Social Security has posted an updated dataset giving the average processing time at each of its hearing offices. Here's the list of the offices with the top ten longest processing time, in days:
- San Juan 864
- National Hearing Center Chicago 820
- New York 772
- Buffalo 764
- Bronx 760
- Philadelphia 756
- National Hearing Center Falls Church 755
- Queens 738
- South Jersey 736
- Miami 725
Note that using the average number may understate the problem. Cases that are quickly dismissed because a request for hearing was filed too late go into that average. The typical case that actually goes to hearing will take longer than the stated average.
Here's a list of the top ten shortest processing time, again in days:
- Providence 325
- Boston 352
- Houston North 360
- Manchester 375
- Portland, ME 400
- Dallas North 428
- Oklahoma City 431
- Fort Smith 434
- Springfield, MA 434
- Middlesboro 436
It looks like things are going very nicely in Social Security's Boston Region, which has five of the top ten best offices, while things are going very badly next door in Social Security's New York region, which has six of the top ten worst offices. Why such big differences between regions? I thought that once we had video hearings these differences would go away.
16 comments:
I just love that two of the ten slowest offices are National Hearing Centers. When will SSA stop trolling people with the argument that VTC hearings are quicker?
Two things: 1) NHCs have higher APT because they get pre-aged cases from the offices with the highest APT; and 2) Hearing offices with high APT are plagued with reps who routinely decline video. Where video is not declined, the office ships the case off to an NHC.
"I thought that once we had video hearings these differences would go away." I hope this was meant in jest. The representatives, particularly the high-volume firms, routinely decline VTC hearings in my office. Apparently they believe that in-person hearings result in a slightly higher grant rate, so they decline VTC for all cases. As with the 5-day evidence rule, the agency allowed for exceptions that completely swallow the rule.
From SSA re video
https://www.ssa.gov/appeals/pubs/70-067.pdf
"Video hearings are just like in-person hearings"
BUZZZZZZ - Nope. Would you care to guess again? Nobody that has ever been to one would agree. Turns out SSA was in the Fake news business long before the President.
"Greater Convenience and Flexibility"
Yeah. Right. For who? The claimant who lives 5 miles from a hearing office sent 60 miles to a video hearing. Note to NHS: Google Maps is free. Use it once in awhile.
"Possibility of a quicker hearing"
This one gets the Joe Goebbles Award for BS. See Chicago's numbers?
I've been to plenty of video hearings and they were just like an in-person one. It's the telephone appearances that are so bad.
There is some flexibility. The long drive you described was obviously a scheduling mistake. The truth is, there are COV sites that are separate and apart from remote sites or hearing offices where the claimant might otherwise attend their hearing. Assuming they are not placed in the exact same spot as a HO or remote site, each of these COV sites is necessarily closer for at least some, but likely not all or even terribly many, claimants.
To address your third incorrect point, accepting a video hearing oftentimes speeds things up. Most times you don't see it because you were in-person the whole time, but next time you or a client is waiting on an in-person hearing at, say, a remote site, call up your office and say you'll take video and see how much more quickly they'll fit you in. Most ALJs loathe traveling to remote sites and do the bare minimum until we start getting serious about hearing and closing aged cases (right about now); if you take video at a remote site, I'll all but guarantee you'll get a hearing quicker.
Fewer than 30% of claimants decline video hearings (you can see that on the VH Optout line of the monthly workload statistics, some of which were published on this blog).
SSA's goal is just to do 30% of the hearings by video. So they should have no problem finding enough claimants who haven't opted out.
And I find it really hard to believe that somehow the Boston region folks aren't opting out but the NY region is? Or look at Dallas North (428 days) vs. Dallas downtown (560 days). They have the same reps. They live in the same metropolitan area. You think the downtown folks wait another 4 months because of the HA-55?
@2:15PM "Most ALJs loathe traveling to remote sites..." How about they come down from their ivory towers and do the job they were hired to do. Most reps travel all the time and while we may loathe it, we still do it because its part of the job description. And yes, sometimes I miss my kids baseball game because I have to travel, and sometimes I get home late. But we better not cause any inconvenience to an ALJ by asking them to travel.
Couldn't agree more. ALJ's need a reality check. Hopefully SCOTUS will provide that with the Lucia decision. Can't wait.
@8:57
I don't think you can blame reps for video objections when the NHCs are denying claims at a significantly higher rate. In our area most of our video hearings go to Chicago NHC. If SSA plagues claimants with an NHC with a lot of outlier ALJs who deny many more claims than others, then of course all well-informed people will object to avoid that forum.
This is what the GAO found about video hearings:
"• Hearing type: Claimants whose hearings were held in person were
allowed at a slightly higher rate (1.1 times higher) than a typical
claimant with a hearing conducted remotely using videoconference
technology.51 This is equivalent to a 2.8 percentage-point higher
probability of being allowed benefits for a claimant whose hearing was
held in person, compared to an otherwise typical claimant whose
hearing was conducted by videoconference."
https://www.gao.gov/mobile/products/GAO-18-37. At Page 26.
Shouldn't a lawyer take an action that verifiably can increase a client's probability of success?
@8:57,
I also live in a region where cases where sent to Chicago NHC. The Chicago NHC is the 2nd lowest paying OHO in the country (#1 is Anchorage, AK, which has only 2 judges that both deny everything). If I, as an attorney, am allowed to opt out of a video hearing that in all likelihood will wind up in front of one of the nation's worst venues, I see it as an ethical duty to be a zealous advocate and reject the VTC. I'm here to represent my clients, not make life easier for the agency.
The OHO's in my region are not super high paying, but they aren't as bad as the Chicago NHC. Chicago NHC judges aren't just low paying. They are very adversarial and nasty to both attorneys and claimants.
Bottom line, if the agency wants to do VTC hearings, treat people fairly and maybe you will have more success.
4:45 - I'm sorry that you have so much envy that some people have a modicum of job security. Reminds me a bit of how the ill-informed jumped on the anti-teacher bandwagon during the great recession. As if teacher tenure somehow caused their problems rather than Wall Street gambling with people's retirement accounts. In any case, if you take some glee in the prospect of ALJs losing APA protections because of the Lucia case, then you have very little knowledge of what's at stake. How about high-paying judges being fired because the agency disagrees with their decision making? Or 5-minute hearings because the agency imposes new production benchmarks? Or millions of claims left in limbo because they were decided by an ALJ that was not adequately appointed? Or in one swift Tweet, Trump firing all ALJs because he wants to hire ones more in line with his government philosophy? All that would be possible if the SC rules in Lucia's favor. But yes, that would give you some modicum of glee that some long-time federal employee gets shafted. How sad.
Yes, the troll who can't wait for Lucia (I see you hiding behind that keyboard, Mister Vice President!) is going to wind up with a Trump-appointed corps of Hearing Examiners who are under orders to deny all green-card claimants, all Mexicans, all Muslims, all LGBTs, and all Jewish voters who are registered to the Democratic party. And the next time a Democratic candidate wins the presidency, all hearings will have to be supsended for 120 days while the Trump-appointed HEs are relieved and their replacements are being vetted.
I.e., the fix that you're begging for is going to worsen the problem twenty-fold.
What's interesting here is that the Boston region and the New York region have the same Regional Chief ALJ.
The NYC hearing offices are flooded with SSI cases filed by public assistance in order to recoup public-assistance benefits, and NYC hospitals have regulations that make it harder to get records from than from hospitals in other cities or in rural areas. All that leads to long delays which you wouldn't find in other regions.
I'm now a retired attorney after 27 years of primarily SSDI/SSI and other court appearances. I often participated in other types of video hearings in administrative hearings before other federal/state agencies and arbitrations. However, once SSA started video hearings, I quickly learned to object to all of them.
In most other forums, the judges/adjudicators remember that they are supposedly educated professionals and extend professional respect and courtesy toward counsel and treat litigants with a modicum of humanity and decency. NOT ALJ'S! And especially those at NHC's. At one's home hearing office, the ALJ's (even the more recent hired aggressive "outliers") get to know the reps and often give the courtesy of actually listening to testimony and an advocate's presentation of evidence.
Perhaps much of the problem is that the NHC's run ALJ's on such a tight schedule that they shut off claimants and reps too early for all evidence to be heard and get in the vocational expert's (?) testimony. At the very first NHC hearing, the ALJ asked what she wanted to, then with about 5 minutes remaining, she very abruptly said, "Counsel, you may now BRIEFLY examine the claimant!"
She had not asked questions about some of the claimant's most severe medical problems. Very unprofessional.
Because of my elderly, skepticism, I refer to myself as The Social Security curmudgeon.
I am an ALJ and when I first started on the job, I much preferred to do in person hearings over video hearings and traveled all the time. Now, I could be described as one of those ALJs who loathe traveling to remote sites, but the reason is it is simply too inefficient to do so. Those four hours on the road are hours I could spend reviewing cases, writing instructions, or editing draft decisions.
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