From a study by Social Security's Office of the Chief Actuary on Probability of Death While Pending an Administrative Law Judge Determination:
There are two key findings. First, the death rate for individuals who are awaiting an ALJ determination has declined somewhat over the period from 2006 to 2017. Second, the death rate for this group, while it is two to three times as high as that for the general population, is only about one-fourth of the death rate for workers who have been awarded disabled worker benefits and are in their first two years of benefit entitlement. ...
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The summary given above is accurate but I don't see why anyone would find this report reassuring. There are far too many people waiting for hearings and thousands of them die each year.
To give a full report on this issue shouldn't the Office of Chief Actuary have looked at what happened to those disability claims after the claimants died? The vast majority of those cases didn't die with the claimant. Someone was entitled to whatever benefits accrued before the claimant's death. Sure, some of those claims were denied but I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of those claims were approved after the claimant died. Isn't that an important?
The really disgusting thing is that, when a claimant died, SSA found that the claimant actually WAS disabled--but, only as of the day of death. In most of those cases, the widow (who was the substituted party) was just tired from fighting with the government, so she instructed me to not pursue the case any further.
ReplyDeleteMy experience is that a bit more than half of those who die while their claims are pending (not at hearing level) are later approved. Sometimes the death is due to auto or other accidents. Sometimes it's a health issue but something that isn't related to their disability--bad back dies from heart attack.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the United Nations, 2,473,018 people died in the United States in the most recent year data is available, 2008. That means 6,775 per day. If you watch this blog comment section often you would think every single one of them was applying for disability and awaiting the Hearing.
ReplyDeleteit is unfortunate that people die while awaiting benefits. But not all of it is due to processing time, it is the medical outcome of the condition that did not quite reach CAL levels. It also falls in line with the number of people who die in the beginning years after disability. Having benefits most likely would not have changed the outcome medically. I don't mean to sound callus, that is not the point but the problem appears to be far smaller than regular posters to the blog would lead you to believe.
Regardless of why a person died while awaiting a hearing the fact is there are far too many folks dying while waiting for a hearing. I think if OHO got rid of the HOD job and half of the supervisors at OHO offices and replaced them with folks who do the overwhelming majority of the work (support staff, writers, and ALJ's) the amount of people who are dying while waiting for a hearing will be substantially reduced. Does anyone have any idea what a HOD does all day to earn a GS14 salary?
ReplyDeleteFor previous commentators: How many deaths are acceptable to you? In 2010 when hearings offices were trying to move backlogged cases, I lost 5% of my clients while waiting for hearings, ALJ decision, or for benefits to begin. I am now a retired sole practitioner, and I usually carried about 150 active cases at any one time. Other years have been roughly the same, but I didn't do statistics on it.
ReplyDelete