From today's Federal Register:
We are extending for six months our rule authorizing attorney advisors to conduct certain prehearing proceedings and to issue fully favorable decisions. The current rule is scheduled to expire on February 5, 2018. In this final rule, we are extending the sunset date to August 3, 2018. We are making no other substantive changes.However, there have been few attorney advisor decisions in recent years and none recently. If Democrats were to take control of the House of Representatives in this November's election, expect the attorney advisor program to ramp up quickly. The reason is pretty clear. Social Security officials know that Congressional Republicans don't really care about backlogs but do want as few disability claims approved as possible.
11 comments:
They're just keeping their options open but don't expect any changes anytime soon. It has nothing to do with the Hill. Everyone is writing decisions senior attorneys, hearing office management, even some appeals council analysts and there's still 75k+ pending to be written. Based on communications to us, they certainly care about the writing backlog.
The question here is why aren't favorable on the record decisions being made on very strong cases and helping the deserving avoid the terrible wait times.
because everyone that would be making that decision is writing decisions for people that have been waiting even longer.
Cases now are being looked at by ALJ's preparing for hearings 16 to 22 months after the last time anyone with authority to issue a favorable decision has looked at it.
Congress isn't in the mood to hire anyone.
What ought to happen is just give people the right to appeal the first DDS decision and then move recon to 9-12 months after the notice of appeal is filed.
I primarily practice in one of the prototype states that does not allow reconsideration of a DDS decision. The reconsideration of a DDS decision should be optional. In the cast majority of cases I would not file one but every year I get one or two cases that I could win if I could just explain to an adjudicator why that first decision was wrong. I had an ALJ hearing late last year where I said, to the ALJ, that I could not understand why this case was not approved at the DDS level but this was a fine example of the DDS adding to the backlog of cases dumped on ALJs. His response, "Counsel, I think your point is well taken. I agree and will enter a favorable decision." Asked the VE one question, possibly to make sure he could pay the VE, and ended the hearing.
The basic structure of DDS decision making is wrong. Representatives cannot be effective advocates. It is hard enough to be effective before ALJs but before adjudicators when you cannot see what information they have, not discuss it with them, nor present arguments, it is almost impossible.
They have over 2000 decision writers currently. How is there a 75000 case backlog??
Maybe they should stop the telecommuting. Obviously letting them work from home is NOT working.
It's called teleworking (I never understood why it was ever called telecommuting. The digital traveling to your office is the least important aspect of the arrangement--the digital working from your home is), and the increase in telework has had a negligible, if any negative, impact on decision writing speed. The increase in quality demands, larger case files, and more detailed instructions from ALJs are the cause of the slow down.
Also, would you like me to spend less than an entire workday (8 hours, right) on your complicated disability case? What if you have a lot of medical evidence and the judge just missed a crucial fact that might have swayed them from UF to FF? If you make me and the other writers go too quickly, we won't be able to continue serving as the last backstop for missing things like we currently do. Don't forget--the writer is the one that spends the most time with your case files. SCTs are given like 1.5 hours to pull it, ALJs get like 2.5 hours to do everything they do for it. We get, on average for the 12 categories of cases we've devised, about 7-8 hours per case. You start making us speed up, more issues slip through the cracks. But hey, do you.
The assumption there is that telework hurts productivity but the numbers show telework actually increases productivity compared to those writers that choose to come in everyday. It wouldn't help it would just destroy morale and breed resentment because it would be so illogical.
The people against telework seem to just be haters. Its not fact based.
There is a 75000 case backlog. That's fact.
Backlog was lower prior to telecommuting. Another fact.
Teleworking is not working. As teleworking increased the backlog increased. Guess it's too much to ask folks to be responsible while working at home. Also, why is there is so many managers (HOD, supervisors) at OHO when so many people are teleworking so often. Who exactly are they managing when no one is in the office? Why not cut management jobs and use the money wasted on management salaries to hire more support staff, writers, and ALJ's?
Correlation does not equal causation. When telework was fully implemented applications increased dramatically due to demographics and recession.
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