This is a caseload analysis report from Social Security's Office of Hearings Operations (OHO) which was obtained by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and published in their newsletter (which is not available online to non-members).
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Note that in May the average receipts per Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) per day was 1.39 but the average number of dispositions per ALJ per day was 2.31. It won't take long at that rate for the backlog to disappear. In retrospect, was it a good idea to increase the minimum notice of a hearing from 20 days to 75 days?
Extending the notice requirement to 75 days is part of the reason for the increased output. Combined with the 5 day evidence rule, and the provision that representatives should not withdraw once a hearing is scheduled, the additional notice means less hearings get cancelled and more hearings “fill in” the slots that do get cancelled. The Central Scheduling effort is contributing as well. Overall, the lack of a confirmed COSS has allowed some due process short cuts that are making the trains run on time. If a COSS had been in place, it is likely that politics would have blocked a lot of those changes.
ReplyDeleteIt remains to be seen whether the recent announcement that overtime is being cancelled will have an appreciable impact on the receipts/decisions ratio. The fact that new applications are coming in much slower that anyone expected (or can explain), combined with the reintroduction of Reconsideration in 10 states, augers for little change in the ratio, and a likelihood that the backlog will continue to drop precipitously.
I can explain it, lowest unemployment in decades.
ReplyDelete9:03 - Hogwash. I would love to see any evidence or statistics that these "due process short cuts" had an appreciable effect on the disposition rate. Most people familiar with the real-world impact of the 5-day rule (and 75-day notice requirement) will tell you that the exception has swallowed the rule. The representatives that provided evidence during or after the hearing are now merely providing notices of outstanding evidence 5 days before the hearing while continuing to submit late evidence. The 75-day notice requirement locks in hearing days earlier than before, but does nothing for ALJ productivity.
ReplyDeleteCentral scheduling is new to most regions, so I don't see how it has a proven impact on productivity one way or the other. My office had good schedulers before the CS implementation, so we're actually experience an adverse impact of the new scheduling rules. Other offices that were having scheduling difficulties may be seeing an improvement. CS has added a new layer of bureaucracy when trying to make changes to individual hearings, so I'm not sure if all the downstream effects of the changes are being fully captured.
What has most certainly resulted in higher dispositions is the agency's cavalier attitude that all cases are fungible and ALJ dispositional quotas can be increased nationwide without any consequence. The agency has systematically increased dispositional quotas for all ALJs (and decision writers) and threatened to deny telework or take remedial actions against judges that do not fully comply. Most recently, the agency has increased office dispositional goals without any explanation. This has resulted in ALJs working an additional 40,000 unpaid hours (lost credit time and forfeit time) last fiscal year. This is according to the timekeeping system, so the actual number may be substantially higher. In the meantime, the appeal agree rate has fallen nationwide as judges and staff are forced to do more with less.
In the past, management applauded ALJs that were issuing 1000+ decisions per year and turned a blind eye to the real-world consequences of such high disposition rates. After the Huntington fiasco, management belatedly set a dispositional cap and instituted a host of quality assurance measures. The appeal agree rate shot up, but as one would expect, the disposition rate went down. Now we're back to a pre-Huntington mindset where quality is sacrificed at the altar of expediency. But some would have you believe that the productivity increase is due to a longer notice period or some such.
@12:01
ReplyDeleteThat assumes the average unemployed individual would seek social security disability benefits as opposed to...unemployment benefits. Which do you think the average individual would apply for? In any event, even if that were the case, unemployment was exceptionally low last year too, 4% compared to 3.6%. Why now are we seeing a decrease in applications? Also, the applications are at record lows, but actually have increased slightly since 4th quarter 2017 (with the exception of 2nd-3rd qtr 2018), so if it was simply a result of low unemployment, which has been steadily decreasing since October 2009, why would the recent historically low unemployment make a difference?
@1:21 they file for DIB after UE runs out. Why do you think they extended UE for months during the Great Recession?
ReplyDeleteAlso the new job numbers for jobs created in the quarters you are looking at decreased and jobs have been added at an ever growing pace since 2009 (the deep beginning of the recession).
What else you got?
This is based on a combination of a strong economy plus simple demographics. The Baby Boomers are migrating out of their disability prone years onto SS retirement. This has been long predicted by actuaries.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how low the numbers go before the ALJs are reassigned to Immigration cases?
ReplyDelete@2:56
ReplyDeleteFiling for DIB after UE running out does not explain a recent decrease in claims recieved by an ALJ since that's a historic norm, not a recent change.
As to jobs being created at an "ever growing pace," job creation and unemployment are actually not the same thing. If in one month 1,000,000 people lose their jobs and 300,000 jobs are created, there are 700,000 more unemployed people. If in another month 1,500,000 people lose their jobs and 400,000 jobs are created, more jobs are created but unemployment rises 1,100,000. More jobs, but also more unemployment. The opposite can also be true.
In any event, job creation has not been increasing at an "ever growing pace" since 2009. Unemployment has been decreasing, but at a decreasing rate (under both administrations).
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
Job creation has been relatively steady across both administrations.
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/ces0000000001?output_view=net_1mth
So I repeat, unemployment decreasing does not explain a recent decrease in receipt of claims at the ALJ level decreasing. The claims filed have been slowly decreasing overall at the initial level, but the recent decrease at the ALJ level is odd.
I( think it is great they are not filing as much and that they are not going to Hearing. I am sure on here everyone believes they are naked and starving in the streets, but most likely they are going back to work.
ReplyDeleteThanks Obama. High employment and job growth, created under Obama, will certainly put disability lawyers out of work.
ReplyDeleteThe receipt to disposition ratio has maintained this negative trend for a while. They're going to have to lay off ALJs.
ReplyDeleteThey're losing 8-10 ALJs per month on average and won't be slowing down any time soon. Natural attrition will handle the excess judge numbers.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what the 75-day notice has to do with this. Until we're down to hearing requests getting immediately scheduled 75 days from they're being made, I don't see what the issue might be.