The AARP has written a letter to the Acting Commissioner of Social Security asking pointed questions about the sorry state of service that the agency is giving the public. It's reproduced below. However, I'm pretty sure that the letter is more about influencing Congress to appropriate more money for Social Security than it is about pressuring the Acting Commissioner. At about the same time as it released this letter, AARP also sent out a press release quoting a Social Security official on the sorry state of the agency's appropriations which has led to an adequate workforce. The press release calls for additional funding for the Social Security Administration.
A "Dear Colleague" letter directly from Social Security is even more pointed. It says that the agency is seeking an $800 million bump in the Continuing Resolution (CR) bill which must be passed before the end of this month in order to keep the government operating. The $800 million would be to prevent further deterioration in service. That would be extraordinary. I've never seen anything from Social Security like this letter., which was surely cleared by the White House. Here's some language from it:
... Prior to the pandemic, we had approximately 60,000 employees. Now, we have approximately 56,000 employees – a 7 percent drop. As we lose employees, our service deteriorates. This issue is particularly acute in our State disability determination services (DDS), where we decide initial disability claims and reconsiderations, due to historically high attrition as workloads become less reasonable with fewer staff. ...
Claimants are currently waiting an average of six months for a decision on their initial disability claims, which is unacceptable. This is two months longer than they waited in FY 2019. Wait times for our National 800 Number have also increased significantly. Callers are waiting over 30 minutes, on average – more than 10 minutes longer than in FY 2019. ...
As a result of the pandemic, the backlog in initial disability claims is approaching the one-million mark (929,000 as of August 2022, an increase of 189,000 claims from the end of last fiscal year, September 2021). Insufficient funding for staffing and overtime to reduce this backlog would result in increasing wait times. ...
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13 comments:
There is no question that inadequate staffing has caused extreme problems in service delivery by the SSA. But there have also been organizational failures in administration that have made the situation worse. The phone system did not go down for a month due to inadequate staffing. At the hearing level,, we went through a period early in the year where cases were being scheduled almost as soon as received in the hearing office. Now, hearings are down to a trickle and there seems to be no explanation as to why.
The Commissioner is mainly concentrating on equity in the administration of the program. Equity is fine but there is no equity when basic service requirements for everyone are not being met.
Appoint a real Commissioner with actual management experience and rid the Agency of the upper echelon management that has failed so badly and, yes, increase staffing. Although with the current employment environment, it is not at all clear where those people will come from even if the authorization to hire were immediate.
AARP or United HealthCare?
AARP is nothing more than a shell for insurance these days, far cry from where it started.
I agree with 9:27 about appointing a REAL commissioner. I personally feel that it should be a recovered disability recipient (who is qualified) who works directly with an elderly consultant. That way they know how hard it is to get on SSDI being disabled, and the problems that face the elderly. That's just my view on it. If there's a formerly disabled person who has fought the system to receive benefits they paid into, and an elderly advocate to work with, I think many more things could get accomplished, and many more people would receive the benefits needed, before they die waiting.
@12:55. Or Congress can appropriate enough funding so that they could hire competent staff, hire them in adequate numbers, and structure the workloads and workflow in a manner that facilitates and rewards actual quality work (as opposed to rewarding only speed and volume). You can hire a poor person missing all of their limbs to serve as Commissioner. But without adequate funding the place isn’t ever going to get measurably better.
@2:25 The reverse is also true. Money and more staff aren't enough to solve the myriad of problems and widespread incompetency. SSA absolutely needs better leadership. The efficiency gains from modernizing some regulations and tech would be far more valuable then simply hiring more staff that take years to properly train (partly b/c of the outdated regulations). Getting tired of clerical errors draining hours of time every week.
Leadership is the problem from Baltimore to the FO. Here is a typical day in my office, probably most. Two to three disability applications and three to four RSI appointments plus all the internet applications. The appointments start at 9AM. At 9:10, management sends out a IM to everyone saying get on the phones, more than five calls in the queue. At 9:30, another IM to get up front because there are 20 people in the lobby. These go back and forth all day, nonstop. You can’t process anything that has come in for pending claims or any post entitlement items, which are many. If you filed a third party claim online, the paperwork sent in is going to sit around for weeks. Due to so many claims reps put on clerical duties each week, mail work track etc, we lose 170 application slots per month for T2. Explain this to a widow who has to wait more than a month and a half for an appointment. “Sorry, the people we pay to take your application has to make sure nobody is on hold more than five minutes, nobody in the lobby has to wait more than thirty minutes and to scan paperwork into a copy machine.” This agency has turned into a joke. I feel bad for anyone just starting. I’m glad I’m done in three months.
6 months wait for initial claims? I am being told by the examiners office in Wisconsin claims will be assigned 8 to 10 months after they reach their office. So if it takes a month to clear the local office applicants are looking at a year or more for a decision
You opened by insisting that “leadership” is the real problem. But everything you describe indicates the real problem is inadequate staffing to man both the phone lines and in-person workload.
Yeah, it sucks. But when you don’t have enough trained people to meet the demand, that’s what happens.
As stated above, there are truly some terrible things going on at the upper levels of management, but the bottom line is the agency does not have enough staffing to do the work.
Doesn’t matter if some are home and some are in the office or whatever. The bottom line is we don’t have enough people…period.
I also saw where the commissioner said if the the agency doesn’t get the $800 million just to stay afloat, they are expecting to loose another 6,000 SSA and DDS employees.
I don’t see this getting better anytime soon!
Doing one's job plus a bit of extra work for a while is doable. But doing one's job and two other people's jobs for months on end until some people are hired (and don't quit before training is over) and competent (a couple of years probably) is not that good of a choice. That's the reason I left and wouldn't consider going back. I never minded helping and doing more than my regular job but months on end of doing so much more wore me out.
@10:16 Staffing is not an easy solution, and will always be variable. SSA needs to invest in more efficient/stable processes, which would also make FO jobs more attractive and reduce attrition. There are far too many manual inputs/reviews needed for an average disability application.I can easily think of 3-4 changes that would save FO workers a tremendous amount of time. Most of the solutions involve delegating more work to representatives themselves.
#1 is simplifying attorney appointment by effectively automating it, and imposing harsh sanctions on reps that abuse the system. There is no manual attorney verification process for my federal court filings. Same is true for most legal rep situations. Why does it need to take 2+ months to get on record, and require double/triple entry into multiple systems to ensure we get access to the ERE and direct witholding of fees? This is frequently screwed up at the app/recon stages, and costs EVERYONE more time to fix. Use the Rep ID and/or secure smart barcode form to appoint reps instantly with no manual entry. If you want to be extra cautious, keep the manual entry only for direct witholding of fees (but improve the process to make it impossible to pay the claim until this issue is affirmatively addressed.)
#2 Just get rid of the Recon stage, or make it lighter/quicker review compared to the app stage.Give atty/claimants no more than 45 days to submit new records, and require a decision within 60-75 days. I am noticing a trend in NY where recon stage is essentially an automatic denial. I was getting 3-4X more cases approved at this stage when they first brought it back to NY in 2019. And the legal errors are glaring. It is now very common to see DDS medical experts ignore the obviously more restrictive RFC assigned by the State Agency examining doctors--which means ALJs cannot assign controlling weight to these opinions.
#3 When initial apps are being processed and there is no ERE file--allow electronic submission of documents to the FO via claimant my social security accounts. Less of a problem now that FO are open for in-person drop off, but this would dramatically reduce duplicate submissions of the same fricken document.
#4 provide universal access to important benefit/claimant information to ALL portions of the agency. Absolutely ridiculous to have my client's Title II backpay be held up for 6 months because the national payment center cannot see whether a Title 16 claim was even filed, and requires manual notice from the FO before releasing the Title II funds.
#5 Simplify SSI non-medical eligibility rules and make the trial work period and associated wage reporting less confusing to claimants and more efficient. I have a client who was sent a ticket to work letter encouraging her to work--yet that letter did not warn her that her trial work period was already completely exhausted from a work attempt 4 years earlier. She was reporting her wages EVERY month for 10+ months before SSA sent her a letter stating the entire period was an overpayment. She decided to be blind interpreter for a hospital at the beginning of Covid (way pre-vacine), and SSA absolutely screwed her for this admirable attempt assist a stressed hospital system. Another client recently came in with an overpayment letter relating to workers comp payments from the early 1990s. Overpayment was incorrect, but only reason we were able to prove that is we had access to the NY WC e-case system.
Some good ideas. Re number 4, mgmt can do an override input in the field office so that SSA can pay retro T2 when SSI really isn't an issue.
11:41 I hear you! I am two inches taller after walking out of SSA with all the pressure off my shoulders. Worst job I ever had and my first job was mucking stables!
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