Social Security management has a strong lean in the direction of centralizing anything that can be centralized and some that can't. One of the things that they have centralized is the scheduling of Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) hearings. It's called ERAP -- Enhanced Representative Availability Process -- at least insofar as it applies to people like me who represent claimants. I cannot even imagine a sensible reason for ERAP. Let me set out some problems I have encountered with ERAP:
- It's now February. ERAP is demanding that I tell them when I've available for hearings in August! Do you know what your plans are for August? They have just started scheduling for June. I don't know why we need to schedule this far in advance anyway but why do I have to submit my availability well beyond what they need now. How is this helping anyone.
- I have been told verbally that if I fail to meet Social Security's deadline that I am considered available for the entire month even if I tell them well before scheduling actually begins for the month in question. Gotcha! Is there any rational reason for this?
- I have been informed that once I submit my availability that I cannot later change it to say that I am unavailable certain days even though Social Security hasn't started scheduling even for the month before the month we're talking about. Gotcha! Not only must I submit availability six months in advance, I'm not allowed to make changes even if the changes don't inconvenience Social Security in the slightest. Do your plans six months out never change?
- Despite providing dates that I'm available six months in advance, Social Security still schedules hearings on days I've told them I was unavailable and they still schedule two hearings at the same time. As best I can tell, they don't even consult the dates I've given them. The burden is on me to catch this and get it corrected. When this happens there is usually a significant delay in rescheduling a case.
- Attorney who have clients in two of Social Security's regions have impossible problems since those regions can't coordinate scheduling with each other. Somehow we're supposed to solve this problem for the agency.
What are we doing here? This is an unworkable system for attorneys. My guess is that it may not be much better for ALJs.
The old system, which involved hearing offices calling attorneys about each hearing was workable. With all the reschedulings because of errors, I don't know that ERAP actually saves time for the agency. The agency is supposed to be serving the public. ERAP is lousy public service.
