The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE), a voluntary organization of the personnel who make disability determinations for Social Security at the initial and reconsideration levels, has issued its Summer 2019 newsletter. Here's one item from "NADE's Top Issues for 2019":
Reduction in 15 Year Work History: Due to vast changes in the occupational landscape, it is unfair current regulations allow claims to be denied on the basis claimants have an ability to perform a job they performed previously but which no longer exists, or a job they would no longer recognize.
Most of the time they skip step 4 and many times they ignore PRW when the claimant is approaching a grid within 2 years - they refuse to make the claimant fill out the form [note - it is not them doing it so little agency time spent]. The cases age after recon and OHO has to deal with the incomplete file. Bad policy.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Also, even if the job still exists, but it has changed in such a way that they can no longer perform it, then it should not be used to deny benefits. Absurdly unfair.
ReplyDeleteSeems to me that the imperfections at Step 4 (Past Relevant Work) and Step 5 (Other Work) can never be resolved to the satisfaction of the claimant bar and the courts, so the only remaining option is to go back to ending the process at Step 3 (listings).
ReplyDelete9:52 AM, that's what logicians call a false dichotomy.
ReplyDelete9:52 AM. Is it really too much to ask for the agency to come up with an actual REAL job that the claimant can ACTUALLY DO on a sustained basis?
ReplyDelete@9:52
ReplyDeleteThe PRW issue has already been largely addressed by SCOTUS in that a job doesn't even necessarily have to exist anymore to be used in a step 4 denial.bI would say the number of jobs that have so drastically changed in the last 15 years that someone doing them in 2004 would not be capable of performing them today (due to a change in processes or technology) are so minimal that it wouldn't warrant a regulatory change. NADE doesn't have that kind of pull anyway.
The other side of the coin with regard to work changing with technology is that the labor force is drastically different than it was in 1980-81 when the grid rules were promulgated. There is no reason someone with a high school diploma or more and semiskilled or skilled work history couldn't obtain and learn a call center position or some other semiskilled, entry level position without transferable skills absent a cognitive or social impairment.
Yet SSA can only use unskilled occupations at step five, and the grid rules direct disability in a number of instances where a person is not totally disabled but simply limited to a lower exertional level job than they previously performed. You don't think a 56yo electrician or plumber capable of only light work couldn't get a job at Ace or Menard's as a sales associate and do well in that role?
7:03. How do you propose the DDS "make" the claimant provide the vocational information? Who should be getting this information from the claimant At the OHA level is the so-called vocational expert
ReplyDelete@9:52
ReplyDeleteActually, I am quite satisfied with how the Courts have resolved deficiencies at the 5th step, other than the deference given to secret VE testimony.
@12:46
Somehow the denial of claimants' claims based on their past work being performable despite no longer existing always struck me as odd, primarily because by definition an occupation which does not exist cannot be performed. In any event, the inability to perform work due to a medical impairment inherently resolves that issue, since an occupation no longer existing is not a result of a medical impairment.
As to your example, I've not seen in particular a plumber or electrician found to be capable of performing work as a sales associate at a hardware store, but I've heard similar conclusions, so I do not believe the grid rules would prevent it. As to the legitimacy of the exertional levels and transferability analysis in consideration of the modern economy; the whole point of the guidelines was to award benefits to individuals who would not likely be capable of performing work in a range of occupations in significant numbers. Obviously some 55 year olds can do light work, and some 60 year olds can do sedentary work, but a great many cannot, and a great many more cannot do so in a significant number of jobs.
@12:13
I think what 7:03 was saying is that DDS should make the claimant fill out the work history report, in great detail, not that the claimant should obtain a VE. That said, I've seen work history reports filled out in exceptional detail, and DDS still just says they did not have enough info to address past work, but we found alternative work. I think they just do it as a matter of course.
Instead of the application telling claimant's not to complete the3369 if they had more than one job they should tell them to complete it in detail. They should revise the form to ask the questions they actually want the answers too. The reason you see the vocational expedient being used when there is a pretty good job description may be that while the description is good enough to show he cannot do the job as he described it, it may not be enough to show he cannot do it as performed in the national economy or whether or not he would have transferable skills. There may also be several months of random work 14 years ago that he did not describe. I did not mean the claimant should get a vocational specialist. I meant that the vocational specialist at the ALJ hearing should do this instead of the useless work they do now. It seems that no matter how much detail one gets at the DDS when a person is at a critical age OQR and the other,revieiwers are never satisfied. He may have been this kind of cook and not
ReplyDeletethat etc etc