The Republican blame-shifting game continues. Representative Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), a member of the Social Security Subcommittee has written a piece for The Hill picking up on the theme the Chairman of her Subcommittee raised earlier that somehow Social Security's hearing backlog exists because we don't have an appointed Commissioner. Walorski adds this new theme:
It’s clear money alone won’t fix the problem. An analyst from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) who recently testified at a congressional hearing agrees: “Is SSA using the resources that they currently have as efficiently and as effectively as they can? We found several instances where we don’t believe they are.” Indeed, there are ways to speed up the decision process that are well within the SSA’s authority. For instance, it’s been decades since the SSA updated many of its processes, policies, and tools for evaluating eligibility.
Of course, it's clear to everyone who has actually looked at the problem that money will certainly fix this problem. In fact, it's the only possible solution.
The GAO saying it has found evidence that Social Security is not being as efficient as it can be is meaningless. First, even in the best run agency there's always going to be something to criticize. A lack of divine perfection isn't a sign that there's waste that has a meaningful effect upon an agency's performance. Second, GAO always finds something to criticize. Always. It's what they do. When it comes to Social Security, GAO's criticisms start at the debatable, go on to the meaninglessly vague and end up at the absurd but almost never amount to anything significant. The best evidence I see that Social Security is a well run agency is how paltry GAO's criticisms are.
And if not having a permanent Commissioner is part of the problem, whose fault is that? Another expert member of Congress heard from. Is she even on the Subcommittee?
ReplyDeleteSo how many ALJs and support staff are needed to reduce the backlog to 12 months? What would that cost? When the backlog is reduced to 12 months and stays at that point for 2 years can we get rid of all the excess staffing?
ReplyDeleteTo get this hiring what are you willing to give up? Hearing/cooling assistance? VA funds? A tax increase? Where is the money coming from for this hiring?
Who chooses where the money comes from? Congress? Who put Congress there? The people? Are these the same people that voted in the current congress again and again?
Social Security is NOT doing all it can to reduce the backlog.
ReplyDeleteSimply having senior attorneys screen cases to see what can be paid on the record or is close to a pay and might be if the representative is prompted to go ahead and update the record now can make a dent.
That won't cost any more.... except.
The except is the claimants who aren't paid on the record and go to hearing will wait longer to receive a decision because deploying the SA's in that manner will reduce the available hours to write decisions.
So well I guess it is about money after all.
oho could improve a lot. It is trying the 5 day rule. Hundreds of other ideas are in the minds of OHO employees tp improve it as well s in the minds of the practitioners who see OHO's weaknesses. But the critical element is great management. It takes forever to implement a change - years for simple things. It is sad. People die regularly, so some die waiting for their hearings. Some don't have medical care that would lengthened their lives.
ReplyDeleteIf a new COSS was a great manager, or a boss who hired great managers, OHO could improve. Sigh.
Judges could hear more cases. Production has dropped by 20% per day. 2.4 to 1.9
ReplyDeleteJudges could write their own decisions, particularly fully favorables, in the same time it already takes to write their instructions. The instructions could be the decision with only minor tweaks and templates.
Senior attorneys could issue OTR's for obvious cases. Again, the decision can be very short as above.
HOCALJs could hear the same number of cases as the other ALJs. They always did before. Why not now?
Even the RCALJs could hear at least a 50% load, of for no other reason than they would be better aware of what is really going on in the hearing offices.
The 5-day rule does absolutely nothing to increase production.
The length of files, what the ALJ Association says is the problem, is completely irrelevant.
Working at home is an impediment to production. End it and end it now.
Saying things like "working at home is an impediment to production" without evidence of that is pointless. It has as much value as my saying turkeys grow fatter when they watch Sesame Street.
ReplyDeleteHOCALJ's deal with an amazing number of administrative issues on a regular basis. RCALJ's even more. Could they do more hearings? Maybe. Am I surprised they aren't required to? No.
OHO is already working on a "short-circuited" favorable decision template, which could help a tiny bit.
Senior attys SHOULD be screening for OTR's, but they are currently busy writing their fingers off because that's where the real backlog is at the moment.
And if every judge held all the hearings that they could - OHO would not have the facilities to accommodate them. There aren't enough hearing rooms, reporters, VE's, etc. to increase the number of hearings held dramatically.
And know that there ARE people working hard to try to improve this. Sometimes it's just that the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, sometimes it's incompetence. But there are good people out there trying to make a difference, even at the hearing office level.
ALJ's could write most fully favorable if the agency would simplify the requirements for a fully favorable decision. Instead as part of the quality control initiative fully favorable decisions now are required to have a greater listing and discussion of the relevant facts than was the case 8-10 years ago.
ReplyDeleteBut let's apply some basic financial sense to the process.
An ALJ makes around $80 per hour. Only in government do people think they can save money by delegating simpler and more routine tasks to people who cost the most per hour.
Between ACA giving more people access to regular medical coverage increasing the size of the medical files to be reviewed and the agency delegating more and more routine tasks and sprinkling of more ALJ's hitting the career points to be eligible for more leave, the process has slowed down.
In the private sector, the bean counters would never just deal with this by hiring more ALJ's instead they would focus on how to get the most expensive part in the factory to produce more.
That can only be done by hiring less expensive people.
DDS has people who summarize all the medical evidence for the decision makers. OHO? No way. Yet providing the ALJ with a summary of all medical records instead of the ALJ summarizing it would allow for more hearings to be scheduled.
With summaries provided to the ALJ and the representative or claimant (who can review it to see if something significant is missing or mischaracterized) ALJ's could increase the number of hearings by 25% easily, maybe 50%.
It would cost far less to hire more case techs and attorneys than increasing the ALJ roster by 25% which would still require hiring more case techs and attorneys. Simply up their numbers and expect the ALJs to crank out more decisions by clearing the road of the things that slows them down.
A summary of medical evidence is provided, it is call on OTR Brief Request, funny how they never get read.
ReplyDelete11:09 those are scarce as hen's teeth in my part of the world. Reps rarely request on the record decisions and less than a third provide a summary of the evidence and about one-third of those a cherry picked evidence like the MRI showing a bad back but nothing about how the surgery went.
ReplyDeleteI do one on every claim. I get to the Hearing and I hear, "oh, I didn't see this brief" I have also watched them mysteriously disappear from the Exhibited File, and have to resubmit. Funny how that happens.
ReplyDeleteIf they read them and acted on them you would see more of them I bet!
While there's always changes that could make any large agency more efficient Congress is currently the biggest driver of the backlog. People like Sam Johnson and Jackie Walorski know that their own efforts to under-fund agency operations are the main cause of the problem but hypocritically blame others. Nothing significant will change until they and their ilk are voted out of power.
ReplyDelete@5:22
ReplyDeleteIt would only take a tiny slice of the jumbo multi-billion dollar pie the Congress just served up to rich folks and big businesses...If those that voted for the plan gave a damn about the poor and middle class, which of course they don't.
As a 30 year trial lawyer let me make a suggestion. Similar to work comp and other types of law and particularly the appellate court systems, make us lawyers do the work for you. We can use our staff to order all the records but extend your Agency's regulatory rules/regs to allow us to get the records for the same $15, or even free. Have us put the records in chronological order and abstract them like appellate work. Have us do the indexing. Work with us on scheduling, not against us. I like to stack 6x hearings a day and it is in my best interest to have those hearings run smooth and be prepared. Raise the fee cap to an even $10K or no cap at all and straight 25%. Then make us earn it. Then outsource the work to our staff. You already did that at the agency level with the appeals and applications. Do it for hearings preparation.
ReplyDeleteGet the riff-raff and the non-attorney reps out of the process. For good. Make it harder, much harder, for the internet law firms and easier for the local professionals that take pride in preparation and who diligently/realistically screen for the best cases. We are your best asset at filing motions to withdraw RFH on bad cases. Put the claimant's attorneys to working with the agency. We are not the enemy. Many of us excel in computer systems, streamlining, and have staff trained to keep the clients happy and not complaining. I'm just venting but there is soooooo much we could do if we worked together.