The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has cleared a package of proposed regulations on Hearings Held by Administrative Appeals Judges of the Appeals Council. Social Security may now publish this proposal in the Federal Register. The public will be allowed to file comments. Social Security must then consider the comments. While comments from the public never seem to matter, the opinions of Andrew Saul, if he is ever confirmed as Commissioner of Social Security, and Congressional leaders do matter.
We cannot know what is in this proposal. The fear would be that it would mark the beginning of the end for the use of Administrative Law Judges at the agency. No one would get an in person hearing. They would just be some big building holding hundreds of Appeals Council judges all holding video hearings without any pretense of independence.
7 comments:
It seems to be one of the goals is to eliminate in person hearings one way or another. Right now a claimant has the right to an in person hearing, but SSA has proposed a regulation to take that right away. Together with centralized scheduling(which we are just getting to in my area) and centralized decision writing(which we have had for awhile now)I think SSA wants to eliminate local OHOs altogether. Centralized decision writing has not been a good thing as it seems to take 3 to 6 months to receive a decision after a hearing, even a fully favorable. Of course there are exceptions, but that is the routine now. The wait time for a hearing is 8 to 12 months.
I don't think it would be the end of ALJ's -- someone has to make those decisions, whether they're classified as ALJ or AAJ -- but as 11:47 noted, we're well on our way to a system in which in-person hearings are extremely rare and our current galaxy of OHO locations are slowly consolidated into a smaller group of hubs where the ALJ's would come in to hear the cases and return to teleworking on other days. The agency pays a ton for privately owned office space and would no doubt like to eliminate much of those costs.
When Jack Allen was was Deputy Chief ALJ, he was committed to the concept of VTC fixing all that was wrong with the hearing level, regardless of the impact on the quality of hearings or the impact it had on claimants and the perception of ALJs.
My personal opinion is that if SSA moves to a centralized hearing process, without the ability to have in-person hearings with ALJs who actually live and work in the same communities as they claimant's that come before them, the public impression of the Agency will greatly suffer. it will be seen as nothing more than a heartless government agency with "Judges" who are nothing more than cold bodies rubber stamping denials at the direction of the Agency.
I wonder what percentage of ALJs actually feel any connection to the people and area in which they serve? I'm going to guess that few of the ALJs assigned to my local office want to be there. It's either punishment or a stepping stone to another location. We are continuously ranked one of the most depressing areas in the country.
I believe folks are reading a bit more into this than what the Agency has envisioned. First of all, a very high percentage of cases are already being heard by ALJs in many parts of the country far from the location of the claimants. Second, the Agency is faced with more restrictive budgets and a reduced ability to physically locate personnel resources immediately in locations where there is the greatest need. Finally, the labile nature of filing pressure demands that some degree of efficiency and mobility on a national basis be employed. The old way is not necessarily the best way and it is my observation that the desire of the great majority of ALJs to deliver a fair and timely hearing to claimants will not be impeded in any way by the employment of advanced technology, wherever the parties maybe located. Claimants are waiting far to long to get an answer to the question, and there is a promise of relief in many of the programs that are being proposed. A confirmed COSS will also be a positive adjunct to the Agency. I am encouraged, and hopefully we will see significant improvements to the process.
@5:51 pm - Good points. The agency has been operating with a lame duck commissioner for some time now. A confirmed COSS will be able to implement permanent changes. Hopefully, some of those changes will include structural changes to hearing offices because way too many are poorly run and bloated with excessive managers who are teleworking two to three days a week.
The main problem with hearings is that the hearings are trying to hit a moving target. Claimant gets denied, and then gets a hearing over a year later. Then the medical has to be updated etc....
A better way would be to limit the hearing to the evidence in the administrative file, but then only allow the decision to have a dispositive effect up to the date of the administrative decision.
This would allow the hearing to be done faster because the OHO files would not be dealing with new evidence. Also, claimants will make sure that all their evidence gets to SSA to make the initial evaluation. SSA could even keep the files open indefinitely to allow the claimant to submit any evidence he or she wants considered and only close the file and decide the case at the claimant's request.
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