Here is something that I was unaware of from the testimony of Lisa Eckman who is Co-Chair of the
Social Security Task Force of the Consortium for Citizens with
Disabilities (CCD), an umbrella organization of non-profits involved in
helping the disabled, at today's House Social Security Subcommittee:
In March 2015, SSA updated its electronic appeals system. The new system involved a “single submission” practice in which appeals were only processed when applicants completed lengthy forms not required by SSA’s regulations. These additional requirements were poorly communicated, leading to more than 61,000 people filing regulatorily compliant appeals that went unprocessed. SSA decided in early 2018, after several years of advocacy from CCD member organizations and other groups, to re-contact these claimants. Over 28,000 of these appeals are now being processed, some of them several years after they should have been, and more will be processed soon. Although we appreciate SSA’s efforts, we remain concerned that the iAppeals system still requires more information than the regulations require and that SSA has no plans to change this. The agency’s position is that because the paper process complies with regulations, it is acceptable to have an electronic process that violates them. This faulty reasoning deprives tens of thousands of claimants of due process.
5 comments:
That's...disturbing. More often than not, one of our local FOs ignore an application/appeal once or twice (in one case 9 times), but in the end we always confirm receipt either through hand delivery (if necessary) or more often correspondence with the office manager. I'm curious if this behavior is due to the iAppeals process. If an unrepresented claimant were not aware of the need to followup with the Administration on their applications/appeals, I can imagine a great deal of claims being ignored.
12:17, it is an iappeals issue. Basically they weren't processing appeals unless the disability report-appeals and consent for release of medical information forms were also completed. But lots of people stopped at the re-entry number point (either because they thought it was a confirmation number, or they didn't understand how to fill out the other forms, or they intended to come back to it and got too sick to do it, or they did it on paper and SSA never associated the iappeal and the paper forms, or whatever).
So now they have to go back and see if these folks really did want to appeal. Of course, some are probably dead by now. Others may have reapplied and be getting benefits on the new claim--SSA should be seeing if the earlier claim could be reopened for additional back benefits but if a person who's recontacted doesn't understand and says "don't worry about that thing I did three years ago, I have my money now" I bet SSA will just take their word for it and not figure out an underpayment.
61,000 ca$e$. Surely some jackleg cla$$ action lawyer can find a way to fix thi$ peoblem and turn a profit out of it! SSA should not profit from its inertia. A good portion of those claims are meritorious, If only a small portion were that amounts to millions of dollars for the life of the claims.
These are appeals from people who started their appeal online and didn't finish them. And didn't ever follow up to see why a couple of years later they hadn't heard. I'd guess that probably most did not have attorneys when they appealed as they can finish the process or at least know when it is not finished.
1:22 agreed that it's probably mostly unrepresented folks. But if they've heard that it takes years to get a hearing after you request one, it makes sense that they wouldn't follow up for a while. And if they did call the 800 number or go to their local office do you feel confident they'd get accurate information? Probably at best they'd be told to file a new claim.
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