Wrong Link on Social Security Disability Consultants

The link I gave yesterday for Social Security Disability Consultants, the company which obtained a contract from SSA, to study vocational experts evidence, was incorrect. I gave a link to a similarly named firm, but not to Social Security Disability Consultants of Novi, MI, which actually received the contract. I am sorry for the mistake.

Totalization Agreement with Japan

The US Social Security Administration has signed a totalization agreement with Japan to reduce dual taxation of wages and to allow, in limited circumstances, those who have worked in both countries to combine wages from both countries to obtain Social Security benefits.

Signs of Stress at SSA

The following is an e-mail from Linda McMahon, the Deputy Commissioner of Operations for Social Security, to District Office personnel:

Ordinarily I would be sending you a Happy New Year note at this time, but the circumstances we are facing seem to call for a different message. I didn't want you to think I'm out of touch with reality and don't know about the significant challenges you are experiencing. Ever since the Medicare Modernization Act passed, those of you on the front line have been expressing your deep concern that SSA is not positioned well to help people understand, enroll in and negotiate the new Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Program. Now we are seeing the consequences of that fact. Our National 800 Number Network has been overwhelmed for weeks, with busy rates running above 35 percent many days. In the last few weeks, those folks who can't get us on the phone have been coming into our field offices in large numbers. In fact, during the first two weeks in January, we had nearly 200,000 visitors a day -- as many as 60,000 more than we saw in the fall. We already had large backlogs in our Processing Centers, and those will be exacerbated by the need to put more people on the phone to bring down the busy rate and keep people from needing to visit field offices. Of course, if we aren't careful, we will generate more calls and visits from the folks whose actions will have to pend longer in the PCs. It's not a rosy picture, and the news doesn't get better. Congress finally passed our FY06 budget in late December, and they gave us $300 million less than the President requested. That means we will not be able to replace all the employees we lose to retirement this year or accomplish all the automation projects we had intended to do to streamline work processes. At the same time, we have been given new mandates to do more thorough screening before we process Social Security Number applications and to include children under the age of one in that process. So, where does that leave us? What are we going to do to cope with these problems? First, we have negotiated some new workload goals with OMB. Specifically, we will do fewer SSI Redeterminations and Limited Issues as well as fewer Continuing Disability Reviews. These workloads only affect the field offices and are heavily weighted to Title 16, so that certainly doesn't solve our problems. We will be working within Operations to provide further guidance on workload priorities to all components so you can concentrate on the things that most need attention rather than trying to do everything. This is certainly not ideal, and I recognize that work delayed becomes more complicated when we tackle it at a later date. However, we don't have a lot of options at this point. Second, we are working very closely with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to help them find ways to improve service for the Part D program. For example, at our request, they have set up critical case units to which we can refer problem cases where people can't get answers from the 1-800-Medicare number or their PDP or pharmacy. We have also given CMS detailed information on the types of calls that are being referred to SSA erroneously so they can improve training and guidance for their Teleservice Representatives. Third, we are looking at all non-personnel-related spending to see what we can curtail in order to free up money for overtime. Unfortunately, I don't expect a lot of payoff from this effort because we have very little wiggle room within that portion of our budget. Finally, we are speeding up a couple of projects that will reduce the time it takes for 800 Number agents to answer calls and improve the likelihood that callers will opt for automated services. We are also improving our marketing of Internet services in order to get more people to opt for handling their business via the Internet instead of coming to the office or calling us. I won't try to kid you. This is going to be a very difficult year, and the budget picture for next year doesn't look any better. I commit to you that I will continue to work with the Commissioner to tell our story and enhance our chances of getting a better budget. I will be closely monitoring the impact of our decisions and will make adjustments as necessary to ensure that we maximize the use of our resources and minimize the negative fallout from the shortfall. Of course, that means we will probably be changing priorities as the year unfolds, so please prepare yourselves mentally for that possibility. Someone recently told me that, even though times are tough, we are still blessed to be doing important work and to be pretty well paid for the privilege. That's something worth remembering when we're feeling particularly pressured. Thanks for doing your best to cope with this difficult situation and for continuing to do everything you can to serve the public well despite the challenges.

$488,000 SSA Contract to Company Representing Claimants

Demonstrating that conflict of interest rules apply only to attorneys, Social Security has awarded a $488,000 contract to Social Security Disability Consultants (SSDC) of Novi, MI to "study the value of vocational expertise at all adjudicative levels of the disability determination process." SSDC is involved in representing Social Security claimants on their disability claims.

SSAB Meeting Agenda

The Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) has published the agenda for its meeting today. Here is what they have on tap:

9:15 a.m. – 11:30 p.m. Status of the VA’s disability program – comments and views from the GAO and the VA Cynthia Bascetta, Director, Education, Workforce and Income Security Issues, GAO, Mike McLendon, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, Department of Veteran’s Affairs

1:45 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. National Council on Disability (NCD): Overview of two NCD reports:
• Long-term Services and Supports Concerns for
People with Disabilities
• SSA’s Efforts to Promote Employment for People
with Disabilities Carol Novak, Council Member
Jeffrey Rosen, General Counsel and Director of
Policy, NCD, Joan Durocher, Senior Attorney Advisor, NCD, John Kregel, Chairman, Department of Special Education and Disability Policy,Virginia Commonwealth University (via phone) Martin Gould, Director of Research and Technology, NCD, Michael Morris, Director, National Disability Institute, NCB Development Corporation, Johnette Hartnett, Vice President, NCB Development Corporation

3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. Ticket to Work evaluation discussion
Sue Suter, Employment Support Programs
Dan O’Brien, Employment Support Programs
Pam Mazerski, Program Development and Research
Paul O’Leary, Project Officer for TTW evaluation

Social Security A Good Deal for African Americans

Social Security is a good deal for African Americans according to a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). Here is what their press release says:

"African Americans have only about a third as much money in pension and retirement savings as whites do, on average, so they rely on Social Security for a larger share of their income in retirement,” said William Spriggs, Chairman of the Economics Department at Howard University and the report’s co-author (along with Center Senior Fellow and NYU Visiting Scholar Jason Furman). “In addition, African Americans benefit more than other groups from some of Social Security’s key features, such as the survivors benefits it provides to the families of workers who die before retirement and the disability benefits it provides to disabled workers and their families. African Americans thus have more to lose if Social Security is partially replaced by private accounts.”

Fraud Indictment in Oklahoma

The Associated Press reports that Terry Johnson of Enid, OK has been indicted for embezzling $15,000 in Social Security survivor benefits.

How Important Are Social Security's ALJs?

Judges in ordinary civil and criminal courts obviously hold positions of considerable importance to the public. They send criminals to prison, and occasionally to execution. They make decisions in civil litigation that affect millions of dollars. Their actions are frequently reported in the press. How important is the work done by Social Security's Administrative Law Judges in comparison? They do not send people to prison and they are only rarely in the news. It is easy to think that their jobs do not matter that much, but once one takes a look at the dollar value of the cases they hear, it becomes obvious that they hold jobs of great importance.

Let me try to put a rough value on an average Social Security DIB claim. The total DIB benefits paid in 2003, the most recent year for which this figure is given in SSA's Annual Statistical Supplement, was $70.9 billion. Of course, this figure includes benefits for people approved over many years. The number of people shown in the Statistical Supplement as being approved for DIB in 2003 was 777,461. Those individuals will be paid benefits over many years. However, if you divide the total benefits paid in 2003 by the total number of people newly approved for DIB in 2003, you get a rough idea of the cash value of a DIB claim over the life of a beneficiary. That average figure was $91,236.73. This underestimates the value because of the inflation adjustment and because more people are going on benefits now than in prior years, meaning that the amounts paid out in the future to Social Security disability recipients will be much greater than they were in 2003, but it is still as good a rough estimate of the cash value of a DIB claim as we are likely to get.

The cash value of DIB is only part of the equation. There is also Medicare. The Medicare costs for 2003 for recipients of DIB were $19.6 billion for Part A and $16.7 billion for Part B, for a total of $36.3 billion according to CMS figures. This works out to a Medicare value per claim approved of $46,690.44.

The total for both cash benefits and Medicare would be $137,927.17. An ALJ who decided 50 cases per month would be making decisions involving about $6.9 million per month or or about $83 million per year. How many judges hearing civil cases adjudicate cases involving anything like that amount of money? How many judges in other circumstances have anything approaching the discretion of a Social Security ALJ?

Service on Advisory Committee Cannot Be SGA

Service on a federal advisory committee can no longer be considered substantial gainful activity (SGA) under the Social Security Act, regardless of the pay, according to a new final rule just adopted by the Social Security Abministration (SSA).

New ALJ Hires Cut in Half

There are anonymous reports on the ALJ Improvement Board that instead of 100 new Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) this year as the Commissioner of Social Security had promised, there will only be 50, in two classes of 25. The number has reportedly been reduced due to budget problems.