It Has Nothing To Do With "Character"

     Someone posted this comment on this blog recently:

Not everyone can be Stephen Hawking ALS or not, that is a once in a generation mind. On the other hand medical billing and coding, data processing, social services work and countless other positions can and are done by those with disabilities every day. Programs like HBWD (Health Benefits for Workers with Disability) help bridge the gap of healthcare, the highest priority for those with chronic conditions. You can make a difference or make excuses, you cannot legislate character.

     I think this is worthy of a reply.
     Why do people take low end jobs as a Certified Nurse Attendant (CNA), kitchen helper, assembler, construction helper, etc? These jobs are physically demanding, the working conditions aren't so great and the pay is lousy. Why strain your back as a CNA lifting 200 pound patients for little more than minimum wage when you can work in a data processing job that pays better?
     The answer is that people take these harder low-paying jobs because they're not able to perform those more desirable jobs. The problems that keep people in physically demanding, low-paying jobs vary from person to person but the two most important reasons are limited cognitive abilities and chronic psychiatric problems. If you're reading this blog, you probably didn't hang out in high school with the kids who barely made it through high school, much less the kids who didn't make it through high school. Those kids became adults who went to work at these physically demanding low-paying jobs. They're almost invisible to most of us who work in offices but they're a significant part of the workforce. They file a lot of disability claims because once they get sick or injured they have little to offer an employer. Having low cognitive abilities or chronic psychiatric problems isn't a sign of lack of character. It's bad luck.
     Contrary to the poster, not anyone can work in medical billing and coding or data processing. I don't even know what sort of "social services" work the poster is talking about. To do office jobs you have to have basic computer literacy and the ability to type. You have to be able to learn. You have to be able to work with other people. You have to meet some minimum standards for hygiene and social conduct. Those with low cognitive abilities or chronic mental illness usually have problems with several of these requirements. This may seem incomprehensible if you work in an office and never mingle with poorly educated or chronically mentally ill people but I'm talking about real problems that force people to take low-paying, physically demanding jobs and that make it very difficult for them if they become sick or injured. Talking about these practical problems as if they were merely a matter of "character" is a "let them eat cake" approach. And, no, additional education isn't a solution either. If these folks could have benefited from additional education, in most cases they would already have gotten it. They already have plenty of incentive.

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?

Former Social Security Subcommittee Passes

     Jim Bunning, former Chairman of the House Social Security Subcommittee, has died at age 85.

Memorial Day 2017

A Common Story

     From a television station in Denver:

An Arvada woman died about five years ago, but no one told her. And it came as quite a surprise to her late last year.

A mistake by the Social Security Administration put a death alert on Catherine's records -- and it caused problems in every area of her life. ...

Catherine never leaves her west Arvada home without a letter that is an official record of her resurrection from her supposed death. ...

"I couldn't get anybody to tell me what else I could do. So, a year and four months goes by of real hell," she said.

Until the FOX31 Problem Solvers got involved.

"Man, you guys, one phone call, two days later, I was in the Social Security office being helped. And it was taken care of the same day," ...

     I must see a story like this in the media two or three times a week. I rarely post them because they're so repetitive. I guess I'm posting this one because it took so long to get the problem corrected. What was going on here? Usually, the problem is that the undead person has no idea that they need to contact Social Security and wanders around confused about what to do.

I Have Seen Some Weird Things Since I Started This Blog

     If you look to the right on this web page you'll see a contact form that allows you to send me a message, anonymously if you wish. Recently, I've received some odd anonymous messages sent through this form. They seem to be from some person or persons who are trying to convince me that they work for Social Security and that they have inside information to give me. However, the messages don't make sense. They seem to have been written by some person or persons who know a little about Social Security but not nearly enough to write something plausible. It's not been just one piece of bogus information that this person or persons have tried to sell me on. It's been several different things. I'd advise them to quit wasting their time. They're not doing anything other than getting me to scratch my head trying to figure out why they would do this. Even if they succeeded in writing something plausible, I'd still try to get confirmation before posting about it. Whatever they're up to, it's not likely to work.

A Couple Of Opinion Pieces

     The Chicago Tribune has fallen for the narrative that there's something terribly wrong with Social Security disability because the number drawing benefits is going up, up, up, even though they acknowledge that the number drawing benefits is actually going down. They want something done even though they have no idea what but we have to do something, anything to get these people back to work! It's this sort of confused thinking that brought us all the worthless, confusing work incentives in the Social Security Act.

     Meanwhile Alexandra Petri has an amusing op ed piece in the Washington Post that touches ever so briefly on Social Security:

We need more Real Men in office.

When I see Donald Trump shoving that man out of the way at the NATO summit, my heart turns into an eagle and flaps its magnificent wings. When I see him crushing a Frenchman’s hand, I want to cry a tiny, manly tear of pure testosterone....

I want a president who will lock horns with foreign leaders for hours before shoving them off a cliff. I want a president who can transform into an aircraft carrier and emit jets of steam. I want a president with an enormous neck-frill which expands when he is threatened as he emits a LOW HISS of rage. ...

I want to smash the Social Security disability administration like a bug. I want to punch a rhinoceros and keep punching it until it goes EXTINCT! Dumb freeloader living on government support! Get out of the zoo and take back your own habitat. I also want to defund the EPA. If the environment wants to stick around, it needs to learn to PROTECT ITSELF. ...

When Will We See A Commissioner Nomination?

     From an op ed written by Sam Johnson, the Chairman of the House Social Security Subcommittee, for the Dallas Morning News:

... [T]he SSA needs strong leadership. The president must nominate a commissioner who is serious about helping disability insurance beneficiaries return to work. The SSA has had an acting commissioner since 2013, and that's far too long for an agency that touches the lives of all Americans.

     I couldn't agree more but I would be surprised if there's a nomination before late 2018. Trump has been extraordinarily slow in making nominations to executive branch positions. He's made nominations for only 94 of the 559 key positions in his administration. By the same time in Barack Obama's first term he had made 219 nominations to key positions and, if you remember, Obama was extremely careful in making nominations. That's a major reason why the Obama Administration avoided scandal. To give you an idea how far behind Trump is in making nominations, there are 41 key positions in the Department of Defense for which no nomination has been made, including Secretary of the Army and Secretary of the Navy. Let's face it, for better or worse, Trump has no agenda for the Social Security Administration so it's a position of little interest for him. That's the case in most administrations but usually Presidents are interested in making nominations to help build their political party. The Republican Party is only a vehicle for Donald Trump. He has no concern for it as an institution. Even when the Trump Administration starts thinking of nominating someone for Social Security Commissioner, there's the issue of the term of office. Social Security Commissioners serve a set six year term of office and that six years doesn't run from the date they're confirmed. We're more than four years into the current term without anyone being confirmed as Commissioner. The current term ends on January 19, 2019. Even if Trump nominated someone tomorrow, by the time that person got confirmed, they'd have less than a year and a half in their term. My prediction is that Trump won't bother to nominate anyone until he can nominate someone for the full term that begins in January 2019. That assumes that Trump will still be in office in late 2018.

     By the way, there are two other positions at Social Security needing nominations -- Deputy Commissioner and Inspector General.

What Does A BNC Look Like?

     From the testimony of Mariana Lacanfora, Acting Deputy Commissioner for Retirement and Disability Policy, Social Security Administration to a House Ways and Means Committee hearing yesterday on Social Security Number (SSN) usage:

We take seriously public concerns related to mailing documents that include the SSN. Therefore, in 2015, we convened an intra-agency workgroup to analyze options for removing the SSN from all agency notices. Based on our review, we concluded the best option would be to replace the SSN with the BNC — the identifier we now use on the Social Security COLA [Cost Of Living Adjustment] notice. The BNC will allow us to identify the notice and respond to inquiries quickly — just as the SSN has. As part of our IT [Information Technology] modernization efforts, we will begin to modernize communications (notices and mailings) in 2018. As we modify notices, or develop new ones, we will put only the BNC on such notices. 

In concert with CMS’ [Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services'] efforts to remove the SSN from Medicare Cards, next year we plan to replace the SSN with the BNC on benefit verifications [sic] letters, which account for approximately 11 million notices. We also plan to replace the SSN with the BNC on certain notices to appointed representatives and on Social Security post-entitlement notices, which account for approximately 2.6 million and 28 million notices, respectively.

     This may be a problem for attorneys who represent Social Security claimants. My firm often has two clients with the same name. When we receive correspondence we use the SSN to determine which client it pertains to. The client doesn't know their BNC. How can we know which client the correspondence pertains to? What if it's an award certificate for a child of a client? That won't even have the client's name on it. We already have a problem with fee payments in this situation. Is someone going to tell us the BNC?
     By the way, what does BNC stand for?

     Update: I found this in an OIG report: "The BNC is not an alternative identifier. Notices going to the same individual from different notice systems or in different years would display a different BNC." So Social Security is going to use an identifier that will be worthless to anyone other than Social Security. That takes care of the security problem but it increases the calls, that will often go unanswered, from attorney offices trying to figure out who a notice pertains to.
     By the way, are there any reported instances where a notice sent out by Social Security that contained an SSN ever actually caused someone a problem? I don't mean someone's fear that somehow, maybe, theoretically there might be a problem but a real, verified, significant problem? I've never heard of such a case. Why is Social Security doing something that will cause real problems in order to deal with an imaginary problem?