O'Malley's Tenure As Commissioner

     From a piece in Government Executive about Martin O'Malley's too brief tenure as Commissioner of Social Security:

Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley on Wednesday described his nearly a year in charge of the embattled agency responsible for administering Americans’ retirement and disability benefits as one of the “greatest honors” of his career in government and politics. ..

O’Malley told Government Executive on Wednesday that he was “enormously proud” of the agency’s beleaguered workforce, which was able to find significant customer service improvements despite operating at a 50-year staffing low and serving the most beneficiaries in history. ...

[T]he public’s preference for telephonic and video disability hearings–with 90% of new requests being through those avenues–has made it easier to optimize administrative law judges’ workloads regardless of geographic location. ...

Jim Borland, the agency’s assistant deputy commissioner for analytics, review and oversight, said he will be retiring after a 40-year career in the federal government next month, and that this final year was “the most fun” he’s had at work in those four decades. ...

Coming Soon -- Walk-In Service To End

     

    If you're a Social Security employee who thinks this is great, remember that there is little efficiency gained here. You'll feel less harried mainly because workloads are reduced by discouraging the public from doing business with Social Security in the first place and by extending time frames for service out potentially by months. There is a significant percentage of the population who aren't capable of jumping through even a few hoops. They'll wait in your waiting room to see someone but they won't call repeatedly trying to make an appointment only to get frustrated after 30 minutes or more and hang up. Yes, you can go to the field office and make an appointment there to come back in a month or two but many people won't keep that appointment. They've got problems that keep them from working and from keeping appointments. That's frustrating but those people are a significant percentage of the population the agency is supposed to be serving.

    Imagine this. Your Social Security checks suddenly end. Your Medicare is terminated. All of your bank accounts and credit cards are frozen. You have no way of paying your bills or even buying food. Someone tells you that the problem is that you're been declared dead. You have no idea who decided you were dead After a month of desperation, someone tells you that the problem is at Social Security. You immediately go down to the local Social Security field office hoping for a quick resolution of the problem but all that happens is that you have to make an appointment two months out into the future. How would you feel?

In Person Service Matters

    From Effects Of Suspending In-Person Services At Social Security Administration Field Offices On Disability Applications And Allowances by Monica Farid, Michael T. Anderson, Gina Freeman, and Christopher Earles, a study for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:

In this study, we examine the effect of the suspension of in-person services at Social Security Administration (SSA) field offices during the COVID-19 pandemic on applications ...

The paper found that:

• There were systematic differences in the characteristics of applicants by mode of application. In-person applicants were older, less likely to have completed high school, and less likely to speak English compared to phone or online applicants.
  

• The suspension caused a 6-percent decrease in the volume of applications, implying that not everyone who wanted to apply in-person was able to apply using other modes. The effect was larger for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) applications compared to Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) applications.
  

• The suspension of in-person services caused some would-be in-person applicants to apply by phone, but it did not cause an increase in the volume of online applications.
  

• We did not find evidence that the suspension disproportionately affected groups of applicants defined by educational attainment, age, or English-speaking status.
  

• Our estimates imply that in-person service suspensions explain more than 50 percent of the decline in SSI and DI applications during the pandemic. ...
  

    The first and fourth points above seem to be in tension with each other.

Not Now, Not Later, Not Ever

     A Richmond, VA television station reports on a local case. SSI disability benefits were approved almost immediately for a child with a rare genetic disorder but the case has been sitting at the local Social Security field office for five months awaiting payment. 

    Undoubtedly, there's some complication. Anything complicated goes into the "Not now, not later, not ever" pile. They'll get to it when they have time but they never do. Why spend the time to complete action on one difficult case when you can easily process five uncomplicated cases in the same amount of time? Except that in this case they will because the case has been publicized.

    Is this happening because the Social Security employees are lazy? No, they're just overwhelmed with work and they're judged based upon the raw number of cases they complete. There's constant pressure to produce numbers. The easiest way to produce numbers is to work on the easiest cases first and let the difficult cases pile up. It makes sense from the point of view of an individual employee or manager but it's a horribly unfair situation as I expect those employees and managers know.

    By the way, when I say we're at the "Not now, not later, not ever" stage, I'm not exaggerating. I've got a fee petition pending at a payment center for more than three years. It's gathering dust because they're busy with other things, like answering Social Security's 800 number and the agency isn't tracking fee petitions. When are they ever going to be not so busy? It would take a major political change.

New Video On Commissioner's Goals

    Social Security has released a new video concerning the new Commissioner's goals. I wish I could it embed it here but I can't find a way so you'll have to click on the link. 

    Take a look and tell us your opinion.

State Disability Determination Services Processing Times

 

Percentage Of Callers To Social Security 800 Number Who Reach An Agency Employee

From Social Security

 

There's Enough Damn Problems Without This Crap!

@OMalleySSA [a tweet from the Commissioner]

SSA 800 # was slammed on June 3. Over 463,000 calls -- 140k more calls than a few days earlier. Why? In part because of a bogus news story about a $600 payment increase. This is FALSE: No COLA until January 2025. Big thanks to all SSA staff who helped customers with this rumor.

A Modest Idea On Getting Help To Claimants

     I wrote about the reach, and perhaps overreach, of Social Security's controls on fees for representation  before the agency in 2021. I still think what I suggested at that time would be a good idea:

The Social Security Act says that fees for representing claimants must be approved by the agency. 42 U.S.C. §406(a)(1). The agency has interpreted this provision broadly. Its position is that charging a fee just to help a claimant file a claim or an appeal must be approved by the agency. As a result no one is providing these services for a fee apart from those offering contingent fee contracts for much broader representation. This leaves a large number of people to seek services that the Social Security Administration is unable to supply. Social Security should announce that that merely helping a claimant file a claim or an appeal is not the sort of representation for which fee approval is required. This would allow attorneys and H.&R. Block and whomever else to provide these services for modest fees. As an alternative, if the agency still wants to control these fees, the Social Security Act provides authority for the Commissioner to simply approve a maximum fee. ("The Commissioner of Social Security may, by rule and regulation, prescribe the maximum fees which may be charged for services performed in connection with any claim ...) The Commissioner could announce that the maximum fee to help file a claim is, let's say, $250 and the maximum fee for helping to file an appeal is $100. Those providing these services would not have to submit a fee petition. I will concede that this suggestion helps those with some money more than it helps the destitute but one would hope that even the poor could come up with the modest fees I'm talking about. It would also free up agency personnel to provide more help for poor claimants. If Social Security cannot itself provide these services to all who need them, why stand in the way of others providing these services for modest fees?

It's Taking Longer To Get An Appointment With Social Security

    From Customer Wait Times in the Social Security Administration’s Field Offices and Card Centers, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

 

Wide Variance Between Regions In Number Of Customers Waiting Outside Field Offices

    From Customer Wait Times in the Social Security Administration’s Field Offices and Card Centers, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

 

New Postings On Frustrated Claimants Blog

    My firm has started a new blog directed at Social Security disability claimants, rather than Social Security professionals. It's called For The Frustrated Social Security Disability Claimant. Here are links to some recent posts:

• Disability And Homelessness

• If You're Able To Read This, Count Your Blessings; If You're Not, Expect That Others Won't Understand Your Problem

• How Do You Give Good Public Service When Your Employees Are Really Unhappy? You Don't!

• From Social Security: Top Baby Names

• 47% Of Disabled Americans Aren't Getting The Help They Need

• On Being Disabled And Homeless In Rural America

 

 

 

Customer Wait Times

    From Customer Wait Times in the Social Security Administration’s Field Offices and Card Centers, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

 

Deep Red In More Than One Way

 

From a Social Security fact sheet

Does This Make You Feel Better?

     I don't know whether this will make the U.S. Social Security Administration feel any better about its own telephone service but it sounds like they're having similar problems in the United Kingdom, although I may have to explain that the entity that I'm linking to, Rightsnet, is a U.K. organization of people involved in helping those with social security problems in that nation. The image to the left mentions the two main types of social security disability benefits in the U.K.

It's Taking Longer And Longer To Get Through To Social Security On The Phone

     From an article in the Daily Mail:

Severe Problems Remain After SSA Appropriation Determined

     From Federal News Network:

After a months-long hiring freeze, the Social Security Administration is once again facing even further declining staffing numbers.

But with agency spending now determined for the rest of fiscal 2024, and hiring now unfrozen, SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley is readying the agency’s plans to rebuild its workforce as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Currently, SSA is at its lowest staffing levels in 27 years, while serving more customers than ever before, O’Malley told lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee during a hearing last week. As a result, customer service has worsened — there are longer wait times on phone lines, and longer delays in receiving decisions on disability applications and appeals. ...

In the 2024 spending agreement Congress reached last week, SSA received $14.2 billion for its administrative expenses. It’s a slight increase over SSA’s enacted budget of $14.1 billion for 2023. ...

Although SSA’s latest hiring freeze has ended, there have already been net staffing losses as a result of a months-long string of continuing resolutions — landing the agency once again at the lower staffing levels it had a year ago. ...

Right now, SSA employees “are understaffed, and they are overwhelmed,” O’Malley said. “Not surprisingly, when somebody’s been on hold for an hour, they come off that call hot. We right now have an attrition rate of about 24% in our teleservice centers.”     ...

“We need to change our [hiring] strategy as an agency,” O’Malley told lawmakers. “I think we target too much on college graduates and not enough on high school and community college graduates. And with proper training, that could really be an investment that holds for a long time.” ...

O'Malley Testimony To Senate Aging Committee -- And Note The Overpayment Changes

     Social Security Commissioner Martin O'Malley testified before the Senate Aging Committee today. Here's are some excerpts from his written testimony (emphasis added):

...Currently – due to the extended continuing resolution (CR) that we are under in FY 2024 – we have stopped all hiring, and our staffing levels have already fallen below where they were in April of last year. If we continue this path of no hiring, we will fall to a new all-time low of around 55,000 full-time permanent staff by the end of this fiscal year – nearly 11 percent lower than the roughly 62,000 full-time permanent staff we averaged from 2010 through 2019.

Similarly, the State disability determination services (DDS) were able to make some progress increasing their staffing levels in FY 2023, following years of record-high attrition and a historically low staffing level in FY 2022. But in FY 2024, the DDS have quickly dropped below last year’s staffing levels due to our pause in hiring given the funding level, which is leading to a severe setback in addressing a service delivery crisis. ...

Members may be surprised to learn that Social Security has now been reduced to operate on less than one percent of its annual benefit payments. This is extremely low – much lower than private insurance companies. For instance, Allstate operates on 19 percent of its annual benefit payments, and Liberty Mutual operates on nearly 24 percent of its annual benefit payments. ...

Under the current system, Social Security’s operating overhead, as a share of benefit outlays, has shrunk by 20 percent over the last ten years. ...

People who try to reach us by phone are now waiting on hold for 38 minutes or more on a dysfunctional 800 Number system. ...

Starting next Monday, March 25, we will be ceasing the heavy-handed practice of intercepting 100 percent of an overpaid beneficiary’s monthly Social Security benefit by default if they fail to respond to our demand for repayment. Moving forward, we will now use a much more reasonable default withholding rate of 10 percent of monthly benefits — similar to the current rate in the SSI program.

We will be reframing our guidance and procedures so that the burden of proof shifts away from the claimant in determining whether there is any evidence that the claimant was at fault in causing the overpayment. ...

Equite Action Plan Report

     The Social Security Administration has recently issued its Equity Action Plan: 2023 Update. It sounds like they're about a year behind in getting this out. It's full of vague, largely unmeasurable goals. Look at it yourself but what I've pulled  out below is all the content that I can find that seems vaguely interesting to me, at least:

• ... In FY 2023, to restore SSI applications closer to pre-pandemic levels, we launched a new SSI “Basic Needs” campaign in support of our FYs 2022-2023 Agency Priority Goal (APG) to increase SSI applications nationwide by 15 percent and increase applications from underserved communities by 25 percent, 1,758,656 and 127,749 applications, respectively. We have seen an increase in the overall number of SSI applications, nationally and in underserved communities. Since the campaign launched:

a. Our digital marketing tactics generated 1.81 million referrals from our SSI website to the online SSI Protective Filing tool, yielding 345,000 SSI applications through September 3, 2023. The tool allows individuals and third-party helpers to establish a protective filing10 online and request an appointment to file for benefits.

b. Our marketing generated more than 1.9 billion impressions across all tactics and over 2.7 million website visits.

c. Through September 29, 2023, we exceeded our APG target for SSI applications in underserved communities relative to the 2021 baseline by receiving nearly 135,000 applications. ...


• In May 2023, we established the Office of Transformation (OT), which includes our Customer Experience (CX) team. The OT’s mission is to facilitate the most critical business enhancements that serve the public and support our frontline employees. ...
• As of August 23, 2023, there were about 220,000 pending [SSI] underpayments, of which more than 140,000 underpayments (with corresponding alerts) have been pending for a year or more or are priority cases. ...
  

    I can be critical of the vagueness of the report but in an organization as large as the Social Security Administration a 1% improvement in service which might seem trivial to me could still improve the lives of a not insignificant number of people. We'd all love to see transformative changes but with current levels of funding all that's possible are the tiniest baby steps.

This Is What's Going On At Ground Level

    Here's a note made recently by an employee at my firm about a pending disability claim that may give you some idea of the state of service at Social Security :

TC [telephone call to] ____ DO [District Office] and she said there is an initial claim that has been sitting there since 7/14/2023. She is sending it to the CR [claims representative] Mr. ____ but he is off.

    In case you don't understand the context, the DO only takes the claims. They don't make medical determinations. Those are made at Disability Determination Services (DDS). Under normal circumstances -- which don't currently exist -- new claims are forwarded from the DO to DDS in a week or two. Even if there is some technical problem, the claim isn't supposed to be sitting at a DO for six months! 

    For this to happen there has to be no effective tickler system at the DO. I'm sure there's supposed to be one but it's broken down entirely under the enormous pressure of overwhelming workloads.

    I'm not even mad at the personnel involved because I have an idea of just how overwhelmed they are.  If a case happens to fall by the wayside now, we're just about at what I've described before as the "Not now. Not later. Not ever" stage of service. Problems aren't being straightened out.

    And please don't blame my firm. We've been trying for three months to find out what happened to the case. It's almost impossible to get anyone on the phone. There's no smart trick that solves cases like this. There's far too many of them. We're not supposed to be Social Security's tickler system anyway.