It's happening again. Social Security is delaying posting final 2019 numbers for fees paid to attorneys and others for representing claimants before the agency. The fees come out of the back benefits of the claimants. Normally, those numbers are posted on a monthly basis in less than a week after the beginning of a month. We're now past the middle of February and Social Security still hasn't posted the December 2019 numbers. I'm not the only one who pays attention to these numbers. This delay happened last year if I remember correctly.
10 comments:
In my three years of solo practice doing SSDI work exclusively, the payment rate has never been as slow as it has been since December. Checks have slowed to a trickle. As always, calling the payment centers is a fool's errand.
They don't want to release the numbers because they lied to NOSSCR when they said payments as usual when we all know they stopped all payment processing from 12/12/2019 until the new year. Not only did we see it, we felt it during a month with Christmas bonuses and it was confirmed by those working in the payment centers.
Might be because there is more important work than a report for a few thousand people to look at and forget about.
Is there other data showing the distinction between payments resulting from petitions vs agreements? We've noticed an extremely significant slowdown in petitions in the past 6 months and I'm curious if that is part of a larger trend.
9:48: we also noticed that fee checks basically stopped for most of December. They were slow in November, too. That certainly was an unwelcome disruption to the cash flow at year end. However, we've noticed that things seemed to have picked back up to normal volume in January and so far in February. Wonder why this occurred and if it will happen again at the end of this year.
10:02am: you can bet that the report was generated within a few days of the end of the month. But SSA is delaying its release for some reason. Probably 9:48am got it right.
Glad I'm not the only one. Sometimes you think you are getting a little batty. Also, it is indeed true you can't get through to SSA. I've got one fee over two years old. Actually called my congressional office. Very conservative republican, but old conservative republican office holder used to help. I have gotten no response from the current one at all after initially speaking to someone. I sent them the information and they have completely ignored it. Called NOSSCR about fee recovery program and was told it ended in December. This is the trial run for the future. Also the extremely choppy hearing scheduling and hit and miss payments is designed to push us toward the door. About a couple of hundred people own this country outright again just like over one hundred years ago and they are out to kill this program, period. Also, heard the head of the immigration judge's union on NPR a couple of months ago and she was providing in detail how the Trump Administration is gaming the statistics over there. We have a habitual liar in office who is heavily influenced by the Heritage Foundation. I don't trust them at all.
@9:48 my guess is that this year since there is no telework, many employees decided to take annual leave/vacation over the holidays and not work any of that time. I know this year I took almost three weeks off, but in prior years, I would telework a day and a half each week I was off just to stay on top of processing and not get behind in things. This wasn’t an option this year, and my whole team except for the designated single employee showing up each day, took that giant block of time off. We all used to rotate telework days over the holidays to make sure we had half staff available each day but that’s not an agency rule, it’s just something we did to provide good support while still being with family. However, family comes first and many of us with lose or use leave took it all, uninterrupted.
I'm surprised that management didn't restrict large blocks of leave at the end of the year. Management has the right to deny leave for business reasons. Sounds like management not doing it's job. Work life balance is a myth held over from the 80s. Can't take care of your family if you don't work. Three weeks at the end of the year? Is that what I understand? Poor planning on your part?
I think it is time to revisit this issue and stress to NOSSCR which is dependent on our dues to try to intervene. No updates on fees since November of last year. I think we will be seeing a major contraction of representation in this area of law due to firm bankruptcy and departure of practice. I'm not saying this out of greed but literally due to the need to pay rent and feed my family. I have barely been payed since mid summer. My owed fees are piling up. We have information today that the CDC has suddenly dropped testing stats because they might make the administration look bad. We also have information from the immigration bar and ALJ system that statistics are being manipulated in that practice area to help administration ends. What the hell is going on? Are we being intentionally put out of business? If the questions aren't being asked we will surely get no answers. If NOSSCR is on this and I'm merely ignorant please inform me.
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