It matters little now, but Social Security is finally getting around to issuing detailed instructions for the operation of the Federal Reviewing Officer (FedRO) experiment going on in Social Security's Boston region. I say it matters little since it has become obvious that the FedRO experiment is going nowhere. There was never any good reason to believe FedRO would work, there is no sign it is working and the current Commissioner of Social Security has no interest in continuing his predecessor's vanity project.
Some thought that attorney FedROs would bring a different sensibility to disability determination and maybe they would if they were given a little freedom to operate. However, here is a sentence from a new section in Social Security's Program Operations Manual Series (POMS) which shows what Social Security really had in mind:
Some thought that attorney FedROs would bring a different sensibility to disability determination and maybe they would if they were given a little freedom to operate. However, here is a sentence from a new section in Social Security's Program Operations Manual Series (POMS) which shows what Social Security really had in mind:
The PE [Program Expert] reviews all cases in which the team leader (TL) and disability examiner (DE) disagree with the Federal Reviewing Official (FedRO) decision as well as a sample of some TL/DE agreement cases.Social Security is putting team leaders as well as disability examiners in place to police FedRO decisions. It sounds a lot like Social Security wanted to make sure that the FedROs would make exactly the same decisions as the current disability examiners were making.
