OHO Caseload Analysis Report

     Just released by Social Security (notice that it still refers to ODAR which hasn't been the correct name for several years now):

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Will Decline In OT Be Reversed Due To Extra Covid-19 Funding?

     This was obtained from Social Security by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and published in its newsletter, which is not available online to non-members. Click on the image to view full size.

      By the way, isn't it time to update the heading for this report? ODAR has been out of business for some time now.

ODAR Caseload Analysis Report

     Obtained by the National Organization of Social Security Representatives (NOSSCR) and published in their member newsletter, which isn't available online:

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ODAR Workload And Performance Summary

     This was obtained from the Social Security Administration by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and published in its newsletter, which is not available online.

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The Evil OHO

     Social Security's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) will soon change its name to the Office of Hearings Operations (OHO). People will pronounce OHO as Oh-Ho. However, that is the same pronunciation as the Spanish word for eye, ojo. A friend who knows a good deal about these things tells me that the Spanish word ojo also has the connotation of evil eye in Mexican and Central American culture. There are many legal immigrants in the United States from Mexico and Central America who take the concept of the evil eye seriously. We'd better not confuse them by casually referring to Oh-Ho.

A Message From The Commissioner

Date: August 8, 2017 Refer To: S7A-4

To: Senior Staff

From: Nancy A. Berryhill /s/

Acting Commissioner 

Subject: Organizational Realignment - INFORMATION

I continue to identify opportunities to improve efficiency and public service by unifying efforts and advancing our ability to make data-driven decisions.

Today, I am announcing the establishment of a Deputy Commissioner-level organization – the Office of Analytics, Review, and Oversight (OARO) – which will be implemented October 1, 2017. The six offices involved that will form this organization are as follows:

From the Office of Budget, Finance, Quality, and Management:

 • Office of Anti-Fraud Programs; 

 • Office of Business Improvement;

• Office of Quality Review; and

• Audit Liaison Staff 

From the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review:

• Office of Appellate Operations;

From the Office of the Commissioner:

 • Analytics Center of Excellence

Integration of these organizations with complementary missions provides an opportunity to mature our anti-fraud efforts, institutionalize and foster data analysis in our programs, improve coordination to provide oversight of the disability adjudication system, and communicate a unified message within and outside the agency. This restructuring presents an opportunity to maximize our resources and better organize efforts to explore and develop the future of analyses and oversight. I said in my first communication January 23rd that we will be mission focused and mission driven. The establishment of this organization further demonstrates a commitment to maximizing our performance and employee engagement while enhancing and improving agency policies and processes so that we provide quality public service.

Pat Jonas will be Deputy Commissioner, OARO and Amy Thompson will serve as Acting Assistant Deputy Commissioner, OARO. 

In addition to this new organization structure, the Office of Budget, Finance, Quality, and Management will be the Office of Budget, Finance, and Management (OBFM). The Office of Disability Adjudication and Review will be the Office of Hearings Operations (OHO). 

Please join me in congratulating our colleagues on their new assignment. I am sure I can count on you to give them your full cooperation as they begin the task of integration and moving forward.

ODAR To Become OHO

     I am hearing that Social Security's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) will be changing its name to the Office of Hearings Operations (OHO). As part of this process, the Appeals Council will go to a newly created Office, where it will undoubtedly bicker with OHO. 

     By the way, I'm old enough to remember when what is now ODAR was the Bureau of Hearings and Appeals (BHA).

Have You Ever Been Under So Much Time Pressure That You Took A Shortcut Even Though You Knew It Would Probably End Up Taking Longer?

     One of my colleagues wrote a letter to his Congressman about the problem of a Social Security hearing office scheduling hearings without contacting attorney offices first. This is contrary to established agency practices which are posted in the agency's HALLEX manual. His Congressman in turn wrote Social Security which sent back the reply below. Click on each page to view it full size.

     If you're not involved in the hearing process, you can regard complaints about this as nothing more than attorney whining, but you'd be wrong. The fact that this is happening is a sign of desperation at the hearing offices. They're under so much pressure to schedule hearings that they're deliberately doing something they know will actually take more time in the end. Social Security attorneys have many clients. It's the only way you can make money in this kind of practice. If hearing offices don't call attorneys before scheduling hearings, inevitably any attorney will have conflicts between scheduled hearings. It takes longer to reschedule hearings than it would to make the phone calls in the first place. We're even seeing cases where hearing offices are refusing to reschedule hearings even after they've been notified that an attorney has a conflict with a previously scheduled hearing. Hearing offices that do this have to know that the Appeals Council will remand 100% of such cases but they're doing it anyway.

     As you can see from Social Security's response, there's not enough concern at Social Security's Atlanta Regional Office that they intend to do anything about the problem.

     By the way, from the letter, it sounds like the law firm was complaining about the Raleigh hearing office but that's not the problem office. Raleigh is still calling. The law firm was complaining about the North Charleston, SC hearing office that serves the Southeastern corner of North Carolina.

     This problem isn't limited to North Carolina. It's not affecting every hearing office but it is affecting many nationwide.
     I'm trying to think of an analogy to explain why this is so concerning. Let me try this one. Let's say a police officer pulls over a woman who's going down the road at 90 miles an hour. The officer finds a child in the back seat. The driver explains "I was just trying to get my child to school on time." I think you'd understand that the problem wasn't just the speeding. You'd know that something was clouding the driver's judgment and you'd think that whatever was clouding the driver's judgment was probably even more worrisome than the speeding itself.

Trying To Put A Big Finger On The Scales Of Justice?

     From three nearly identical contracting notices posted by the Social Security Administration:

The SSA Office Disability Policy seeks to: (1) provide additional capacity for medical expertise to the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) and (2) conduct a small scale pilot to determine whether existing Medical Consultants' (MC) in various specialties and Psychiatric Consultants (PC) use at the hearing level will enhance the accuracy and consistency between disability determinations at the initial level and decisions at the hearing level. Towards this end, BPA number SS00-16-4C051 with [H Richard Waranch, Neal Salomon, or Homayoon Moghbeli] to provide MC/PC services in the specialty of psychology, will be modified to permit the contractor to review cases for ODAR in the capacity of a ME, provide a written response and opinions to questions and/or interrogatories, and to give oral testimony subject to cross examination.

     Enhance consistency? Will there be any pilot to try to get initial level determinations more consistent with ODAR decisions? Is the only change sought at the hearing level?
     Can anyone tell me anything about Waranch, Salomon and Meghbeli?

Social Security Wants Case Processing System For ODAR Pronto

     From a contracting notice posted by the Social Security Administration:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is seeking a Case Management Software System inclusive of a correspondence system; scheduling system; invoicing system and a provider repository that will move cases along the Office of Disability and Adjudication Review’s (ODAR) business process to the closure of the case. The purpose of this RFI [Request for Information] is to identify potential vendors capable of providing a solution for this Case Management Software System....

The solution must be able to do the following: 

• Be a commercial off the shelf (COTS) product; 
• Be commercially available as of May 31, 2017;  ... 

Responses must be received by 12:00 noon EST on May 17, 2017. ...

     A response by May 17? Sounds like they already know what product they intend to buy. But how will an off the shelf product do everything they want it to do and work with Social Security's other systems?
     I'm probably wrong but what they're describing sounds a lot like the case management systems used by law firms. They're not going to use one of those, are they? One of those wouldn't be this scalable, would it? That wouldn't work with the agency's other systems, would it? But what other type of off the shelf system could it be?

"Not Sustainable"

     This comes from a trusted source but I can't verify it otherwise:

1. The ODAR [Office of Disability Adjudication and Review] leadership had a call with all of ODAR management and a separate call with the decision writers. They were told the state of the current way of doing business is not sustainable model. So as part of this, the decision writers were told they had to increase their productivity as there is a backlog of about 52,000 cases that continues to grow. In addition management has to start writing up decisions. This applies to management in ODAR offices that have some training on writing up decisions. It is my understanding the most group supervisors have this training so they have started writing up decisions. 

2. SSA [Social Security Administration] slapped a freeze yesterday on all competitive promotions after 1/22/17. This applies to all promotions except career ladder promotions. An example is that you can’t promote someone into a group supervisor position or Hearings Office Director. This also applies to Field Offices. It is Agency wide. This comes from interpreting President Trump’s decision to put a freeze on hiring. That freeze also applies to promotions.

ODAR Workload And Performance Summary -- FY 2016 -- Rapid Deterioration In Service And SSA Doesn't Care

     This was obtained from Social Security by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and published in their newsletter (which isn't available online). Click on the image to view it full size.

     Note that they were getting in an average of 2,798 new cases per workday in fiscal year 2016 but only disposing of 2,545 cases per day. That's a 9% shortfall. The backlog increased by 61,107 cases over the course of the fiscal year. Those are real people, most of whom will ultimately be found disabled.

     Note that Senior Attorney dispositions totaled only 1,187 cases over the entire fiscal year. Social Security, you can pretend to credulous members of Congress that you care about the backlogs but don't try telling that to me. It's simple. If you care about the backlogs, you take the brakes off and increase the number of Senior Attorney decisions dramatically. If you're not willing to do that, you just don't care about the backlogs. Senior Attorney decisions are an excellent way of doing something quickly about the backlogs. They don't ultimately do anything other than quickly approve cases that would ultimately be approved anyway.

The Backlogs Are Horrible

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

As of March 2016, ODAR [Office of Disability Adjudication and Review] had about 1.1 million pending claims awaiting a hearing decision with the average age of 318 days, measured as the time from the date of the hearing request. The volume and age of pending hearing cases has increased since FY [Fiscal Year] 2010.

With respect to the claims awaiting a decision, we found:

• claimants’ average age was 45, and about 6 percent of pending claims involved claimants under age 19;

• about 45 percent of hearing requests nationwide awaited assignment for pre-hearing preparation; and

• approximately 7,400 claimants were deceased.

We found wide variations in workloads by hearing office nationwide. For instance, the average pending cases per ALJ ranged from 502 in the Boston Region to 972 in the New York Region. We also found that the proportion of individuals awaiting a decision in Georgia as related to the number of disability beneficiaries in the State was three times higher than that in Massachusetts.

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Bad Smell In Atlanta

     From WXIA:

A group of Atlanta attorneys and federal judges are questioning the motive of moving a Social Security hearing office from north Atlanta to a wealthy suburb. ...
There are two hearing offices in Atlanta where the disabled must go for a judge to approval Social Security benefits, downtown at the Sam Nunn Federal Building and 3105 Clairmont Road.

Earlier this year, the agency secretly starting relocating the Clairmont Road location to Alpharetta, 25 miles away. It’s scheduled to open in January. The new location, 4100 Old Milton Parkway, happens to be conveniently located about five miles from Judge Ollie Garmon’s Alpharetta home. He is one of the highest ranking social security judges in the country.

Garmon currently works out of the Sam Nunn Federal Building in downtown Atlanta. According to blueprints and sources familiar with the move, the agency plans to build Garmon an office inside the future Alpharetta social security hearing office. This will cut his commute nearly an hour during rush-hour.

The move was so secret, the agency didn’t even notify its own judges. In May, the Association of Administrative Law Judges filed a grievance with Social Security to block the move.

“No judges were notified about this move to my knowledge. I’m unsure if any employees were notified about this move until after the lease had been signed,” said Carol Moore, a vice president with the Association of Administrative Law Judges. Moore is also an administrative law judge in Macon. ... 

Numerous Atlanta-area attorneys, who represent clients seeking disability benefits, say the move makes no sense. They don’t think the relocation close to Garmon’s home is a coincidence either.

“I don’t know, but it kind of smells like it wasn’t,” said Robbie Weaver, an attorney out of Blairsville. ...

Atlanta attorney John Hogan said, “[It’s] an inconvenient location without any benefit.” ...

“As I’ve said before. I cannot answer questions. I’ll be happy to do that at the proper time,” Garmon said.

A spokesperson for Social Security explained in an email that, ”the new location is centrally located to better serve the public,” it will have an “additional restroom” and “more parking.”

“If you put a dot on the map and drew a circle, that could be the case, but the reality is, without access to the bus station, it’s a false perception,” said Hogan. ...

To determine how the move will impact disability claiments who rely on public transportation, the 11Alive Investigators took public transit to both the current and the future site from downtown Atlanta. ...

From downtown to proposed Alpharetta hearing office: it took two trains, a bus and required more than a one mile walk. ...

Wi-Fi For Claimant Attorneys?

     I have heard a report that the Raleigh hearing office is installing Wi-Fi for attorneys who represent claimants at the office. Is this something that will be done generally in hearing offices?

The CARES Plan

     Social Security's plan for dealing with its hearing backlog has leaked out. It's called CARES, standing for "A Plan For Compassionate And REsponsive Service." Here's another link to the plan, although this second link will expire on January 29.
     The plan is awfully reminiscent of prior plans to deal with the backlog. Here are the elements of this plan as I see it:

• Assumption that the most important element is better management. Current management is much smarter than the people who used to manage the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR). Of course, they were idiots. Look at the backlog! Of course, the new guys are smart. Look at that great graphic on the cover of the report. Anybody who can produce graphics like that must have a great plan.
• Vague management initiatives. The new management initiatives consist of mere concepts that have little hope of succeeding but the new managers are so much smarter than the old managers that, of course, the new initiatives will work.
• Unrealistic assumptions about future appropriations. The plan is based upon Social Security getting all the appropriations it desires. However, in the real world, as long as the GOP controls the House of Representatives, the agency's budget may see little improvement. It may be difficult to maintain current staffing levels, much less improve them.
• The assumption that it is essential that the process be controlled so that allowance rates on disability claims remain at historic lows. Keeping approval rates low is referred to as "quality." If anything, it looks like there will be new initiatives to improve "quality." "Quality" concerns will almost certainly prevent the issuance of many staff attorney decisions.

     What I see here is an unappealing mixture of arrogance, wishful thinking and cowardice. Everyone knows what would help considerably even at current funding levels -- aggressive use of the senior attorney program and encouraging Administrative Law Judges to do on the record reversals in appropriate cases. Social Security management is afraid of offending the GOP by approving more claims so they don't do what they know would work.
     If I sound bitter, it's because I am. I'm out there dealing with the claimants whose lives are being destroyed by the backlogs while Social Security management seems more interested in producing great graphics than in actually doing something about the problem. What's needed is the courage to admit the obvious and do what needs to be done. Instead, we get nonsense like this which only encourages Republican budgetary obstinance. Why give the agency more money when the agency itself is telling you what you want to hear -- that they can manage their way out of the problem? Don't expect Republicans to pay attention to the rosy prediction in CARES that the agency will get more money so it can hire more workers. They will ignore that and demand that Social Security solve its backlogs without additional money while making sure that it's horribly difficult to be approved for disability benefits.

First Sign Of Re-Recons

     I heard today of a claimant's request for hearing being diverted to an "informal remand" review, also called re-recon. This is an effort to get strong disability claims approved without the long wait for a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge. This has been done in the past to help deal with the hearing backlog. 

     I have no idea how many of these will be done or what the criteria will be. I would caution that Social Security's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) has been doing Senior Attorney reviews, which are somewhat similar to re-recons, in the last few years but they have amounted to almost nothing because so few reviews have been done and because they have been done under such restricted standards that few claims could be approved. The Senior Attorney reviews done in recent years may have been a waste of staff time. We'll have to see if the agency has gotten past its fears of being accused of "paying down the backlog."

Gruber On Backlogs

     Terrie Gruber was recently appointed to head Social Security's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR). The agency's Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) work at ODAR. Gruber spoke today at the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) conference in Denver. I am not attending this conference but I'm told by someone who is attending that Gruber told those attending the NOSSCR meeting that ODAR would begin to reduce its hearing backlog in Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 which begins on October 1, 2016. She thought the agency could eliminate the hearing backlog by FY 2020. She said "We can't hire our way out of this."

     First, ODAR could definitely hire its way out of the backlog if it were given enough money. It's just that there's no prospect of this happening. Second, it would be a big step forward if ODAR could just keep the backlog from growing in the current FY. I don't know how likely this is. ODAR would need a lot of money for overtime and it would need permission to aggressively use the Senior Attorney program and to encourage ALJs to issue on the record reversals. They would also need the cooperation of other components of the agency for a strong re-recon program. I'm not going to explain Senior Attorney, re-recon and on the record reversals here. Let's just say that these are ways of diverting strong cases for special reviews which can result in the strongest claims being approved quickly. To do this, the agency will have to get over its fear of being accused of paying down the backlog. Gruber has said things to the Washington Post indicating the agency is getting past this concern but we'll have to see what actually happens on the ground. Finally, talk of eliminating the backlog by 2020 is almost pathetic. I'm sure that there's plenty of desire to do so. Given the means, I'm sure the agency will do so. It's just that achieving this goal will take plenty of hiring which takes money and no one can fully predict the agency's operating budget for the current FY much less its operating budget for FY 2020.

Grim Processing Time Report

      From the newsletter (not available online) of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR). Click on the image of each page to view full size.

Sklar Responsible For Not Delivering World Class Service?

     The Washington Post has a report on the departures of Glenn Sklar and James Borland from Social Security's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR). The article refers to ODAR as a "slow-moving, unwieldy bureaucracy." LaVenia LaVelle, who is identified as a spokesperson for Social Security, is quoted as saying “This is not about an individual but about ensuring under Acting Commissioner Colvin’s leadership the Agency is ready to continue its world class customer service to the American public.”

     Note that the article seems to put the blame for ODAR's backlogs on ODAR's leadership rather than on inadequate appropriations and that Social Security's spokesperson seems to endorse this view. If this is the case (and I don't believe it is) why has Carolyn Colvin allowed the backlogs to grow to this disgraceful level. She must not care. She's just another incompetent Obama appointee. There's probably something illegal here. When is President Obama going to fire this bumbling, heartless bureaucrat? We need a Congressional hearing to grill Colvin on this unbelievable situation. It's just like the VA!