The report shown below 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 contains basic operating statistics for Social Security's Office of Hearings Operations (OHO).
Note that despite the availability of overtime at OHO, the backlog has been creeping up as productivity has declined.
 |
| Click on image to view full size |
9 comments:
Backlog has been creeping back up? Total pending has been decreasing every month this year. Being reduced at a lower rate is not going back up. If they allowed dismissals of cases where the claimants cannot be located or will not communicate with the offices, pending would be much lower than it currently is. Instead, these cases will be mass scheduled upon reopening so that judges will have hearing days where 0-2 claimants show up. Hearings that can be scheduled are being scheduled almost as soon as they come in the office now. Many of them are agreeing to OVHs, which is helpful for getting cases scheduled.
My guess is the OT is for staff to allow them to get their normal workload under control as they simultaneously try to do their normal job while also running the hearings as VHR 2-5x per week as well. It’s not designed to get ahead. It’s designed to tread water until outside VHRs can take over full time. Productivity is declining because of a lack of cases. Judges are getting 30-50% of their hearing slots filled in some offices. It has nothing to do with telework, laziness, or anything other than a dwindling workload.
You really should change your headline. The data shows that the pending is lower every month. There for there is no way the "backlog is up."
For several months, this blog has been pushing the thesis that SSA productivity is down in payment centers, FO, and HO, and the primary reason is because of telework.
I do not draw the same conclusions from the statistics in the chart, that the headline indicates.
It is interesting that the availability of overtime is highlighted in the headline about the HO. Yet this blog seems to discount the fact that there were draconian cuts in overtime in the payment centers this year, which has resulted in increased backlogs. Instead, this blog has blamed telework for the increased backlogs in the PC.
Agree with 8:30 & 9:01. Additionally, there are reps (and rep firms) that have blanket policies which include revocation of agreement to do hearings telephonically or by video if a case is transferred out of "their" hearing office (i.e., to another office where the case could be heard quicker/decision issued to claimant quicker). This has resulted in uneven caseload distribution and the pending decreasing a slower rate.
Let's have some perspective here: 5 years ago our office had about 10,000 pending cases in various stages of the adjudication process, today it's 2,280.
Pending is under 400k while staffing levels are not too far under what they were brought up to when first starting to tackle the 1.1 million pending just a few short years ago. Decision writers and senior attorneys have been given significant make-work for the last year+ as there simply aren't enough decisions/regular work to keep them busy.
To speak of backlogs at OHO (aside from the aforementioned would-be dismissals that keep on being rescheduled and otherwise held onto indefinitely and issues at the PCs/with rep issues...) is nonsensical.
I don't think the hearing backlog is up (at least not nationally) though the percentage pending over a year is rising as people who want to wait for in-person hearings have their cases sitting longer and longer.
But the initial and recon backlogs have grown quite a lot (even with applications down) and whenever SSA starts focusing on that and moving the cases, most will be denials and it will send a lot of cases on to OHO.
I can only speak for my corner of the world. For some time now hearings are being scheduled almost immediatly. It appears that the local ALJs are getting more cases from around the country than in the past. The OHO staff and the Field Office staff are returning phone calls more quickly. Nothing much seems to have changed at the state agency but without any emperical evidence my gut just tells me they are looking at the cases in even shorter amounts of time. I have heard some comments from state agency and field office staff about how certain things are significantly slower than before because of things they cannot do or cannot access from home.
That backlog of cases people keep referring to at the DDSs just isn't going to be the tidal wave they make it out to be.
Don't forget that OHO is only a little bit smaller now than it had gotten (employee-wise) a few years ago when there were more than 1.1 million pending cases at OHO. If pending is under 400k and still falling, I imagine OHO (particularly if "normal" operations are resumed to any degree) will be able to take on any "backlog" currently simmering at the DDSs with a smile on its face and barely a hiccup in the trend of decreasing pending. There is plenty of additional hearing capacity for ALJs, writing/whatever capacity for decision writers and SAAs. As long as the other staff can be backed off holding hearings even a little bit, whatever "deluge" DDSs will eventually cough up will be no problem.
Post a Comment