For whatever reason, Social Security has seen the need to issue an Emergency Message reminding its staff that claimants often have representation and that there are statutes, regulations and policies concerning the agency's dealing with those representatives. Perhaps some may have thought that due to the pandemic the basic rules could be ignored.
By the way, for those who don't know, Social Security "Emergency Messages" don't normally address emergencies. Of course, by this point we don't know what most of the "Emergency Messages" do address. So far this year, the agency has released at least 49 Emergency Messages to its staff but has released only 4 of those to the public. Government in the sunshine? Not so much at Social Security.
10 comments:
If you make everything a conspiracy you are no better than a Q follower and have the same credibility.
Since March SSA, particularly OHO employees have ignored my representation of clients. The pattern has been particularly most irritating in Court and Appeals Council Remand cases.
In at least four Remand cases hearings have been scheduled without notice to me. In one case, I had represented the client for over 5 years. My name was listed throughout the file. OHO scheduled a hearing with only 8 days notice and did not notify me. In that case the client contacted me and I contacted OHO. The hearing was cancelled. OHO seemed irritated that I did not agree to a hearing with such short notice. I pointed out to them that I had to catch up on the medical records for the 2 years the case was at the Appeals Council and in the District Court.
In another case, neither the client or I was notified. We received 10 days notice. I contacted OHO and pointed out that I had represented the client from the beginning of the case through the District Court Remand. The worker I talked to could not understand why I was continuing to represent the client after I had obtained a remand from the District Court. Ultimately, that worker called me a name and hung up. That case was postponed. My office updated 2 years of records. The client had a hearing with proper notice and the client received a Fully Favorable Decision with my representation at the hearing.
I do not understand how a hearing can be scheduled without notice to the attorney, particularly in cases that have been pending for five years.
"I do not understand how a hearing can be scheduled without notice to the attorney, particularly in cases that have been pending for five years."
The answer is that representation is not being entered properly into the system after an AC/DC remand.
This is actually pretty normal for OHO at the moment, so it has something to do with their database.
After remand, you have to follow up and get yourself re-entered or the case will be auto-scheduled without any notice. It's nice when the client calls you after the hearing letting you know that you were not there and that the ALJ thought that the case was unprepped.
I've learned that if you are not getting notices from OHO soon after the remand, it means that your representation was cleared from the system and has to be re-entered.
"the agency has released at least 49 Emergency Messages to its staff but has released only 4 of those to the public."
Doesn't a FOIA request get you anything? Why not?
At 12:15, if you check your ERE status reports you can catch hearings that were scheduled without notice to you.
"At 12:15, if you check your ERE status reports you can catch hearings that were scheduled without notice to you"
12:53 here. That only solves some of the problem. The other problem is that the ERE status report is useless for the cases where the rep information is not electronically reattached after the AC sends the claim back to OHO. You actually have to compare your own internal docket to the ERE hearing status report and check for missing cases. An individual case can be listed in the AC ERE status report when the AC remand order is issued and then absent from the OHO ERE status report when the hearing is scheduled by OHO.
Unless you get yourself manually reattached to the file as a rep before the remand hearing, you are not going to be called the day of the hearing and the hearing will proceed as an unrepresented remand hearing even though the rep received a copy of the AC remand order.
anon@3:17pm,
So called "Emergency Messages" do not change agency policy. Instead, they are a mixture of instructions and "systems and methods" information (i.e. what to do and how to do it within SSA systems).
The agency has always had a strong policy of not providing "systems and methods" information to the public under any circumstances for security reasons. The best you will get with a FOIA request will be (if you are lucky) the policy part of the EM or (more likely) just the section of the EM pointing to the POMS sections it addresses.
I am 12:15 p.m. October 22
I have handled SSA cases since 1979. I have handled hundreds of Appeals Council and District Court and Circuit Court of Appeals remands. Until March of this year I have never encountered being left off of a case that I had been handling for several years. In two of the cases I mentioned I had been representing the client for at least five years.
Furthermore, in both of those cases after I received the Appeals Council Remand Order I then received a letter from the local OHO stating that they had the case back.
I do not understand the breakdown in these cases. Whoever is looking at the cases at OHO does not know what they are doing. How do they think the case was remanded. Do they think that the client was pro se in Federal Court. While it is possible it is doubtful. The name of the attorney should be part of whatever check list they are working off of.
It bothers me that I have seen it happen about five times in the last seven months. I had not seen that type of problem in the past 41 years of practice in this area.
There are definitely some falsehoods going on here...continue
When an SSA Emergency Message issues, does it go to DDS too? Most of the DDS workers I deal with seem to disregard attorney representation. And why does it take WSU so long to add a representative to the case?
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