Appeals Council Status Report Now Available Online

     Over the weekend Social Security added an Appeals Council Status Report feature to its online system. This allows attorneys and others representing Social Security claimants to go online and obtain a report on the status of their cases pending at the Appeals Council. Much time has been wasted over the decades as attorneys called the Appeals Council to ask about the status of their cases. Why would attorneys call to ask the status so much? When you have a case that sits at the Appeals Council for a year and a half your client gets antsy and wants to know what's going on. Can you blame them? There's been nothing an attorney could do other than call the Appeals Council to ask what's going on. They never told you anything much but, at least, you could determine that the case was still pending.

     I hate to be ungrateful for the electronic help we're getting but when will we be able to get information on our cases pending at the initial and reconsideration levels and, for that matter, on cases that have been approved and are pending payment? I'm not telling people at Social Security anything they don't already know but extending the system to the initial, reconsideration and payment center levels would save everyone, particularly Social Security, a lot of time.

Progress On Electronic Access

From Electronic Services for Claimant Representatives, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (footnotes omitted):

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) processed approximately 738,000 hearings. About 78 percent of these claimants were represented by another party....

In the first 8 months of FY 2011, claimants filed approximately 52 percent of all requests for hearings using iAppeals. Claimant use of iAppeals has increased over the years, thereby removing workloads from SSA’s FOs [Social Security's Field Offices].

As of the end of June 2011, SSA enrolled approximately 6,400 claimant representatives in ARS [Appointed Representative Services, that is electronic access to claimant files], corresponding to approximately 71 percent of the represented claimants who filed appeals. ...

SSA plans to add a number of features. For instance, ODAR is considering providing claimant representatives ARS access to the digital recording of the hearing. Additionally, SSA plans to create a hearing office status report in ARS that will provide claimant representatives information on all their pending cases. This status report should be available in January 2012.

Early Reports On E-File Access At The Appeals Counci -- It's Not Working

I have heard from several attorneys who have tried to access e-file at the Appeals Council. No one seems to be able to access e-files there.

E-Folder Access At Appeals Council

The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) has sent out a notice to its members that Social Security has extended E-folder access to the Appeals Council. Attorneys who have E-folder access can now access their clients' files online when they are at the Appeals Council level.

I have not used this yet. I wonder if it will be possible to access the recordings of Administrative Law Judge hearings through the E-folder.

Encryption Of CDs

I have reproduced below the contents of a letter that I received recently from Social Security. I am not sure whether this has been distributed nationally. I used Adobe Acrobat's optical character recognition (OCR) on this. I hope I have straightened out all the misreads.

Dear Colleague:

We are writing to tell you about an important change that furthers our commitment to protect our claimants' personal information.

In October, we will begin a pilot program to encrypt the claim folder CDs sent to you by the Social Security Administrations' Office of Disability Adjudication and Review. We expect to expand the pilot rapidly, so that by the end of 20 10, we will be encrypting all CDs sent to appointed representatives and medical/vocational experts. We developed the decryption password formula in collaboration with members of the appointed representative community. The encrypted CDs are easy to use and provide a major and necessary improvement in safeguarding the personally identifiable information in our possession. We huve enclosed a guide that describes the process.

We appreciate your ongoing support to help strengthen the security and privacy of our claimant's

data.

Jim Borland
Associated Commissioner
Office of Electronic Services and Strategic Information

Jim Bentley
Associate Commissioner Acting Associate Commissioner
Office of Electronic Services and Office of Budget, Facilities and Security

Opening an Encrypted CD

No additional software is necessary to read the information on the encrypted CD. The following instructions will allow proper viewing of the contents of the CD.

1. Insert the Electronic Folder CD into your PC's CDROM drive.

2. Double click on "My Computer"; next double-click on your PC's CDROM drive to display the contents of the CD.

3. Double-click on the pme.exe file located on the CD.
4. Enter the Account Name and Password; click OK.

Account Name: ssa
All ODAR encrypted media will use the same Account Name, "ssa". The Account Name field is not case sensitive.
a. Use the following criteria to determine the encryption password. If you are unable to determine the correct password for your encrypted CD, call the local ODAR office that sent you the CD for assistance. NOTE: The password will always be nine characters long.

Representatives and Claimants Password Criteria:

• First 4 letters of claimant's first name in lower case (if the name is less than four characters, use "#"s after the last alpha)
• A number sign (#)
• Last 4 numbers of the claimant's SSN

The CD will be labeled as follows:

• Claimant's full last name
• Claimant's first 4 numbers of the SSN

Examples:
Claimant's name is Mickey Mays and SSN is 123-45-6789. The encryption password is mick#6789. Label on the CD is "Mays 1234".
Claimant's name is Tom Mays and SSN is 123-45-6789. The encryption password is tom##6789. Label on the CD is "Mays 1234".

Experts (medical and vocational) Password Criteria:

• First 4 of the expert's last name (lowercase). If the name is less than four characters, use "#"s after the last alpha.
• A number sign (#)
• First 4 numbers of the experts BPA

The CD will be labeled as follows:

• Experts full first name.
• Date of the hearing or "interrogatory".

Examples:
Experts name is Sam Jones and the BPA number is 1234. The encryption password is jone#1234. Label on the CD is "Sam 080910" (date ofhearing is 8/9/10) or "Sam interrogatory",

5. To decrypt the contents of the CD, highlight the words "[Encrypted Device]" and click on the Extract button.
6. The Browse For Folder window will appear. The first time you decrypt a CD, highlight the drive where you want to save the file and click on [Make New Folder] button. NOTE: If a folder already exists, navigate to that location to download the file.
7. Change the folder name then highlight the new folder and click on the OK button.
8. Go to the folder created, or the location you extracted the files. Double-click on the index.html file
9. Close the Pointsec encryption window by clicking on the "x" in the upper right hand corner of the screen or by selecting File/Exit from the menu.
10. A deletion window will appear if files were extracted to your computer.
11. If you extracted files to your hard drive or server and DO NOT want the files deleted from your computer, select "No". By selecting "Cancel", you will return to the Pointsec encryption window.

1.0 Frequently Asked Questions

What happens if the account name and/or password entry is incorrect?
If incorrect information is entered in the Account name and/or Password fields, you will receive a Pointsec Media Encryption box, pop-up message say that says, "Your password or account name is wrong. Please try again."

Click the OK button on the screen to reenter the correct Account name and Password. If you continue to get this message, please contact the local ODAR office that sent you the CD.

What happens if the files are copied or viewed beforethey are un-encrypted?
If the files are copied or view straight from the CD without running the decryption process, they will be unreadable.

Once the contents ofthe folder is decrypted, can I simply view the files without copying or extracting them to my computer?
Yes, you can view the files individually from the Pointsec Media Encryption window without using the index.html to navigate to them. You will have to select each separate document in the "docs" folder. If you open the index.html from the Pointsec window, it may not display correctly.

To view the actual tiff images you will need to navigate to the "docs" folder and select the desired
image.

From The NOSSCR Conference -- IV

Glenn Sklar, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner for the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR,) spoke yesterday at the semi-annual conference of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) in Chicago. Here are some points from his presentation:

• ODAR has now cleared almost all cases that have been pending more than 825 days.
• ODAR's virtual screening units will continue through at least the end of fiscal year (FY) 2011 (September 30, 2011).
• Several new hearing offices will open in the near future but no mention was made of the new office that I care the most about, the one in Fayetteville, NC.
  
• Sklar warned that the new hearing offices will have a lot of new employees who will make a lot of mistakes. He prefers that these mistakes be sorted out at the local hearing offices or the regional offices rather than at his level.
• ODAR has opened two new hearing assistance offices, a large one in St. Louis and a smaller one in McLean, VA, to help with "pulling" exhibits and writing decisions.
• Going into the NOSSCR Conference there were 491 people who represent Social Security claimants who were active users of Social Security's efolders, which give online access to claimant files. 248 more users were signed up during the NOSSCR Conference up to the point at which Sklar spoke. Presumably, more have signed up since.
• By mid-November Social Security hopes to start signing up attorneys and other representatives for efolder access at hearing offices. Social Security's goal is to sign up 500 a month for a year. [Two points on this: I did not get the impression that Sklar was completely confident that his agency will accomplish this. Second, would you make up your mind what this is called? It has been called EDIB, electronic filel, efiles and efolders and maybe other names. It is time to decide on a name and stick to it!]
• Sklar was asked about attorney's office staff accessing efolder records. There has been concern that it may be Social Security's view that only attorneys could access the records. Sklar said that he was aware that many attorneys were using workarounds to allow their staffs to access the efolders and that Social Security's Office of General Counsel was working on the problem. [I think there are enough real problems at Social Security that the agency does not need to waste its time on something as silly and theoretical as this. The tone of Sklar's voice suggested that he might agree with me.]
  
• CDs being given to those who represent Social Security claimants who lack efolder access will soon be encrypted. Sklar said these would be easy to use. [I am glad that I have efolder access.]
  
• Sklar seemed surprised at a question from the audience about decisions and other correspondence from hearing offices arriving at attorneys' offices a week or ten days after the date they were supposedly mailed. This has happened since Social Security centralized printing and mailing. [Sklar's surprise surprised me. I am just about certain this is a national problem.]
• Sklar was asked about allowing attorneys and others who represent Social Security claimants to appear on a three way video linkup. This would allow someone to represnet a Social Security disabisity claimant without ever meeting them. Sklar said that this issue was being litigated in the Eastern District of New York and that he could not comment. [This confirms a rumor that Binder and Binder has sued over this issue. I will write more on this subject next week. I will say for now that I am extremely unsympathetic to Binder and Binder's position.]
  

Signup For E-File Access

Social Security has posted some limited information about how those who represent Social Security claimants may sign up for internet access to their clients' electronic folders. I hope this process can be speeded up. At the rate things are going, it could take years to get everyone signed up.

E-File Access Delayed

A few hundred attorneys already have online access to Social Security's electronic files. There is some frustration that this has not been made available to everyone who represents Social Security claimants. I am hearing that the problem is technical. Social Security would like to allow people to sign themselves up online -- with proper security controls -- but the software is not cooperating. Social Security can only sign people up in person which dramatically slows down the process. The latest word is that Social Security hopes to automate the process by November.

E-Services Week

The Nevada Daily Mail reports that "the week of Aug. 9-13 has been proclaimed Social Security eServices Week by Jayne Novak, mayor of Nevada; and Sherry Brown, mayor of Bronaugh. "

Access To Electronic Files -- The Holdup Is Bandwidth

Social Security has just issued a new section to its POMS manual dealing with attorney and representative access to their clients' electronic folders at Social Security. The section tells us what is causing the delay in allowing all the attorneys and representatives access to the electronic folders, "Until we are sure of our bandwidth capability, only those invited representatives will succeed in accessing their clients’ eFolders." I suspected that was the problem but this is the first time, as far as I know, that Social Security has publicly acknowledged that the problem is at least partially bandwidth.

Internet Access To Social Security Files Moving Along

There was an important development at the conference of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) last month that I had not gotten around to posting about. Social Security invited over 200 attorneys to sign up during the conference to participate in a program to allows them internet access to the electronic files that Social Security has on their clients. Previously, Social Security had only a tiny pilot with nine participants.

Since the NOSSCR conference, I and others at my firm have been able to access our clients' files, so long as the client is awaiting a hearing on their Social Security disability claim. I would not call the process elegant but it is functional and convenient. The biggest annoyance is the requirement that after I enter my user id online as well as a password that I must wait for a code number to be sent as a text message to my cell phone. I must enter that code number to gain access to my clients' files. I understand the need to be vigilant about security but this seems like overkill to me. If a person has someone else's user id and password, they can easily change the cell phone number so that they can received the text message. I do not see how the texting of a second password provides any extra security. Another annoyance is the fact that I cannot immediately download a copy of my client's file. I must ask for the file and then wait for an e-mail message telling me that it is ready to download. The delay in file preparation is not so bad now but I fear that as more and more attorneys begin using this system that the delay will creep up.

Social Security must feel that the rollout is going reasonably well. I have heard that next month Social Security will begin signing up any attorney who practices before the Raleigh hearing office. I do not know whether Raleigh is just a further test or the start of national rollout.

E-Congressional

From the St. Petersburg Times:

The days of automated phone calls, lines and long commutes could be coming to an end for local Social Security recipients.

In an effort to alleviate those problems, the Social Security Administration has created a pilot project called "eCongressional," which allows regional congressional offices to have access to sensitive Social Security information affecting local recipients.

E-Pulling Has E-Failed -- And An Attempt At An Explanation Why Such A Foolish Idea Ever Got Tried

From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) (emphasis added):

Our objectives were to (1) assess the results of the Social Security Administration's (SSA) Electronic File Assembly (ePulling) pilot project and (2) determine whether the assessment procedures were effective in deciding when the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review's (ODAR) hearing offices were ready to implement ePulling. ...

ODAR expects ePulling to increase the efficiency of the EF preparation process and reduce the time it takes to prepare a case for hearing. ODAR estimates that ePulling may result in an annual reduction of 402 work-years and a savings of $16.6 million. ...

From June through December 2008, ePulling was used to prepare the files for 773 cases. ...

The 773 cases prepared using ePulling contained 250,938 pages. For each page, ODAR assessed the ePulling software's accuracy in identifying four categories of information: type of document, document's source, document's beginning date, and document's ending date. ODAR found that multiple corrections were required for the pages processed. In fact, 433,790 corrections were required for the 250,938 pages processed. ...

Since June 2008, the contractor has made five enhancements to the ePulling software. To determine whether the enhancements improved the accuracy of the software, ODAR processed the same 10 cases through each ePulling software enhancement. In addition to the 10 cases repeatedly tested, ODAR selected 5 to 10 new cases to test each enhancement. ... As shown in Table 2, following the January 2009 enhancement, the accuracy rates computed from this limited number of cases in the areas of type of document (65 percent) and source of document (75 percent) show accuracy rates comparable to the rates ODAR calculated for the 773 cases (see Table 1). In the area of dates of document (64 percent), the accuracy rates were slightly better for the 15 to 20 cases as compared to the accuracy rates reported for the 773 cases, which was in the 40-percent range. However, accuracy rates declined between June 2008 and January 2009. ...

We interviewed six employees in the Tupelo, Mississippi, Hearing Office and three employees in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, Hearing Office who prepared cases using ePulling. All nine employees stated that ePulling increased case preparation time when compared to the traditional EF preparation process. ...

We recommend that SSA:

1. Perform a complete assessment of the ePulling pilot project results before expanding the use of ePulling to other hearing offices. The assessment should ensure that ePulling will not adversely affect file preparation time or any other aspect of the hearings process.

2. Consider if historical data can corroborate or improve upon the current 3-hour case preparation time estimate used to assess ePulling's impact on hearing office productivity.

3. Determine whether the ePulling pilot testing should also include cases with more than 300 pages. ...

SSA agreed with our recommendations.

Regular readers may recall that I have been extremely skeptical about e-pulling. I wish I could claim great prescience, but I cannot. I think that almost everyone familiar with pulling exhibits knew from the beginning that e-pulling could not work.

Lisa DeSoto appears to be the person most directly responsible for the e-pulling experiment. She is now gone from Social Security. We may never know whether e-pulling had anything to do with her departure. However, I do not want to blame Ms. DeSoto too much. The underlying problem is that Social Security was being given grossly inadequate resources to perform its mission. Social Security management knew that things were falling apart, but they were under enormous pressure to manage their way out of the problem. They resorted to a variety of "Hail Mary passes" such as e-pulling. All or virtually all of these "Hail Mary passes" failed, wasting money and staff time. These "Hail Mary passes" also misled Congress about the resources the agency needed to get its work done. Why give Social Security more money and personnel when Social Security managers are promising that "Hail Mary passes" are going to save the day? But, of course, Social Security managers were only telling Congress what it wanted to hear.

The real problem was that the Republican controlled Congresses between 1994 and 2006 were just irresponsible. They underfunded Social Security to the point that its managers tried desperate measures. I am sure that the Democratic controlled Congresses since 2006 have made and will continue to make mistakes, but they are not starving Social Security to the point that its managers repeatedly try "Hail Mary passes." Even a Republican like Michael Astrue should be able to appreciate that.

E-File Weirdness On Escalated Claims

Let me pass along a bizarre little detail about the current state of Social Security's electronic files. After a request for hearing is filed on a Social Security disability claim, changed circumstances in a claimant's life sometimes make it appropriate for the claimant to file an additional claim with Social Security for a different type of disability benefit. When this happens, the new claim is typically "escalated" to the hearing level and disposed of at the same time as the claim upon which the request for hearing was originally filed. I now know that an escalated new claim for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) changes what had been an electronic file to a paper file. Why? Apparently, some glitch in the software. This may happen with other escalated claims, such as cases where a claimant asks for a hearing on a Disability Insurance Benefits claim and then loses her husband, causing her to file an additional claim for Disabled Widows benefits, but I do not know for sure. Maybe someone more familiar with this problem can tell us.

I hear that Social Security is working on the problem.