Federal agencies are required to publish quarterly summaries of agency rules under development. Not all of these come to pass and it can take time, often years, for the rules to be adopted. We shall see but delay may be a bigger problem now with reduced staffing levels and the loss of experienced employees. Basically, current Social Security management may have what I would consider evil intentions but have little idea how to be evil or have the staff to accomplish the evil.
Anyway, here’s Social Security’s most recent list. You can read a brief and often maddeningly elliptical summary of what is being considered by clicking on the RIN link for the rule.
| Agency | Agenda Stage of Rulemaking | Title | RIN |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSA | Proposed Rule Stage | Combatting Fraud and Similar Fault to Strengthen the Integrity of Social Security | 0960-AI10 |
| SSA | Proposed Rule Stage | Civil Monetary Penalties, Assessments, and Recommended Exclusions | 0960-AI49 |
| SSA | Proposed Rule Stage | Improvements to the Disability Adjudication Process: Sequential Evaluation Process | 0960-AI67 |
| SSA | Proposed Rule Stage | Rescinding the Burdensome Use Restrictions of Dedicated Accounts | 0960-AI92 |
| SSA | Proposed Rule Stage | Rescission of Changes to the Definition of a Public Assistance Household | 0960-AI94 |
| SSA | Proposed Rule Stage | Removing Bench Decisions To Improve Decision Efficiency and Accuracy | 0960-AI98 |
| SSA | Proposed Rule Stage | Incorrect Terminology in Regulatory Text; Correction | 0960-AI99 |
| SSA | Proposed Rule Stage | Setting the Manner of Appearance for Disability Hearings | 0960-AJ00 |
| SSA | Proposed Rule Stage | Notice of a Hearing and How to Request a Hearing Before an Administrative Law Judge | 0960-AJ01 |
| SSA | Final Rule Stage | Revised Medical Criteria for Evaluating Cardiovascular Disorders | 0960-AI43 |
| SSA | Final Rule Stage | Penalty Inflation Adjustments for Civil Monetary Penalties | 0960-AI72 |
| SSA | Final Rule Stage | Extension of Expiration Dates for 13 Body System Listings | 0960-AI95 |
| SSA | Final Rule Stage | Rescission of the Extension of the Flexibility in Evaluating "Close Proximity of Time" to Evaluate Changes in Healthcare | 0960-AI96 |
Changing the dedicated account rules isn’t a bad suggestion. Even a blind squirrel finds the occasional nut.
ReplyDeleteFor how long have we heard that. Parents misapply the money and we do not have the manpower/time to go after all of them. Give them the money let them blow it and move on to fight another day.
DeleteYes about time they change the whole dedicated account process which only came about because of Congressional flak over Zebley Cases and underpayments as shown on the show 20-20..
DeleteWould like to know more about “Improvements to the Disability Adjudication Process: Sequential Evaluation Process” but I can’t find the NPRM
ReplyDeleteIncluded MOA documentation with the request for ALJ hearing. This is a neat change. I also believe it adds waiver of 75 day notice requirement documentation. This way, it would all be completed at once.
DeleteOoh! Do a statute of limitations next so I don’t have to waste so many days of the year explaining why people weren’t disabled for the ten years or so while they were raising kids before they actually started having serious health problems.
Delete@9:26 ditto
DeleteThe word on the street is that it is similar to the NPRM sent to OMB at the end of the first Trump administration. This NPRM removed the grids, no heavy labor after 60. So, there would be no issue of transferability of skills. It replaced the DOT with the Occupational Requirements Survey. It introduced a software called the Vocational Information Toolkit (VIT) that would be used at the hearing level and DDS level. It replaced VEs with the VIT software. Judges would simply enter the hypothetical and obtain objective information to approve or deny a claim.
DeleteProblems with this approach is that ORS is not plug and play as SSA had envisioned. It does not cover many topics such as absenteeism or off task behavior. Another thing I believe will potentially happen is there will be no more step 4. ORS does not allow one to define a job as the DOT did. In addition, if the grids are gone, there really is not significant consideration for PRW, all that matters then is if there is unskilled work in the national labor market.
ORS data require professional interpretation. It is not plug and play. Take the public contact variables (there are multiple variables and there are different variables depending up on the specific ORS data set) which one would should someone select and why? What does contact mean vs. interaction?
A final key point, ORS data was collected by survey method with limited onsite evaluations. This means the data collected can be subjective in terms of questions such as how much weight is lifted. In the previous NPRM, SSA was seeking to take subjective data and present it as objective data. This is not to say ORS is not a fantastic data set, it truly is. Its simply that it requires someone who is familiar with jobs and how they are performed to use it. Otherwise it is ripe for misuse and abuse. ORS shows that there are a LARGE percentage of truck drivers that are performed at sedentary. And the data is correct, its just that ORS with the survey method did not capture the push/pull forces that are required for climbing into the cab of the truck or lifting the truck hood.
I've heard the same thing: the Grids will be proposed to be eliminated and the DOT will be replaced with the ORS, eliminating VEs. However, my source said that this proposal is not as horrible to claimants as it might seem at first glace. Supposedly the ORS is more favorably inclined to workers and is easier to rule out jobs than the DOT. Plus, this requirement will require some more nuance during the initial intake process. It will harm the big mills who use phone banks and scripts to sign up every person over 50 that calls. I guess we'll see - even if this proposal is moved forward, it could take months (or years) to take place.
ReplyDeletehttps://cdn.ymaws.com/rehabpro.org/resource/resmgr/newsletter/iarp_newsletter_august_2025.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you think it’s more friendly to the claimants’ cases?
ReplyDelete