This was obtained from Social Security by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and published in its newsletter, which is not available online to non-members. It concerns operations in the agency's Office of Hearings Operations.
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9 comments:
Great news!!!
agree this is good news for claimants!
For reps we've got to be ready to take claimants to hearing faster, get evidence ready sooner than recent past. For reps running a business you may want to look into what this means for your firm. Backlog will be eliminated by end of 2021 with OHO output at more than 1.5x inputs. Are there any reps that don't think processing time will drop to 300 days or less over next 20 to 24 months? It has already dropped 89 days in last fiscal year, on pace to drop by more than 100 days in each of the next 2 years.
It's dropped for us.
Funny, it's now taking up to six months for the district office in my area to get SSI cases going recently after online filing and paper apps going in. Seems initial determination and recon steps are taking considerably longer now also. With no added resources do all of these improvements happen swiftly like magic, or are we merely shifting the titanic deck chairs around. Also, seems like district office is now asking online filers to come into SSA to prove their identities all of the sudden after electronic filing. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the technology? What's up with that? Also, get the feeling there's some active new claim discouragement going on at the agency. Just my imagination running away with me in the words of the Temptations?
@Unknown: I tend to agree with you about shifting the chairs around. Great improvement in wait times at OHO and a huge decrease in the backlog based on the resources they threw at it. However, as you point out, things at the field office level seem to be getting slower and worse. I would add that the same holds true at components we deal with later in the process. Takes 30 minutes to get someone to pick up at the Program Service Center every time I call, that is if I don't get a busy signal, which happens about 75% of the time. Our office is also seeing a dramatic increase in mistakes coming out of the Program Service Centers. Miscalculated benefits, incorrect W.C. offset calculations, incorrect attorney fee payments.
With decreased filings and shorter wait times at OHO, it will be interesting to see how firms adapt to the changes these items will cause in revenue. We have been anticipating a decline for several years and have tried to stay ahead of the decline by reducing our staffing and other overhead. So far, so good, but I can't say that is the case for a lot of my colleagues.
7:06 - Not sure why you're experiencing a delay by the Field Office, but if you're in a former prototype state that has reinstated the recon, the DDS will have some delay.
So we're staring down the barrel of 300k pending by next September and potentially next to nothing by 2021 at this rate. They might have to eliminate recon just to give hearing offices something to do.
Those ALJs could go to Immigration and help with the backlog there.
Or they could be repurposed to build the wall.
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