Regulatory Proposal On Partially Favorable Prehearing Reviews

There are many steps in the process by which a federal agency adopts new regulations. One crucial step is obtaining the approval of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is part of the White House. Social Security just requested OMB approval of the following:

We propose to revise the procedures for how claimants who request hearings before administrative law judges (ALJs) may appeal their fully favorable revised determinations based on prehearing case reviews or fully favorable attorney advisor decisions. We also propose to notify claimants who receive partially favorable determinations based on prehearing case reviews that we will still hold the requested ALJ hearing unless all parties to the hearing tell us in writing that we should dismiss the hearing requests. We expect that these changes will lessen the confusion claimants may experience in these processes and free scarce administrative resources that we can better use to reduce the hearings level case backlog.

Social Security's Online Services Rate Highly

A press release from Social Security:

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, today announced that the agency’s online services continue to be the best in government and exceed the top private sector sites in customer satisfaction. In the latest results from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), Social Security’s online Retirement Estimator and benefit application remain in the top spots, each with a score of 90, and the Help with Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Costs application placed third with a score of 87.

“Online services are vital to good public service and I am pleased that Social Security continues to provide the best in both government and the private sector,” Commissioner Astrue said. “The Internet provides the public with the ability to conduct business at their convenience and at their own pace, without the need to take leave from work, travel to a field office, and wait to meet with an agency representative. It also reduces the time spent by our employees processing claims and frees them up to spend more time handling complex cases.”

Social Security’s three top-rated online services also meet or exceed the private sector’s highest score, Netflix, with a score of 87. The ACSI notes that this shows “that government sites can satisfy visitors just as well as, or even better than, private-sector sites.”

The ACSI is the only uniform, national, cross-industry measure of satisfaction with the quality of goods and services available in the U.S. According to ACSI, “Any website, whether in the private or public sector, that scores an average of 80 or higher can be considered superior in meeting site visitors’ needs and expectations.” Social Security’s Business Services Online, with a score of 82, also meets this superior threshold.

To view all of Social Security’s online services, go to www.socialsecurity.gov/onlineservices.

You Really Ought To Study This And File Comments

From today's Federal Register:

We are requesting comments on the recommendations submitted to us by the Occupational Information Development Advisory Panel (Panel) in its report entitled ``Content Model and Classification Recommendations for the Social Security Administration Occupational Information System, September 2009.'' The complete Panel report (including appendices) is available online at: http://www.socialsecurity.gov/oidap/Documents/FinalReportRecommendations.pdf.

DATES: To ensure that we receive your feedback in a timely manner for consideration as the project develops, please submit your comments no later than June 30, 2010. ...

We strongly recommend that you submit your comments via the Internet. Please visit the Federal eRulemaking portal at http://www.regulations.gov. Use the Search function of the Web page to find docket number SSA-2010-0018.

I keep telling everyone that this is of immense importance. Mostly, the response is a yawn. That scares me.

The Sky Is Falling?

Social Security's Chief Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) recently sent out a memo to the agency's ALJs that included a link to a Congressional Research Service piece on ALJs. Apparently, some ALJs are concerned that this means that Social Security is considering replacing ALJs with some other type of adjudicators -- and yes, I have seen more evidence that a fair number of ALJs are concerned about this than a few entries on a webboard.

You can read the piece and judge for yourself. It looks basic and harmless to me. Perhaps what this reveals more than anything is a lack of trust between Social Security and its ALJs.

Remand Policy

From a recent Bulletin issued by Social Security's Chief Administrative Law Judge:

Remands of service area realignment cases in which the hearing office servicing the claimant’s address has changed since the initial hearing will remain at the servicing hearing office and will not be transferred to the hearing office of the ALJ who heard the case. ...

Remanded cases returning to the hearing office servicing the claimant’s current residence address which were heard in another hearing office as a result of a permanent case transfer, will be heard by an ALJ in the servicing hearing office.

I was under the impression that this was always the policy. It is good to see it in writing, however.

NOSSCR Bad Luck For New Orleans Area?

In the Fall of 2005 the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) was scheduled to have a national conference in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina hit the New Orleans area in late August of that year. The conference was abruptly shifted to Orlando. Once again, NOSSCR has a national conference set for New Orleans. It will begin on May 12. Another disaster is just starting for the New Orleans area as a massive oil spill is coming ashore, threatening to do enormous damage to Louisiana's fragile estuaries.

Will New Orleans ever allow NOSSCR to return?

There's A Lot Of This

From the Petaluma Press-Democrat:

You'll have to forgive Morgan Hayes if she's a bit skeptical of the latest letter she received from the Social Security Administration saying she does not need to repay a $15,300 overpayment.

Hayes, a Petaluma senior citizen, was threatened in March with having to repay that sum after a seven-month Social Security payment snafu.

Late last week, she was notified that she isn't responsible for fixing the government's error.

Hayes' saga began in September, when Hayes was credited with $13,733 and was told her monthly payment would increase by $260. Repeated letters said the lump sum was to rectify years of underpayments to her.

After multiple assurances from Social Security that the money was hers to spend, Hayes used it to pay down debt and get a newer used car.

But then in March, the government reversed itself and said the credit and monthly increase were mistakes and it wanted the money back, $15,329 in total. Worse, she was told she had 30 days to send in the full amount or her benefits would be completely cut off until it was repaid.

Yes, there are ways to take care of this sort of thing. Thank goodness Ms. Hayes eventually got help. The problem is that most people have no idea what to do. Since these cases cannot be done on a contingent fee basis most people are unable to hire someone like me to help them.

Update: The overpayment has now been waived.

A Blast From The Past -- And Some Of Us Haven't Forgotten

From the Arkansas News:

U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s re-election campaign has adopted a line of attack against Lt. Gov. Bill Halter that was first advanced by a group she previously said had no connection to her campaign.

Lincoln, locked in an increasingly bitter struggle with Halter for the Democratic nomination for her Senate seat, said previously she had no connection to the group Arkansans for Common Sense, which ran an ad accusing Halter of trying to privatize Social Security when he ran that agency under President Bill Clinton. ...

“When corporate millionaire Bill Halter was a commissioner of the Social Security Administration in 2000, he wanted to invest Social Security revenues in the stock market, claiming his plan would strengthen Social Security,” the mailer reads, adding that this would have endangered over 600,000 Arkansans who receive Social Security benefits.

In a statement today, Halter’s campaign said again, as it did in response to the Arkansans for Common Sense ad, that Halter’s comments in 2000 were in reference to a proposal by Clinton to invest a small portion of the Social Security Trust Fund in the stock market.

You may not remember Halter as Commissioner of Social Security. That is because he was Acting Commissioner of Social Security from January 20 to March 29, 2001. Before that he was Deputy Commissioner.

I can give a much better reason for criticizing Halter for his work as Acting Commissioner. He did nothing as the Hearing Process Improvement (HPI) debacle was causing Social Security's hearing process to collapse. HPI was only being implemented as the Clinton Administration was ending. It was immediately apparent that HPI would be a calamity. Halter was only Acting Commissioner after the inauguration of George W. Bush but how was the Bush Administration going to punish him for taking action on HPI -- fire him? The Bush Administration has much responsibility for the hearing backlog that Social Security has now but so does the Clinton Administration. Social Security was in free fall during the transition between Clinton and Bush. In an emergency, real leaders take action. That was an emergency and Halter sat on his hands.

It's Gotten Worse In Omaha

From the Omaha Journal-Star:

Five of Omaha attorney Tim Cuddigan's clients died this year waiting for Social Security disability decisions.

It's a long wait across the country, but Nebraskans wait longer than most.

Nebraskans who apply for disability insurance wait an average of two years for a final decision from the Social Security Administration. ...

In the past six months, while the national average improved, the average wait for a hearing in the Omaha office got longer. ...

A Social Security Administration spokesman said Omaha is slated to get a judge in the next round of hirings.

Help For Thousands

From New American Media:

Rosa Martinez didn’t know what to do when the Social Security Administration told her two years ago that the agency was stopping her disability assistance because she had an outstanding 1980 arrest warrant for illegal possession of prescription drugs in Miami. A resident of Redwood City, Calif., she has never visited Miami. ...

She pleaded with a series of bureaucrats that she could not be the same Rosa Martinez named in the old warrant, a Rosa eight inches taller. But those please fell on deaf ears.

“Maybe God put me in this situation so I could help others,” she said at a New America Media press briefing, where she and legal aid attorneys described how she became the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit, Martinez v. Astrue, against the Social Security Administration. Michael Astrue is the Social Security commissioner.

The class action lawsuit led to federal court settlement that will return up to $500 million to about a quarter million people, who had their Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) supports wrongfully cut off by the Social Security Administration (SSA).

Outreach is critical, though, because many people who lost their benefits over the last 10 years must reapply to Social Security. In some cases eligible people have only about six months to apply or they risk permanently losing those benefits. ...

The Social Security Administration (SSA) will soon be notifying people, mainly by mail, that they can reapply for assistance.