And where will the bodies go? ODAR, and the field offices will suffer. The field offices where the vast majority of all people deal with SSA. Where they come to get a new SS Card for a child to file taxes, or for a name change, or a retirement, or Medicare or file an LIS or Earnings Record Correction due to identity theft, and on and on and on.
But ODAR will get more ALJs. Meanwhile the overall SSA experience takes a beating with the general public.
Both hearings and operations should be replenished equally.
But remember when operations got everything and the hearings division was starved being treated like the red-headed step child?
However, note that the new name is "hearings operations", get it? Slowly but surely operations is sucking up what is left of OHA. That is why the hearings process is such a mess. The only way it will ever be fixed is to completely separate out the hearings process from operations, just like it used to be prior to 2000 and HPI. Good luck with that.
Well that is one reason I walked away from the FO and never looked back! Best decision I ever made. Five of us trained TXVI under the Part D hires, and one shortly after, two are left. I was trained in both TII and TXVI, rare occurrence, took all that knowledge away from SSA. The other former members from our little office have all moved on to fields away from anything to do with SSA. GS 11 wasn't enough to keep them in the trenches.
We need streamlined operations in the form of one stop shops for the public. Hearing offices and field offices on separate floors in the same building are a waste of taxpayer dollars. The ego driven managers are reluctant to give up their office space.
Cuts are being made to frontline staff. Many states you can now get a replacement card online. Everyone can get a benefit letter online and most people can file for retirement online.
The problem with the hearing operations part of SSA is too many folks from the field offices don't understand there's a big difference between the field office and hearing offices. And, there are too many folks now working at hearing offices who used to work at the field offices. Hence, the despicable and growing backlog.
The biggest problem with the Hearing offices is they have no idea what a field office is like and have never had to deal with Claimants daily. The vast majority at hearings have never met a Claimant, been threatened by a Claimant, had Claimants walk into the field office with active TB, been spat on by active AIDS, or had to deal with the tears of a survivor, the frustrated self employed who worked for years but his "tax guy" convinced him to always show a loss and pay no taxes and they have no Medicare or RIB, or a wrongly declared death stopping benefits or all that other unpleasantness that a CR deals with daily.
Its like there were a large number of people getting older all at the same time and lasting for years. Wonder how this was missed by everyone? Shouldn't we have known about so many people get old all at once?
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And where will the bodies go? ODAR, and the field offices will suffer. The field offices where the vast majority of all people deal with SSA. Where they come to get a new SS Card for a child to file taxes, or for a name change, or a retirement, or Medicare or file an LIS or Earnings Record Correction due to identity theft, and on and on and on.
But ODAR will get more ALJs. Meanwhile the overall SSA experience takes a beating with the general public.
Both hearings and operations should be replenished equally.
But remember when operations got everything and the hearings division was starved being treated like the red-headed step child?
However, note that the new name is "hearings operations", get it? Slowly but surely operations is sucking up what is left of OHA. That is why the hearings process is such a mess. The only way it will ever be fixed is to completely separate out the hearings process from operations, just like it used to be prior to 2000 and HPI. Good luck with that.
Well that is one reason I walked away from the FO and never looked back! Best decision I ever made. Five of us trained TXVI under the Part D hires, and one shortly after, two are left. I was trained in both TII and TXVI, rare occurrence, took all that knowledge away from SSA. The other former members from our little office have all moved on to fields away from anything to do with SSA. GS 11 wasn't enough to keep them in the trenches.
We need streamlined operations in the form of one stop shops for the public. Hearing offices and field offices on separate floors in the same building are a waste of taxpayer dollars. The ego driven managers are reluctant to give up their office space.
Cuts are being made to frontline staff. Many states you can now get a replacement card online. Everyone can get a benefit letter online and most people can file for retirement online.
The problem with the hearing operations part of SSA is too many folks from the field offices don't understand there's a big difference between the field office and hearing offices. And, there are too many folks now working at hearing offices who used to work at the field offices. Hence, the despicable and growing backlog.
The biggest problem with the Hearing offices is they have no idea what a field office is like and have never had to deal with Claimants daily. The vast majority at hearings have never met a Claimant, been threatened by a Claimant, had Claimants walk into the field office with active TB, been spat on by active AIDS, or had to deal with the tears of a survivor, the frustrated self employed who worked for years but his "tax guy" convinced him to always show a loss and pay no taxes and they have no Medicare or RIB, or a wrongly declared death stopping benefits or all that other unpleasantness that a CR deals with daily.
Its like there were a large number of people getting older all at the same time and lasting for years. Wonder how this was missed by everyone? Shouldn't we have known about so many people get old all at once?
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