This afternoon Kilolo Kijakazi, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, informed the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and the National Association of Disability Representatives (NADR) that the Social Security Administration will raise the cap on the amount that attorneys may charge under the fee agreement process for representing claimants from $6,000 to $7,200.
In this past, such announcements were made via the Federal Register. This has not yet been published in the Federal Register nor is it scheduled for publication tomorrow.
If this were a true cost of living adjustment, it would be going to $8,200, not $7,200.
When the cap was raised the last time, in 2009, it was not effective until four and a half months after the announcement. I hear that this time it won't be effective until November 30, 2022 which is more than six months off! My hope the last time was that Social Security would use the time to train its staff but it was quickly apparent after the effective date that Social Security's staff hadn't been trained since at first there were more cases handled incorrectly than cases handled correctly. Nobody seemed to have been told that attorneys were allowed to have escalator clauses in their fee agreements that allowed them to be governed by the fee cap in place at the time of implementation rather than the fee cap in place at the time the fee agreement was signed even though this has been Social Security's position since the earliest days of the fee agreement process. I know. I was practicing Social Security law then. At least, back in 2009, we were able to get in touch with the payment centers to get mistakes corrected. They're mostly incommunicado these days and unwilling to correct even the most glaring mistakes.
By the way, if you're an attorney who represents Social Security claimants and your fee agreement hasn't had an escalator clause, you're out of luck. Trying to force a new contract on your clients for your benefit is clearly unethical in my view.
49 comments:
While any increase in the fee is appreciated, this small raise (after over 13 years) is really a slap in the face to representatives and reflects SSA's contempt for claimant's reps. SSA puts almost no effort into addressing fee payment issues. Fee petitions languish for years. I have about $30,000 in fees outstanding in cases where my fee was approved but never paid and there is no one to talk to. While I find this practice area rewarding, I am not sure that I can afford to continue handling SSD cases. Sad.
A monetary raise that is about half what the cost of living would indicate is fair is the norm for SSA/fed govt. Attorney fees should be higher ($8200) and employees should get similar COLAs to SSA/retired federal employees. If it's a slap in the face for representatives, I assume it's the same for the employees.
If you hand out gold bricks, there will be people that complain that the bricks are too heavy.
@5:17:
The time has come for a class action writ of mandamus to compel payment of attorney fees.
The failure to release fees in a timely manner was not as much of an issue with inflation at 2% and interest rates at 0%.
Now, however, by the time SSA gets around to paying these fees, with a few years of 7% - 10% inflation, the true value of the original fee will be cut in half.
Considering that every attorney or rep who has a significant number of cases has fees that are now lost in the grand labyrinth of the payment centers, the class for a mandamus action would be enormous.
Some attorneys are bogging down the payment centers with multiple requests. This prevents timely response to other attorney inquiries.
For example I recently worked a case where the attorney sent 10 fax on the same issue, an unpaid attorney fee. One every month.
Once the first fax is received and is placed in the backlog, sending follow-up fax will not speed up processing. The case will not be worked until the first fax reaches the aged case criteria. Then and only then it will be pulled by a manager and sent to a technician to work.
The repeated fax on the same issue only clog up the backlog with multiple action control records. I then have to look through each one when I work the case, further slowing up case processing.
Well, if the issuance of your pay check was treated in the same manner as payment of earned fees - “you’ll get it when we get around to it - maybe”, you would be looking for new work. Better hold on to your government job because you wouldn’t make it in the real world.
So do your job competently and pay the fee timely and you won’t have to deal with multiple requests. Duh.
When does this go into effect? I don't get too many max pay cases in Mississippi, but that's still good news.
Ten faxs on the same issue, one fax per month? So, its been a year since the issue was raised and yet remains unresolved and your complaining? Here's an idea - pay the fee!
@10:13
Wait - the guy had the audacity to send 10 faxes? One every month?
You know, in the real world most people dont have to ask for 10 months to get paid for a service they provided. And if they ask for the payment they are due its not considered offensive. Maybe just pay fees when they are due and this wont be an issue.
10:50 and 10:55, are you both just uninvolved, ignorant trolls? I ask because if you've been paying attention, you'd know that there's a significant backlog in fee processing (among other things) and being belligerent to any one particular SSA employee isn't going to do a bit of good. 10:13 can't fix the system or increase SSA's budget and staffing.
With much love and respect,
Just another attorney
You are missing the point. Employees don't have any control over paying your fees in what you deem to be a "timely fashion." Employees do not control their queue and don't have the ability to elevate a low priority item, which attorney payment is certainly deemed to be, from the backlog. The backlog is nearly a year long.
Place the blame where the blame belongs: Congress for failing to provide adequate funding to keep the agency appropriately staffed.
I'm doing this work through several fee increases already; the raises are pathetic. The least they can do is tie (this and future) increases to COLA.
I don't understand why SSA cannot release fees when they are charging a user fee! The 1696 doesn't have a choice "eligible for direct pay but prefers not to exercise this method of payment."
@12:04
I think most of us recognize that fact. Other than a bad apple who literally shoved specifically our firm's SSI fee petitions in a drawer for 1.5 years, which was discovered after they left the agency and the replacement manager notified us of that incident later, the fee delays are a result of a lack of prioritization on the payment centers by the higher ups.
@12:04
You are missing the point. We're not talking about 2021 or 2022 attorney fees here.
As a general matter, I certainly consider fees paid with a year of winning a claim to be paid in a "timely manner". Being owed over $100,000 on a regular basis is simply part of practicing in this area of law. That's not the problem here. Prior to Covid-19, I would generally get paid within six to 12 months. I consider a year to be in a "timely fashion." And I'm not even talking about fee petitions. I've long accepted 18 to 24 months to be in a "timely fashion" for those fees.
A year long backlog does not explain why (non-fee petition) fees from 2019 and 2020 have not been paid, and have apparently been lost in the abyss. It's not that these pending fees are "sitting in the backlog." it's that these fees are apparently completely lost, no one has any idea where they are, and you cannot talk to anyone who can actually find them.
The fee increase is effective 11/30/22
$8200 is what the fee would be based on the 2009 rate of $6000. If we go back to the 1990 rate of $4000 it is closer to $9000.00!
I would have been happy with $8000 cap with an annual increase tied to the cola. (In California I hit the max regularly, but our costs are bigger also).
10:13 You complain about multiple inquiries...Try answering the first inquiry and you won't get the follow ups. You don't even acknowledge receipt let alone answer the question.
It is not just fees, but claimants' retroactive benefits, messed up workers' comp offsets (it's fourth grade math fellas), incomprehensible over payments (like letters that say the claimant is overpaid in one paragraph and under paid in the next), applications filed on line but the DO says "there's nothing pending". We have the proof but no one takes the responsibility to fix the problem. Even where we do get a response, after six months, the response does not answer the question posed, is undecipherable or both.
All you can do is blame the customer. Yeah! We ARE customers TOO!
@ 10:13:
One fax every month for a fee that is 10 months overdue doesn't sound excessive to me. The attorney has been waiting on (presumably) a $6,000 fee for almost a year. And that's just one case. I've had times where the Agency has owed me nearly $100k in past-due fees, many which are older than 6 months.
The other issue is the fact that when attorneys fax or call to inquire about their fee, we often get no response from the agency. Not even an acknowledgement that our communication was received. Given SSA's penchant of losing things that have been provided to them multiple times (WC offset info being a good example), perhaps sending the attorney an acknowledgement of receipt (or a phone call) would be a good practice so that the attorney knows that you have what was sent and are working on it. Even better if you can provide an ETA as to payment or a date as to when the attorney should follow up (standard practice for me when I get ahold of a live body to talk to on the phone). That way, they won't keep bugging you about it.
But yeah, when it's been 10 months of sending faxes with no acknowledgement that the faxes have been received, I don't blame the attorney and neither should you.
I'm suspicious of this "backlog causing delay" explanation. I've had instances where my fee can take 3-6 months to receive and other cases where the fee was paid within a week of the ALJ decision all while older cases with fees outstanding are still sitting there unpaid. There doesn't seem to by any rhyme or reason why one fee is paid in a week and another takes 6 months.
Seems to me that if the delay in fee payment was truly a backlog of processing cases, then most of the fees would be paid within a certain time after the decision which would coincide with when those cases were finally processed (assuming no exigent circumstances requiring immediate processing).
In short, I'm not buying the "there's a backlog of cases that are ahead of yours" excuse. Doesn't make sense.
Fees can be paid right away if there is no outstanding development such as worker's compensation. There are several other factors but a clean claim fee can be paid when the claimant is paid.
Agree it would be great if SSA would acknowledge when faces or documents are received but that would also delay processing.
FO employees can identify with attorneys regarding submitting information and not hearing a thing. I had many where PC didn't do anything on what I thought were higher priority for a year or longer. They told us the same... Don't send follow-ups.
Re worker's compensation being simple math... Sometimes it is but sometimes rates change, there are non payment periods, the ACE is refigured triennially, etc and it can be a pain in the neck.
10:13 here.
PC Technicians do not even see the case or the issue, until we are assigned the case with an ACR (Action control record).
In the case where the attorney sent 10 faxes over about a year, I didn't see the case or even know it existed, until I was assigned one of the ACR's (the oldest one), by my manager. I took action to pay the fee the same day I received the ACR.
Therefore I had nothing, zilch, to do with the delay in the attorney being paid.
My point is that by sending multiple faxes on the same issue. the attorney is increasing the SSA backlog and slowing down case processing.
Multiple faxes will also not help his case be worked faster or his fee to be paid. He will still have to wait until the first ACR, created with his first fax, reaches the appropriate age.
These attorneys sound just like the claimants…”just pay me my money!”.
Hey, believe me, if I could just pay the damn money and not have you people (all of you) breathing down my neck Al day, every day, don’t you think I’d do it that quickly?
Sincerely, what’s the incentive you think we have to hold your money up?
The damn agency is in shambles. You know it’s in shambles and yet here you are…beating a dead horse.
1:32 says "messed up workers' comp offsets (it's fourth grade math fellas".
Simply laughable. Workers' compensation laws and regulations are extremely complex, try looking at the POMS WC section and the different rules for applying offset, which vary state to state.
Add to that the complexity of workers' compensation calculations with dual entitlement and combined family max involved and multiple children going on and off the rolls. These require manual computations and special ICF input, which can easily take all day for a single case. Many pages of calculations and computations. Even for an experienced technician these cases are a challenge.
About sending 10 faxes, one per month - Would you suggest that we simply wait a couple of years hoping the matter will be taken care of. We have no way of knowing whether something has been lost or somehow messed up. We have had multiple incidents of our checks being sent somewhere else. If we don't follow up, we will never know those things happened and will never get our money. Unfortunately, it would not be wise on our part to just sit back and trust that the agency will pay us eventually because there is a very real chance that may not happen. So, what else do you suggest we do? In our office, we don't continue to bug the payment center. After a while, we start contacting others - the regional public affairs office, sentors, congressman, the Commissioner's office. Those methods seem to work.
How do your checks get sent somewhere else? Is that a payment center thing? Here in the FO, we have zero control about where the checks are sent. It all comes from system based on the EIN associated with the 1696.
@@ 5:24. I'm not sure how it happens but a couple were sent to a different firm in a different state. They were never listed on the case. I think someone may have selected the wrong firm name from a list, the one just above or below us. I don't really know though but it has happened.
As a PC employee who processes fee petitions below the ALJ level, I will tell you, we used to have 2 of my position per module, then it dwindled to 1 for a bit per module, then went to about 4 of us for the entire PC. We have thousands of cases pending for the various types of cases we do plus teaching and helping others as we are the "experts". We are now working cases prior to 01/2021. We do not have time to acknowledge we received your petition, if doing that it would be easier to process the petition. We do not see cases come in, they come into our location on a constant flow all day everyday. We get our workload parameters for 2 weeks to say do all age prior to 01/01/2021. That's what we do, we do not rummage around looking at the other work. It all works on a first in-first out basis. You can send a fax a week, all it does when I finally get to that oldest one to work, make me have to look through everyone pending and waste time going though every fax to get back to oldest item pending.
Then you look at the fee petition and you have to weed through someone trying to charge an hour and half for sending the client a letter (example: dictate letter to client:15 minutes, type letter to client: 15 minutes, print and put in envelope:15 minutes, upload letter to database: 15 minutes, index letter in system: 15 minutes: process letter through postal meter: 15 minutes) and do this on every item listed.
Remember we employees are Indians, not the chiefs who make decisions. We don't have the staff nor the OT to get further into the pending cases. Someone needs to get people in Washing to look and get real answers and a real fix since it is only getting worse.
Same thing here in the field pertaining to actual manpower issue.
My office at one time had 8 SSI claims reps including me. Today, we have just me. We did hire two people but one quit before training was over and the other is just out of trading and looking for another job already.
So it’s just me but the public and management and everyone else still expect ALL the work to get done like we have 8 claims reps.
The agency is bleeding out.
You know, there is one way to avoid all these hearing backlogs, increased attorney fees, fee adjustments, etc..... Approve more obvious cases at Initial and Redetermination. This deny, deny, deny and hope they go away culture just increases work loads and misery. If you make the right decision the first time, you don't have to make it 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 or more times later. How much does it really save? Meanwhile, the clamant goes on SNAP, medicade (likely getting unnecessary tests, etc), possibly bankruptcy (at government expense). Why? Appealsto Federal Court... these all cost the government, possibly more than paying the claimant, who has no other choice other than keep applying.
@10:01 & 7:20
Thanks for the insight on how bad the staffing issues are at SSA. Why is leadership not ringing the alarm bells at this point? Surely they must recognize that current situation is not sustainable?
I do not represent claimants any longer and I left the agency a long time ago. I come for basic information and updates on the blog because our agency does do the odd claim or two and they are proposing that we do additional work.
I just point them to this blog and say "do you really want to get into this mess?"
Who in their right mind would be on either end of this disaster.
Those of us that represent claimants run a business (unless you work for legal aid). We have employees that expect their paychecks on time. If we don't get paid by SSA on time, that is not the employee's problem. They still get paid. Similarly, SSA owes us money. The backlog is frankly not our problem. We should be paid timely. Only the government could get away with this. And, if a period of time goes by, we have every right to follow up on the status of our payment. Again, the backlog is not our problem. If you owe someone money, you pay, just like we pay our employees. I have an idea. If we are not paid in 90 days, the agency should not be allowed to charge the fee for paying us. if it is not paid in 180 days, the agency should have to pay interest.
You can follow up all you want but if you read the above comments from PC employees, you are wasting your time and theirs.
We all agree you should be paid timely. But it's not on the cards until more money and employees are available.
Sending repeated faxes to SSA about an unpaid attorney fee will not speed up payment of the fee, as discussed above. Sending 10 faxes about one unpaid fee, is overkill.
It would be more efficient to send one or two fax, then call the RCC or the module to make sure the fax was received. Then be patient and wait.
By sending repeated faxes the attorney only adds to SSA massive backlogs, slowing down other attorneys fees from being paid.
Some years ago there was a move to get SSA out of the business of the fee paying business.
The proposed change would have had attorneys collect their own fee from the client. The clients could presumably afford paying the fee when they get thousands in retro benefits on an initial award.
Doing this would eliminate a large part of SSA backlogs, and the attorneys would not have to wait for their fee, or pay a user fee to SSA either.
6:09
…then call the RCC or module to confirm receipt? Is that your suggestion? Who will answer the phone? Give me a break.
@9:32
We tell our management, they tell their manager and so on and so on. It makes to the top and then has to wait until they decide to fill the positions. Depending on their priorities or the actual authority from their bosses, it could take forever.
@4:04
The backlog is certainly your problem when you are not getting paid yet since your request came in to us in 01/22 and we are working on cases from say 07/21. You have to wait until we get up to 01/22 cases. Your case is not more important than the rep that has his request pending 6 months earlier than your case.
Nope, not my problem. And, I don't send repeated faxes. I start contacting congressmen and senators and anyone else I can think of and that seems to work. Whether that causes any problems for anyone else is, again, not my problem.
Has anyone ever researched whether the federal prompt payment act applies to social security?
Why crickets to 751 hmmm? No user fees to worry about either.
Any word on how much ALJs will be able to approve at the local level for fee petitions?
Because they know the claimants will be harder to collect from than the government. They just won’t say it out loud, lol.
3:11 When you make your unpaid attorney fee a Congressional case, you are pushing your case ahead of all the other attorneys who have been waiting longer . And ahead of claimant's who are in dire need, but don't know how to make their issue a Congressional case.
Sometimes being patient is the best option for everyone.
12:46 let me delay a few of your paychecks for a 6 or 8 months and tell me how patient you will be.
@12:46 - again, that seems to be the agency's problem, not mine.
All day for a single case? You’re right. Simply laughable
Well does it matter whose problem it is? You’re arguing with a person who’s not affected by the delays… you lose
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