De Soto Clarifies Remarks

I had earlier posted that Lisa De Soto, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner for the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review, said at the conference of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) in Miami on June 5 that Social Security had received an additional 140,000 requests for hearing this year, a statement that if true would be stunning news. The next day I posted a report that I had received through the grapevine that De Soto had misspoken, that she had meant to say that the 140,00 additional cases was over the next few years.

I have now heard that Ms. De Soto has officially asked NOSSCR to notify its members that she misspoke in saying that there were 140,000 additional requests for hearing this year. She meant to say 140,000 additional requests for hearing over the next several years.

NPRM On Evidentiary Standards

As mentioned yesterday, the Social Security Administration has published a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) in the Federal Register that would define the terms "preponderance of the evidence" and "substantial evidence." It appears innocuous to me.

Hearing Backlog Growing

I have received a report from a well placed source that the backlog of cases at Social Security awaiting a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) is currently a whopping 769,000 and increasing at the rate of about 10,000 per month. Currently, 59% of these cases have not been worked up for review by an ALJ.

The math is pretty simple. On average, each Social Security ALJs is currently disposing of about 50 cases per month. 10,000 divided by 50 is 200. This means that just to prevent the backlog from growing, Social Security would need an additional 200 ALJs. To reduce the backlog would take more than 200 ALJs. Social Security's plans do not call for increasing the number of its ALJs by anything like 200. Therefore, Social Security has no current plan for preventing the backlog from growing, much less a plan for reducing it.

Voinovich Meets With Astrue About Backlogs

From a piece by Senator George Voinovitch (R-Ohio) published in the Bucyrus Telegraph Forum:

In addition to overseeing individual cases for constituents, I am also pushing for improvements in Social Security on the national level. I have met with Michael Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security Administration, on multiple occasions to raise my concerns about the backlog of claims and the long delays in scheduling hearings throughout Ohio. In fact, Commissioner Astrue attended my roundtable in Ohio last year, where he sat down with the managers of all the Hearing Offices in the state.

I am particularly pleased that Commissioner Astrue has recognized the significance of the problem in Ohio and -- since January -- has hired 13 new administrative law judges. He assured me that the Social Security Administration expects to see further improvements when the automated case writing system and template is deployed.

Notice the willingness to believe that Commissioner Astrue has a plan to resolve the backlogs -- a very different tone than Democrats in Congress are taking.

NPRM Coming Tomorrow On Evidentiary Standard

Social Security has filed a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) that will appear in the Federal Register tomorrow. This NPRM, if adopted, would include for the first time in Social Security's regulations the following definitions:

Preponderance of the evidence means such relevant evidence that as a whole shows that the existence of the fact to be proven is more likely than not.

Substantial evidence means such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.

This touches upon something very important, but it still seems so innocous that it is hard to understand why they are bothering. This are standard definitions. Is there something here that I am missing?

Did They Notice The Irony?

From a press release issued by Allsup, a large non-attorney representer of Social Security disability claimants:

The nationwide rollout has begun and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) recipients in some states already have the option of receiving their benefit payments electronically on a debit card, rather than via a paper check. However, eligible individuals – many of whom are “unbanked” – should have a clear understanding of the pros and cons of opting for the debit card, particularly the financial ramifications, according to Allsup, which represents tens of thousands of people in the SSDI process each year. ...

One of the reasons that some Social Security recipients continue to insist on paper checks is the fear that their bank accounts could be attached by creditors. However, under federal law, Social Security benefit payments are protected from attachment, meaning creditors do not have the right to take these funds from a recipient’s bank account. The same rules will apply to funds placed on Direct Express debit cards. ...

''At any given time, there are likely millions of dollars in Social Security payments that are at risk because people on fixed incomes got into debt or are having a dispute with a creditor,'' said Gada. ''Unfortunately, they are acting on inaccurate information that has them afraid to put their money into bank accounts where it can be protected and they can be afforded other benefits of being banked.''

Here is a little nugget from Allsup's website concerning the services Allsup offers to corporations:

Maximize Social Security offsets and overpayment recovery for disabled participants. With our Overpayment Recovery Service, we will: ...

Recover

:

Withdraw overpayment funds directly from claimant’s bank account using our patented electronic process.

Everyone Is Covering The Story Now

The Louisville Eccentric Observer, a free weekly, is running a story on the terrible backlogs of people awaiting hearings on Social Security disability claims, complete with a photo of the tombstone of a claimant who died awaiting a hearing. The tombstone was bought with the man's back pay.

An Inside View

From the minutes of a May 6-9, 2008 meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management personnel (emphasis added, as well as some explanations and a few comments):

Roger [McDonnell, Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Operations, who was meeting with the Executive Committee of NCSSMA on behalf of the Social Security Administration] stated they are very pleased with the volume of hires and that 2350 out of 3900 went to the field [as opposed to Hearing Offices]. He told us they are trying increase the 800 number staff including those in the DOC [Data Operations Centers]. They have increased 800 number resources to make sure we have enough staff to reduce the busy rates and assist some FOs [Field Offices] with their general inquiry calls. ...

Ready Retirement, the new online retirement application, will be released in September 2008. (Note: the September release is now called i-RRET) This release will be piloted for a few weeks and then implemented nationally. [Notice that they are hardly bothering with piloting. Lack of adequate piloting is a longstanding problem at Social Security and has caused many problems over the years, but management is so sure that new processes are going to work and feel so much urgency to achieve productivity gains that they plow ahead and hope for the best, often creating major problems for the employees who actually have to work with the inadequately piloted processes.] i-RRET will streamline the number of questions and will be in a more user friendly format. The release will only affect the front-end application. They expect that some time in 2010 back-end changes will be made which will allow some of the simplest RSI [Retirement and Survivors Insurance, i.e., not disability] claims to go right into pay. ...

Ron [Mitchell, an Executive Committee member] brought up problems with claims-taking companies and the poor product we get from them. Roger [McDonnell] said that there is another project called Disability Direct which they are developing and which they are hoping will encourage these groups to use the internet for their claims submissions. We asked if we will be creating a new retirement claims- taking workload for local for-profit companies, such as H&R Block. Roger [McDonnell] said they are trying to make all of this so easy that such companies would not be needed. [Note that it appears that he did not answer the question.] ...

The first five months of the FY [Fiscal Year] show that FO [Field Office] productivity is up by 11%, which virtually wipes out our backlog on paper. For the last six months, we were up by 9% (March was down). Roger [McDonnell] speculated that perhaps the rest of the FY will show decreased productivity as much of the increase was linked to claims which may be slowing down in the second half of the FY. ... Bethany [Paradis, Executive Committee member] asked if it would be possible to convert some of our overtime hours to FTE staff. Roger [McDonnell] said it would not be fiscally prudent because as soon as October 1 comes those funds could go away. If that were the case, we would find ourselves needing to layoff those new hires....

There is some speculation that more of the smaller TSCs [Teleservice Centers] may be closed and their staffs relocated to Card Centers ... Action: Greg [Heineman, NCSSMA President] should call Donnell [Roger McDonnell?, who was not present at this point in the meetings] or Linda [McMahon, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner for Operations, Roger McDonnell's boss] directly and ask them why they are not putting replacements into the smaller TSCs. He should try to get as many specific answers as possible. [Note the concern about getting straight talk from Social Security upper management about an office closing issue.]

Much of these minutes was lined through on the NCSSMA Website. I assume this is a technical problem.