You Can Issue Orders But You Need Personnel To Execute Them

      From Emergency Message 26-011

… We are establishing new timeframes for early case actions for certain priority case types at the initial level of adjudication. Staff must follow the instructions in this EM until we publish the revised POMS.

· Presumptive Disability or Blindness Cases


IMPORTANT: A claimant, including a child, applying for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) based on disability or blindness, may receive up to 6 months of payments prior to the determination of disability or blindness if he or she is found to be presumptively disabled or blind and meets all other eligibility requirements. To make a PD or PB finding, the available evidence must reflect a high degree of probability that the claimant’s impairment or combination of impairments meets the statutory definition of disability or blindness. The FO will add PD/PB flag in EDCS prior to DDS case transfer.


FO/WSU
o The FO or WSU must schedule an appointment within 3 workdays of claimant contact or referral from the 800 number.

o FO/WSU enters disability information into EDCS and within 2 workdays transfers to the DDS for certified electronic folders, and within 7 workdays for non-certified electronic folders. 



DDS


DDS must receipt cases within 2 workdays of FO/WSU transfer (7 workdays for non-certified electronic folders) and assign to an adjudicator by the next workday. 
· Inquiries from Public Officials 


IMPORTANT: An inquiry from a public official is a request for information that comes from a U.S. Congress member or state or local official about a disability claim. Cases with an inquiry from a U.S. Congress member are flagged as Congressional Inquiry. Cases from any other public official are flagged as Public Inquiry. For the purpose of this EM, inquiries from public officials other than Congress members are referred to as “Non-Congressional.”

IMPORTANT: For “Inquiries from Public Officials,” prioritization means providing a timely and responsive answer to the official, not expediting the related disability case unless it already qualifies for expedited processing (e.g., CAL, QDD, Terminal Illness (TERI), Dire Need). Administrative staff should ensure prompt communication with the official and review the case for any expedited processing flags.

FO/WSU



Congressional and Non-Congressional Inquiries: 

Upon receipt of the inquiry, review and reply to the inquiry within 20 workdays. If the claim, matter, or issue does not meet criteria to be expedited, provide an interim response and set a diary to provide a response every 30 days until case processing is complete.

DDS

Congressional and Non-Congressional Inquiries: A response is due within 7 calendar days from the date of receipt of a congressional inquiry and 14 calendar days from the date of receipt of a non-congressional inquiry. Inquiries referred to SSA by the White House should receive a substantive or final reply within 9 working days. A final reply is due within 20 calendar days after the date of the acknowledgement. If the DDS cannot make a final reply within that time-period, send an interim response. Make any subsequent communication, either interim or final, within 30 calendar days after the date of the prior reply to the inquirer. 

 

· Delayed Cases 


IMPORTANT: Delayed cases are those which are at a work station for a time considered to be excessive when measured against normal case processing experience. The period of time for considering a case “delayed excessively” is normally 70 calendar days. To effectively identify such cases, a flagging procedure is followed at the various work stations, i.e., Field Operations, WSU, Risk and Quality, Central Operations Portfolios, and DDS. A flag attached at one station will remain on the case through all subsequent operations including final handling in Central Operations/Processing Centers. 

IMPORTANT: The “Delayed Case” flag is not applicable at the Hearing or Appeals Council adjudicative level, as these components do not use this flag when applying standards for case processing. 

FO/WSU


Any initial-level case in the FO/WSU that has been delayed excessively from the filing date of the application must be flagged for expedited processing and transferred within 2-3 workdays after receipt of all necessary information. 

DDS

The DDS must assign a case within 2–3 workdays to initiate case development upon receipt of:
o An initial case from the FO/WSU that meets delayed case criteria, or any other shorter period as specified by the Central Operations/Processing Centers, if the case has not been properly identified as a delayed; or

o Any case, including reconsideration cases, continuing disability review (CDR) cases, or cases returned by the Central Operations/Processing Centers or by Risk and Quality for additional consideration, that has remained at the FO for 70 days or more after the application, reconsideration request, or CDR initiation date.



If additional time is needed, a status update must be provided to the claimant within 15 workdays of initiating development.



· Homeless Cases 


IMPORTANT: A claimant is homeless if they do not have a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. SSA also considers claimants homeless if they expect to lose current accommodations within 14 days, and will not have a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime 

residence. The FO/WSU will flag the claim as “Homeless” and complete all necessary forms (e.g. Function Report, Work History Report) whenever a claimant alleges, or case information indicates, the claimant is homeless. If needed, DDS can add the flag, Homeless, in the Disability Case Processing System (DCPS) or eView.

FO/WSU


Upon receipt of the case, complete all required forms during the initial interview and do not curtail completion. Transfer the case no later than the next workday.

DDS

Upon receipt in DDS, expedite assignment of homeless cases no later than the next workday. …

SSA Employees Unhappy

      From Politico:

… A new survey of federal workers found that, government wide, only 32 percent of the federal workforce is satisfied with and engaged in their jobs.  …

The survey, conducted late last year by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, was launched after the White House instructed the Office of Personnel Management to cancel its annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, a long-running survey tracking agency performance and workplace morale across four administrations, according to a person with knowledge of OPM’s plans and granted anonymity to discuss them.  …

[A]t the Social Security Administration, the score fell from 54.2 to 15.2. …

You Can’t Trust Social Security’s IG

      From a Washington Post article on Inspectors General:

… At the Social Security Administration, acting inspector general Michelle Anderson meets regularly with Commissioner Frank Bisignano and has given him information about her work, according to two people familiar with the meetings. Anderson has wanted to maintain a good relationship with Bisignano, the people said.


The inspector general’s office has largely avoided digging into the work of the U.S. DOGE Service at the agency, but it recently told Congress it is investigating allegations that a DOGE member has improper access to sensitive Social Security data. Before that, it had told senators last year that it would not evaluate the agency’s decision to classify thousands of living immigrants as dead.


In December, the Social Security IG released an audit of the agency’s phone metrics, which found that the wait time for someone to talk to a representative had dropped to single-digit minutes. Agency leaders celebrated the report as a vindication of their claims that they had improved customer service. Bisignano later told staffers he had thought the inspector general had wasted taxpayer dollars even looking into the statistics, according to a recording of his remarks.

However, an unpublished draft of the report reviewed by The Post showed that the inspector general had planned to report another metric — called the “total wait time” — to measure the overall time it takes for callers to be connected with an SSA employee. According to that draft report, in 2025 total wait time averaged 46 minutes to over two hours. That information was deleted from the draft after the agency reviewed it before publication, according to the document’s revision history. …

Disastrous Service For Widows

      From 19th News:

Kathy Quitno-Bolt was still numb when she started calling Social Security days after her husband’s sudden death in July. Steve, her partner of 25 years and husband of 13, died four days after being diagnosed with lung cancer — just enough time for their daughter to arrive and say goodbye.

When she finally got through to someone, they told her they wouldn’t have an appointment to begin her application for survivor benefits until October. 

Her head started spinning. Did she have enough saved to make it through then?

Survivor benefits could have stabilized Quitno-Bolt’s life when it felt like everything she knew was falling apart. But like many people across the country, she was facing significant delays at the Social Security Administration (SSA).  …

Among those facing the longest delays are people claiming survivor benefits after the loss of a spouse and those applying on behalf of children who lost a parent. These groups are entitled to monthly payments that vary depending on the earnings of the worker who died and the age of the surviving spouse. There’s no online application for survivor benefits; they are at the mercy of the phones and the appointment calendar, which in the past year has become a logistical nightmare that has a disproportionate impact on women and children.  …

After her first appointment in October, Quitno-Bolt submitted her documents, including her husband’s death certificate and their marriage license, to her local office thinking that was the end. But she heard nothing back for weeks. In November, she found out SSA had denied her benefits, saying she didn’t turn in her documents even though she had already received them back from the agency.  …

For the past four months now, she’s called the agency almost weekly trying to sort through what went wrong. Typically, she waits on hold for 70 to 90 minutes. At one point, she was told her application was closed without a denial or approval. More recently, she was told her second application was being processed. She’s still in limbo. 

“It’s been a mess, and I can’t even think anymore because I’m so worried about everything,” said Quitno-Bolt, 57, who is disabled and can’t work. Her husband, a factory worker, was the breadwinner. A GoFundMe set up by her daughter helped her scrape by, but she said the last of her savings will run out this month.  …

Shuffling The Deck Chairs

      From the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare:

There’s been an uncanny amount of re-shuffling of workers and resources at the Social Security Administration lately – in a feeble attempt to paper over Trump’s reckless cuts in staffing. The latest example of this game of whack-a-mole unfolded last week. 

Commissioner Frank Bisignano announced a shiny, new plan to “centralize” medical reviews for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits — which could impact nearly 9 million Americans. (Disabled workers can lose their benefits if they do not pass these periodic reviews.)

This shift yanks the review process away from experienced state Disability Determination Services (DDS) offices, supposedly to boost “accountability.” These medical reviews will now fall under the purview of SSA’s federal Disability Case Review (DCR) team. 

We suspect that this move has nothing to do with “accountability,” and really is about “re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” as our senior Social Security expert, Maria Freese, puts it.  She points out that Trump’s SSA, after recklessly cutting more than 7,000 jobs when the agency already was understaffed, now finds itself falling short in key areas — and is furiously trying to plug holes.

“The agency has way too much work, with too few people. So they shift around the workload (in this case, SSDI reviews), so that overburdened staff in other areas have to do that work. That ultimately leaves SSA with a deficit somewhere else.” Freese explains. “Eventually, everyone who is reliant on the agency suffers.” …

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

 

Senators Want Answers

     From NEXTGOV/FCW: 

Twelve Democrats want answers from the Social Security Administration about its decision to shift employees that normally perform other jobs to its phone line last month with only hours of training, a move employees have said risks adding to backlogs.

SSA pushed out over 7,400 employees last year, including 1,387 contact representatives, as the Trump administration sought to reduce the size of the government’s workforce. 

Since last summer, the agency has moved over a thousand employees from its field offices to answer its phone line, and last month, Nextgov/FCW

 reported that the agency was shifting employees from its processing centers, technology office, financial unit and other offices to the phone line, too. 

Employees told Nextgov/FCW at the time that it made little sense for those processing benefit claims to answer calls, many of which may be about the status of those very claims.  …

The senators want an array of details about the reassignments, including how many employees have been moved and from what posts, the training they received, why the agency moved them, how the agency’s reassignments have impacted its functioning and any hiring SSA is doing. It recently had open jobs listed for contact center representatives. 

The letter’s signatories include Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., Patty Murray, D-Wash., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore. …

Happy Pi Day