Don't treat me like them. I don't deserve it.
     This is merely a proposal. The public can comment upon it. Social Security is supposed to consider those comments. A new administration and a new Commissioner will be in office before anything is adopted, if it ever is.

Happy 81st Birthday, Social Security!

The Living Dead

     Even the New England Journal of Medicine is reporting on the problems of Social Security's Death Master File.

Can You Figure Out This Photo?

     Your question is: What's going on here and how does this relate to a Social Security disability claim?

Hints: This has nothing to do with swelling or manual dexterity.

     And the answer is that this unfortunate 20 year old man had just been released from a psychiatric hospital. His regular shoelaces had been taken from him as a suicide prevention measure. He's had many psychiatric hospitalizations because his schizoaffective disorder causes command auditory hallucinations. Yet, Social Security twice denied his disability claim and he had to go to a hearing. Can anyone explain why Social Security denies disability claims like this?

Whistleblower Or Just Out Of Control?

     Take a look at Daniels v. Merit Systems Protection Board (9th Cir. August 9, 2016). Daniels is a Social Security employee who claims to have been a whistleblower. You can call him what you want.  I'd call him an out of bounds, out of control Social Security employee who deserves worse punishment than he got. It worries me that someone like this rose to a position like Hearing Office Director or Supervisory Attorney Advisor. His exact title was unclear to the Court.

Attorneys Needed For Fee-Generating Cases

     I'm reposting this since the original post contained an incorrect e-mail address, which I've now corrected:


     Most claimants caught up in the Eric Conn mess in Kentucky and West Virginia have received decisions from Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). About half have won. The Appeals Council is fast-tracking appeals from those who were denied. There are many claimants now in need of representation in federal court. There will be several hundred of these cases.
     Let me address some concerns that attorneys might have about taking on these cases:

• These are fee-generating cases. Once the ALJ denies the claim, the interim benefits stop. There's also the possibility of fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA).
• There are attorneys available to serve as local counsel.
• Social Security is not suggesting that any of these claimants participated in Eric Conn's questionable behavior. They've done nothing wrong. Taking on one of these cases doesn't involve an attorney in a complicated criminal matter.
• There's nothing odd about these disability claims. Like other Social Security disability claims some are stronger than others but they're not phony.
• There are good arguments that can and should be made on the merits of individual cases.
• There are strong arguments that can be made concerning Social Security's methods. Social Security is simply assuming that there is fraud or similar fault in each of these cases. The claimant cannot see the evidence upon which this determination was made. They were not allowed to contest the determination of fraud or similar fault. ALJs were forbidden to consider this issue. The claimants were compelled to prove all over again that they were disabled. Important medical evidence was excluded from consideration and the claimant could not contest this. The process is completely different than what Social Security has done in the past in cases involving allegations of fraud or similar fault. For that matter, it's completely different from what Social Security is doing right now in other cases. 
• Claimants were not allowed to prove that they became disabled at a date later than the prior ALJ decision approving their claim except through a new claim. Most of the claimants caught up in this became sicker as time went on. I've looked at the statute involved and I can't even figure out what argument that Social Security can make on this issue.
• This is going to be a mess for the District Court in Kentucky where most of these cases will be heard. They're going to be deluged with hundreds of these cases. Are those District Court judges really prepared to slog through these cases, one by one? They're going to be strongly tempted to find a way to get these cases off the docket quickly. The easiest way to do that is to remand. How can I predict this? I was around for the huge wave of terminations in the early 1980s. That's what happened then.

     If you're interested in getting involved in these fee-generating cases in federal court, contact Mary Going at Appalachian Research and Defense Fund (AppalRed) at maryg[@]ardfky.org. Of course, there aren't any brackets in her real e-mail address. I just put them in there so she doesn't get so much spam.

"I'm Sore Now And All Cramped Up"

     From WWLP:

People visiting the U.S. Social Security Administration Office in Holyoke [MA], Tuesday, found themselves in extremely long lines and waiting a long time.

Several people told 22News they waited at least two hours before being seen. One man said he waited nearly 7 hours before he was able to file a claim.

“I have no idea, it was just aggravating. I mean, it was tiring on my back. I’m sore now and all cramped up. It’s been a long slow process,” said Charles Daviau of Easthampton.

Daviau added that he went the whole day without eating because he was afraid, if he left, he would lose his spot.

     The appropriations bills pending in Congress would make all of Social Security's backlogs and service delivery problems much worse. 

Tough Times Ahead Under GOP Budget

     From Joe Davidson's column in the Washington Post:

Social Security is facing dark times —  not just figuratively, but as in the lights would go out.

That’s the warning from Social Security Administration (SSA) officials if an appropriations bill pushed by House Republicans takes effect.

“There would be up to two weeks of furloughs for all employees,” the agency said in information obtained by The Washington Post. “During this time, our offices would be closed to the public.  Additionally, a full hiring freeze would cause service degradation and long wait times and delays. ..."

It’s not like Social Security is operating in the flush now. Since 2010, its operating budget has shrunk 10 percent after inflation while the number of beneficiaries rose by 12 percent. ...

More than 1.1 million people are waiting for a disability hearing. That means they have to wait more than 500 days, on average, to get a decision on their appeals. SSA has closed more than 60 field offices and 500 mobile offices since 2010. Last year, waits of three weeks for an appointment were common. Callers to the 800 number have to wait 13 minutes on average, if they get through at all. ...

Temporary ALJs?

     I understand that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the agency that oversees the process by which federal Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) are appointed, has asked federal agencies to comment on a proposal for appointing some ALJs on a term limited basis of one to four years. This is supposed to help with workload surges.

     Social Security has long complained that OPM doesn't give it enough names to pick from when they're hiring ALJs. This proposal wouldn't do anything about that problem unless OPM changes the process by which they create the register of people from which agencies can select ALJs. If you do something about the hiring process, I don't see why you need temporary ALJs. Of course, the motivation behind this may have less to do with filling vacancies than with finding a way to force ALJs to toe the agency line. It fits in with the plan to have Appeals Council judges hold hearings. By the way, does anyone know when they plan to start that?

Bad Smell In Atlanta

     From WXIA:

A group of Atlanta attorneys and federal judges are questioning the motive of moving a Social Security hearing office from north Atlanta to a wealthy suburb. ...
There are two hearing offices in Atlanta where the disabled must go for a judge to approval Social Security benefits, downtown at the Sam Nunn Federal Building and 3105 Clairmont Road.

Earlier this year, the agency secretly starting relocating the Clairmont Road location to Alpharetta, 25 miles away. It’s scheduled to open in January. The new location, 4100 Old Milton Parkway, happens to be conveniently located about five miles from Judge Ollie Garmon’s Alpharetta home. He is one of the highest ranking social security judges in the country.

Garmon currently works out of the Sam Nunn Federal Building in downtown Atlanta. According to blueprints and sources familiar with the move, the agency plans to build Garmon an office inside the future Alpharetta social security hearing office. This will cut his commute nearly an hour during rush-hour.

The move was so secret, the agency didn’t even notify its own judges. In May, the Association of Administrative Law Judges filed a grievance with Social Security to block the move.

“No judges were notified about this move to my knowledge. I’m unsure if any employees were notified about this move until after the lease had been signed,” said Carol Moore, a vice president with the Association of Administrative Law Judges. Moore is also an administrative law judge in Macon. ... 

Numerous Atlanta-area attorneys, who represent clients seeking disability benefits, say the move makes no sense. They don’t think the relocation close to Garmon’s home is a coincidence either.

“I don’t know, but it kind of smells like it wasn’t,” said Robbie Weaver, an attorney out of Blairsville. ...

Atlanta attorney John Hogan said, “[It’s] an inconvenient location without any benefit.” ...

“As I’ve said before. I cannot answer questions. I’ll be happy to do that at the proper time,” Garmon said.

A spokesperson for Social Security explained in an email that, ”the new location is centrally located to better serve the public,” it will have an “additional restroom” and “more parking.”

“If you put a dot on the map and drew a circle, that could be the case, but the reality is, without access to the bus station, it’s a false perception,” said Hogan. ...

To determine how the move will impact disability claiments who rely on public transportation, the 11Alive Investigators took public transit to both the current and the future site from downtown Atlanta. ...

From downtown to proposed Alpharetta hearing office: it took two trains, a bus and required more than a one mile walk. ...

Well, It's An Idea

     Social Security's latest idea for dealing with its shortage of field office staff is to try to persuade vets to work for free.

Same Sex Marriage Case?

     Social Security isn't done with same sex marriage issues. Some cases dealing with exactly when a marriage is recognized to have existed are still working their way through the system. I'm not sure about this case, however. The bigger problem here may have to do with how long the two were married before one of them died, a problem which has nothing to do with this being a same sex marriage, other than that they might have gotten married earlier but the law didn't allow it. Marriages have to last at least nine months for a person to be considered a widow or widower unless the death was unexpected and the death was very much expected in this case.

Odd Coincidence

     On the day the Olympics begin, I got word that a client who was a three time Olympian has been approved for Social Security disability benefits. I'm not making this up.

Your Name Doesn't Have To Be Atticus Finch

     Most claimants caught up in the Eric Conn mess in Kentucky and West Virginia have received decisions from Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). About half have won. The Appeals Council is fast-tracking appeals from those who were denied. There are many claimants now in need of representation in federal court. There will be several hundred of these cases.
     Let me address some concerns that attorneys might have about taking on these cases:

• These are fee-generating cases. Once the ALJ denies the claim, the interim benefits stop. There's also the possibility of fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA).
• There are attorneys available to serve as local counsel.
• Social Security is not suggesting that any of these claimants participated in Eric Conn's questionable behavior. They've done nothing wrong. Taking on one of these cases doesn't involve an attorney in a complicated criminal matter.
• There's nothing odd about these disability claims. Like other Social Security disability claims some are stronger than others but they're not phony.
• There are good arguments that can and should be made on the merits of individual cases.
• There are strong arguments that can be made concerning Social Security's methods. Social Security is simply assuming that there is fraud or similar fault in each of these cases. The claimant cannot see the evidence upon which this determination was made. They were not allowed to contest the determination of fraud or similar fault. ALJs were forbidden to consider this issue. The claimants were compelled to prove all over again that they were disabled. Important medical evidence was excluded from consideration and the claimant could not contest this. The process is completely different than what Social Security has done in the past in cases involving allegations of fraud or similar fault. For that matter, it's completely different from what Social Security is doing right now in other cases. 
• Claimants were not allowed to prove that they became disabled at a date later than the prior ALJ decision approving their claim except through a new claim. Most of the claimants caught up in this became sicker as time went on. I've looked at the statute involved and I can't even figure out what argument that Social Security can make on this issue.
• This is going to be a mess for the District Court in Kentucky where most of these cases will be heard. They're going to be deluged with hundreds of these cases. Are those District Court judges really prepared to slog through these cases, one by one? They're going to be strongly tempted to find a way to get these cases off the docket quickly. The easiest way to do that is to remand. How can I predict this? I was around for the huge wave of terminations in the early 1980s. That's what happened then.

     If you're interested in getting involved in these fee-generating cases in federal court, contact Mary Going at Appalachian Research and Defense Fund (AppalRed) at maryg[@]ardfky.org. Of course, there aren't any brackets in her real e-mail address. I just put them in there so she doesn't get so much spam.

AARP Leaving ALEC

     After AARP's membership rebelled, AARP's leadership has decided to withdraw its support from the American Legislative Exchange Coucil (ALEC), a sinister Koch Brothers front organization that has worked for privatization of Social Security. The fact that AARP ever supported ALEC is a sign of just how far AARP is from being a supporter of Social Security.

This Sounds Like A Sting Operation

     From a press release:

On August 2, 2016 a Federal Grand Jury in the District of Puerto Rico returned a 16-count indictment charging one doctor, Americo Oms-Rivera, his secretary Mayte González Muñoz, and Francisco Cabrera Alvarado, a former Social Security Administration (SSA) employee, for fraud in the application process for SSA disability insurance benefits in Puerto Rico, announced United States Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico, Rosa Emilia Rodríguez Vélez. ...

The indictment alleges that on or about September 24, 2013, Person A was introduced to Oms-Rivera to discuss his intentions of applying for disability insurance benefits. During said meeting, Oms-Rivera informed Person A that he/she needed to seek treatment for a period of five to six months before the paperwork was submitted to SSA. Oms-Rivera told Person A that once Person A’s disability benefits were approved, he would take a percentage of the check as payment.  The scheme involved, among others, the following acts alleged in the indictment:

• On or about January 14, 2014, Person A had the first medical appointment with Oms-Rivera. During this visit, Person A informed the doctor that he/she was interested in obtaining SSA disability insurance benefits. Person A reported that his/her medical conditions were high blood pressure and migraines from time to time. In response, Oms-Rivera prescribed Prozac, a non-controlled narcotic, used for depression and panic disorders and Restoril, a Scheduled IV narcotic used to treat insomnia symptoms.
  

• Person A made additional visits to Oms-Rivera for purported medical treatment. During these visits, Oms-Rivera and Person A discussed the disability application process and Oms-Rivera prescribed Prozac, a non-controlled narcotic, used for depression and panic disorders; Restoril, a Scheduled IV narcotic, used to treat insomnia symptoms; Ambien, a Scheduled IV narcotic, used to treat insomnia; and Xanax, a Scheduled IV narcotic, used to treat anxiety and panic disorders.
  

• Oms-Rivera and defendant González-Muñoz referred Person A to Cabrera, a former SSA employee who worked as a non-attorney representative. Cabrera assisted Person A in his application for SSA disability insurance benefits.
  

• On May 21, 2014, Cabrera met with Person A in order to assist him/her to fill out the Adult Function Report, SSA Form 3373. During said meeting, Cabrera coached Person A as to what to write in the form in order to get Person A’s disability benefits approved.
  

• On June 10, 2014, González charged Person A $600 for the Psychiatric Medical Report and $1,440 for backdating his/her medical file and creating 24 fictitious medical appointments.
  

• On or about October 22, 2015, the Psychiatric Medical Report signed by Oms-Rivera was submitted to SSA indicating that Person A was totally disabled to return to work as of that date or in the near future. In the Psychiatric Medical Report, Oms-Rivera falsely represented to SSA that Person A’s first medical visit was on October 15, 2013. Oms-Rivera further reported a total of approximately 11 fictitious appointments that never took place. This was done to create the appearance of a longer history of medical treatment.

Going To Hell In A Handbasket

     Below is Social Security's Hearings Caseload Analysis Report for the first nine months of fiscal year (FY) 2016, which began on October 1, 2015. This was published in the newsletter of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR). That newsletter is not available online.

     Here are some signs of just how badly things are going:

• The adjusted case receipts for the nine month time period were 746,300. The dispositions were 662,522. This means they were only able to handle 89% of the workload they received.
• They had 977,736 cases pending at the beginning of the FY and 1,121,267 cases pending as of the end of June (actually June 24, which the agency treats as the end of June). That's a 15% increase in the backlog.
• Look at the bizarre stops and starts in overtime. It went from 109.75 hours in November 2015 to 48,924.74 hours in December but then declined to 85.5 hours in March. Why? Social Security surges its overtime as soon as it gets an appropriation. That number then rapidly declines as the money starts to run out. It's boom or bust.
• Take a look at the note at the bottom. The Senior Attorney program only disposed of 732 cases in this nine month period! This is ridiculous. It's less than the productivity you'd get from two Administrative Law Judges. That number of Senior Attorney decisions could be multiplied by 100 without having causing harm. All that would happen is that the sickest claimants, the ones who will certainly be approved anyway, would be approved more quickly. The Senior Attorney program has been subjected to such extreme limitations that it cannot function. It's a waste of resources. Don't tell me that agency management cares about the backlog. They know well that the Senior Attorney program could be a huge help in holding down backlogs but they either don't care or they're adopted the attitude of many Congressional Republicans that the only good disposition of a Social Security disability claim is a denial.

Click on report to view full size

Listings Extended

     From today's Federal Register:

We are extending the expiration dates of the following body systems in the Listing of Impairments (listings) in our regulations: Musculoskeletal System, Cardiovascular System, Digestive System, and Skin Disorders. We are making no other revisions to these body systems in this final rule.

Proposed Regs On Representatives Coming Soon

     Social Security's proposed Rules of Conduct and Standards of Responsibility for Appointed Representatives have already cleared the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It only took a little over a month. Some change was made in the proposal while it was pending at OMB but we'll probably never know what. The proposed regs should appear in the Federal Register in the near future. Remember, it's just proposed regulations.

     By contrast, the final regs that would change the mental impairment Listings are still pending at OMB. They were submitted on May 23.

     

    

Two Factor Identification Not Working Well So Far

     As of yesterday Verizon customers couldn't receive the text messages they need to access Social Security's online systems.

Being Disabled Often Means Being Poor

Not Just For Old Folks