Over the last few months there's been a dramatic increase in the wait time to receive a decision from an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) here in North Carolina. It affects multiple hearing offices.
I can't tell. Is this a national problem? Regional?
What's behind this problem? I know that some decision writers were detailed to work with Disability Determination on the huge backlogs of initial and reconsideration determinations but this new backlog to receive an ALJ decision seems far beyond anything that could be explained by that.
Why are they scheduling ALJ hearings if they can't get out decisions?
It's not just a regional problem. I spoke to the CALJ in my local office about it a few weeks ago. They are aware that decision writing is the current bottleneck at the hearing level.
ReplyDeleteWhy schedule hearigs? Why take applications? Charles, you have lost it. It is a process. Stopping hearibgs would not help the writers' backlog. Your local backlog is just that.
ReplyDeleteMany writers were detailed to DDS, and many of those remaining have been assigned to review the work of newer writers, who generally write at a much slower pace during their first several months on the job. It should correct within a few months.
ReplyDeleteyou can do a rough comparison of this at the hearing office level by taking the average processing time https://www.ssa.gov/appeals/DataSets/05_Average_Processing_Time_Report.html
ReplyDeleteand subtracting the average wait time until hearing held https://www.ssa.gov/appeals/DataSets/01_NetStat_Report.html
In Raleigh, for example, the APT is 309 days and the average wait for a hearing to be held is 7 months (yes, they use different units of measurement). So you could estimate that it takes about 100 days from the hearing to the decision.
The office (not counting the NAT) with the fastest APT is Grand Rapids, at 240 days. There, the wait time for a hearing is 6 months, so you could say it takes about 60 days from hearing to decision.
Of course, these are very rough comparisons and things like the percentage of cases that get dismissed would factor in. And a lot of it is more about individual ALJs or support staff and what's going on with them personally than about the office itself...
If the new ALJs are doing more cases but there aren't more decision writers, this would be expected. Are you seeing similar issues getting the files worked up (exhibited, queries added) before the hearing?
ReplyDeleteUpper management decided to detail decision writers to state agencies to help with the backlog with initial and reconsideration determinations. Now upper management is screeching at hearing offices about the decision writing backlog and average processing time not being at their arbitrarily created goal… both problems of their own creation and lack of foresight. The usual failure to comprehend future consequences is not surprising- nor is the blaming of hearing offices for processes put into place that hinder cases getting to waiting applicants.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a writing backlog. Never going to not schedule hearings.
ReplyDeletewriting backlog. as newly hired attorney advisors become more proficient, that backlog will be reduced.
ReplyDeleteJust wondering when in the last 30 years there wasnt a backlog.
ReplyDeleteYou do know that once upon a time, ALJs actually wrote their own decisions.
ReplyDeleteI know, a fantasy to think they would ever do such a thing today.
Just curious, what are the decision writers actually doing for DDS? The skill set of a decision writer and an adjudicator are vastly different.
ReplyDeleteSome senior attorneys are holding CDR hearings . Other attorneys , mostly non-senior attorneys , are helping with DDS work up. Why wouldn’t OHO be able to do DDS work? It’s not like anything done at DDS is rocket science
DeleteDecision writers are serving as disability examiners, if I'm not mistaken. Senior attorneys and group supervisors have been detailed to DDS as disability hearing officers.
DeleteI think they had the OHO staff doing DHO hearings at DDS, which is not where the backlogs are. It didn't really make any sense.
ReplyDeleteIt made sense at the time because that is where the backlog was. The backlog is an ever moving target. SSA moves slowly to adjust.
DeleteAlthough I was a social worker and not a physician, I wrote memos for the Medical Director. He would review the memo and then sign it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they should hire paralegals to draft the memo and have an attorney review it and then forward to ALJ signature. Although there is a learning curve at first, a lot of the legal vernacular is cut and paste from other similar memos.
AI can write the decision, its pretty templated anyway. Lots and lots of legal AI software out there these days. Just need to do the upfront investment, using the AI for the writers opens positions for the FO.
ReplyDeleteYou have clearly ever never written or not written a wide breadth of these cases. There are very few plain vanilla cases. Our dedicated software cannot even properly account for myriad of variables. The decision tree has just been too intricate so far.
DeleteBacklog here in Michigan for ALJ decisions as well.
ReplyDelete10:58 I know the decisions i get here in the STL area sure do look incredibly similar to each other, just a few changes here and there, sometimes entire paragraphs are the same. Maybe our writes are out of breadth. But i guess if low enough, they will qualify!
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of Dunning-Kruger effect happening in these comments. Decision writing is easy peasy if you've never done it.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, a lot of the language is the same in each decision because we have templates that provide the applicable law sections, etc. We provide all of the analysis.
I'm sure many of you have seen low-quality decisions before. I have, as well. I've also seen a lot of low-quality rep briefs, FO/PC notices and determinations, and ALJ instructions, for what it's worth.
It would be nice if people familiar with social security regulations would help the DDS examiners with processing cases, but I don't see where help is needed with writing the two relevant paragraphs in DDS decisions.
ReplyDeleteDDS is where there is a backlog, they've given OHO a chance to clear theirs here in Jackson, MS.
Combination of factors that most commenters have already hit on. Experienced writers have either been detailed to DDS, made senior attorneys, taken management positions or left the agency. These writer slots have generally not been filled though there has finally been some recent hiring. Speaking anecdotally, my office has half the number of writers we did when the pandemic started and have lost writers for all of the above reasons.
ReplyDeleteAdd on to that last year's new ALJ hires as well as a general uptick in the number of hearings being held by all ALJ's and a writing backlog is born. Again anecdotally, in my office we had a solid 3-4 month period were ALJ's were getting close to 50 hearings done a month. Now we have been back down to the 20-30 hearings per month per ALJ that we mostly had in 2022 due to the overall lack of cases. So, I imagine our writing backlog will solve itself with fewer cases going down the pipeline, this should also be true nationwide.
To clarify, of course there is and was a backlog at DDS (and it's going to be a real challenge for OHO if that dam ever breaks and a chunk of that million-case backlog ends up requesting hearings all at once). But the DDS backlog was with initial and recon cases, not CDRs requiring DHOs. Detailing OHO staff to do the DDS work that was piling up could make sense, though most of them wouldn't have wanted to do it. Detailing OHO staff to serve as DHOs, though I'm sure enjoyable for those with hopes of being an ALJ one day, did not make much sense.
ReplyDeleteAnd which decision writing process that actually worked and certainly reduced the backlog was discontinued? Short form fully favorable decisions.
ReplyDelete