From a recent presentation by Teresa Gruber, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner for Hearings Operations at a conference of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR):
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10 comments:
Returning to work?
@4:43
Or dying.
Dying?
More judges, more decision writers, more overtime, and the five-day evidence submission rule meaning that hearing requests get decided faster and more efficiently.
@4:43 As the Boomers head into full retirement age, the number of claims overall has dropped and will continue to drop. Naturally, fewer new filings should correlate with a reduction in pending hearing requests.
@11:40 There is data suggesting that an unacceptable number of people die waiting on their hearing. NOSSCR has spoken out about this in the not-so-distant past.
@7:12 Are decisions coming out faster? Is there data on that? I haven't really noticed any change. The same ALJs who've always gotten decisions out in about 4 weeks or less are still getting decisions out in about four weeks or less and the ALJs who've traditionally taken 6 months or more to get their decisions out are still taking 6+ months.
They just hired like 400 or so decision writers, and they might be bringing on even more with the increased budget. With the extra staffing and budget, it makes sense the backlog is going down.
@2:14, re your reply to @7:12, it stands to reason that cases will spend less time in POST with the five day rule. That will improve ALJ Average Processing Times, excepting the old school judges who decline to enforce that rule.
Here we go again with everyone on the wait list dies. Get over it, the numbers do not even remotely support that level not even in your wildest dreams. At $200/hr you can do better than that. Then again, maybe not, and that's why you are doing this!
@2:14 Lets look at this. I am trying to find to understand your position. You say people die waiting for benefits, benefits that they have already been denied, usually twice. Your argument is that they would be alive if they had benefits? Please support?
If they are in extreme economic distress, which I think is what you will say, they would qualify for Medicaid for medical and prescription drug treatment or assistance through the ACA, or for reduced sliding scale services if they get in contact with social services of the state (service every single rep should be able to provide to every single client if they truly remotely cared. Remember, not all applicants are single, living in a box, naked and starving in the street without a farthing. Some have insurance through a spouse. In fact, getting a check for benefits may disqualify them for assistance programs.
There is some drop in the number of applications due to the aging of the boomers, but the Baby Boom Era didn't end until 1964. Those folks are only 53-54 right now, and 8 years ago, they were in their 40s. In fact, the peak of the BB era was between 1954 and 1964, and none of those folks are full retirement age. That doesn't account for any significant portion of the drop.
The economic change over the last several years, compared to 2008-2012, is a far more likely contributor to the drop in applications than aging out. In 2018 alone, I've had over 10 people withdraw their requests for hearing because they have returned to full-time work, and it's not call center work or surveillance systems monitor work. It's CNA work, construction work, etc.
And it is certainly unfortunate when people die waiting for a hearing. I've had six such individuals in the last 8-10 months or so. However, four of them died of causes completely unrelated to their conditions. The numbers provided to or by NOSSCR don't account for deaths unrelated to the individual's conditions. Hopefully with the decrease in filings and subsequent decrease in hearing time, this number will also drop over time.
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