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| From Ukraine |
Jan 1, 2023
Dec 31, 2022
Washington Post On SSA’s Failure To Adopt New Occupational Information System
The Washington Post has a new editorial out criticizing Social Security for failing to use the new occupational information system that has been under development for more than a decade.
The Post falls for the right wing argument that use of the new OIS will result in more people being denied Social Security disability benefits. The new OIS will show what sophisticated observers already know. The cognitive demands of employment have gone up significantly. This has significantly decreased the availability of unskilled work. Those unskilled sedentary jobs are gone as are many of the light ones. Without major, and quite hostile, revisions to disability determination regulations, this results in far more disability claims being approved.
Dec 30, 2022
Senate To Investigate Ennis And OIG
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| Ennis |
Lisa Rein writes for the Washington Post that the Senate Finance Committee is preparing a bipartisan investigation of Social Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) and its head, Gail Ennis. OIG has been in the news because of allegations of overly harsh punitive actions against some claimants and of retaliation against whistleblowers.
I’d call Ennis a fool for hanging around for this. What was already out made it clear she was in major trouble. This sort of Congressional investigation was inevitable. It’s not going to be pretty.
By the way, are there any criminal statutes implicated here? It would be a little awkward for an Inspector General to take the 5th.
Dec 29, 2022
How Do You Represent Claimants In Conditions Like This?
A note in our database concerning one client who recently filed a claim:
FO [Field Office] has our paperwork and has had it since 10/4/22. The claims rep, Ms. ____ at x ____, has not put our paperwork so that DDS [Disability Determination Service] will give us status. When calling the FO, another claims rep will not step in and assist. I did get the claims rep I spoke with, Mr. ____, to send Ms. ____ an email that we were calling about the paperwork on these two cases.As the claim's rep I spoke with was sending Ms. ____ an email, I followed up with a fax prompting her attention to the representative paperwork on this case so we can get DDS access.
To explain, the claimant filed a claim. We submitted paperwork showing I'm representing the client. Field office personnel aren't entering the data in their system showing that I'm representing the client so we're flying blind. We can't get information about what's going on with the case. We can't submit any information. In the unlikely event that there's a quick decision in the case, we won't know unless the client tells us and we can't count on that. Why is Ms. ____ not entering the information in their system? There could be other factors at work but the main reason is that she's overworked. Everything is backlogged. The public suffers in many ways.
This isn't an isolated case. This happens a lot. In fact, the hopeful thing about this case is that the legal assistant involved was actually able to speak to someone at the FO. Often, we struggle to get anyone at the FO to answer the phone.
Dec 28, 2022
The Clock Is Ticking
Today's SSI story concerns a claimant who was approved for both SSI disability benefits and Disability Insurance Benefits on June 17. Her monthly checks have started but he's yet to receive any back benefits. The holdup is called the windfall offset, which was designed to pay the claimant SSI benefits as if the Disability Insurance Benefits had been paid when they were due. The windfall offset in practice is bizarrely convoluted. But, still, it's been more than six months. Why haven't they done the windfall offset? We can't get an answer but we know that the underlying problem is understaffing at the field office.
Dec 27, 2022
Why Does SSA Keep Using The DOT?
Lisa Rein at the Washington Post has a long piece out on Social Security’s use of the horribly outdated Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) in making disability determinations. Everyone involved knows the DOT is completely unreliable.
Social Security has been working on a replacement for the DOT for decades. Supposedly it’s ready but they aren’t using it. Why? The only thing I can surmise is that a new occupational information system will end up affecting who gets approved and who gets denied and that’s unacceptable to Social Security. They want something “new” that’s exactly the same as the outdated data they’ve been using since 1979.
Dec 26, 2022
Dec 25, 2022
Dec 24, 2022
Dec 23, 2022
Didn't Know This
Social Security does a little, probably a very little, conflict of interest checking on its Administrative Law Judges. It sounds ineffective. Do any other agency employees receive similar treatment?
Dec 22, 2022
Disability Claims In The Time Of Covid -- Or Any Other Time
From County-Level Drivers Of Disability Benefit Claims In Times Of Covid-19 by R. Vincent Pohl and David R. Mann:
... Counties that were closer to as SSA field office experienced larger declines in SSI and SSDI application and award rates between 2019 and 2020 compared with counties further away from the nearest field office.
SSDI application rates grew more in counties with a larger increase in unemployment rates.
Changes in SSI and SSDI application and award rates were not consistently associated with levels of COVID-19 cases and deaths. ...
Applying for disability benefits in person at an SSA field office seems to be an important factor. When field offices closed early during the pandemic, it affected potential applicants for SSI and SSDI who would have otherwise likely applied in person and were less likely to do so due to field office closures. ...
I don't understand how they can say that SSDI application rates "grew" more in areas with high unemployment when application rates were actually declining. Maybe they declined less in areas with more unemployment but they weren't going up.
Dec 21, 2022
Change In Workers Comp Offset Computation -- This Is The Sort Of Arcane Stuff That Can Make A Difference Of Tens Of Thousands Of Dollars To A Claimant
From a newly added changes to POMS (Program Operations Manual Series) §DI 52150:
... A lump sum award may specify a payment amount based on the number holder’s (NH) life expectancy determined by insurance life expectancy tables. The life expectancy of the NH is often given in weeks, months, or years. These awards usually specify a life expectancy (LE) rate. ...
If the award indicates it should be prorated over the claimant's lifetime but does not specify a rate or time period, and the development proves unsuccessful, following is a link to a table provided by SSA's Office of the Chief Actuary to assist in determining the life expectancy:
This doesn't help if the workers compensation settlement agreement says nothing about proration but it helps in cases where there has been a simpler mistake in settling a workers compensation case, a failure to include specific language giving the proration formula. They're continuing with the no amendment provision. That needs to be changed. Don't punish claimants for failing to have an experienced workers comp attorney.
This is also an example for ALJs. If this seems incomprehensible, it's because there's a lot more going on with Social Security disability cases than you're aware of. I have seen former ALJs struggle to represent claimants because they didn't realize that they would face a significant learning curve.
Dec 20, 2022
6% Increase In SSA Appropriation, Less Than Rate Of Inflation
The Omnibus Appropriations bill likely to be passed by Friday includes $14.1 billion, an increase of $785 million or 6 percent, for Social Security’s administrative expenses. This is less than the rate of inflation this past 12 months.
Dec 19, 2022
Centralized Scheduling Of ALJ Hearings To End
I'm hearing from the National Organization of Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) that Social Security has decided to ditch centralized scheduling of Administrative Law Judge hearings. We'll go back to having individual hearing offices scheduling hearings beginning February 1, 2023. This is overdue. Centralized scheduling has been a failure from every point of view. It's one of the endless examples of the longstanding instinct of high level Social Security officials that smaller agency components such as hearing offices are inefficient and the only way for things to get better is to centralize as much as possible. It seems like these centralization schemes always fail. Hearing offices scheduling of hearings wasn't perfect but it wasn't bad. There was never a good reason to expect that centralized scheduling was going to help from any point of view.
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