House Social Security Subcommittee Hearing

The Social Security Subcommittee of the House of Representatives has scheduled a hearing for June 15 on the Disability Service Improvement project at Social Security. The hearing notice includes discouraging data about Social Security workloads and backlogs:

The DI and SSI applications to Federally-funded State Disability Determination Service agencies for a decision have increased 22 percent over the past five years, from 2.1 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2000 to 2.55 million in FY 2005. Despite the increased workloads, the SSA has increased its productivity by 12.6 percent since 2001. However, the rapid rise in applications, coupled with budgetary constraints, have resulted in longer processing times for cases heard by Administrative Law Judges– from 415 days in FY 2005 to 477 days in April 2006. The number of hearing requests waiting for a decision has increased from about 708,000 in FY 2005 to 727,629 in April 2006, and the Agency expects this number to rise to 767,000 in FY 2007.

NADE Newsletter

The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE), an association of employees of state disability determination agercies, has issued its Spring 2006 newsletter. The newsletter contains an interesting quote from Ruby Burrell, Associate Commissioner for Disability Determination: "In each region, overall DDS replacement rate will be 3 for every 4 employees lost. In contrast, the SSA Field offices will only be able to replace at a 1 for 3 rate while some of the other components within SSA will replace at a rate of 1 for every 5 employees lost." Burrell went on to state that Social Security's goal is to hold the backlog at the initial level to where it is at the moment, rather than to make any improvement. Merely holding the current level will be difficult with ongoing staff cuts at the same time as the workload is increasing. Burrell also stated that Social Security's goal is to have all states "independence day" certified by the end of calendar year 2006. "Independence day" means that the state agency is able to process all cases using Social Security's paperless EDIB system.

Serious Social Security Payment Problems Due To Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit

From the Tampa Tribune:

More than half a million Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in health plans or prescription drug plans are receiving the wrong payments each month from Social Security, say officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Washington.

About 16,000 beneficiaries clustered in three states - Nevada, Florida and Texas - have been shortchanged because Social Security computers deduct Medicare premiums they do not owe. Most are out more than $500, and many are owed more than $1,000.

But the vast majority, about a half-million beneficiaries, has the opposite problem: They were overpaid because their premiums were not deducted from their Social Security payments as they requested.

Now, those beneficiaries owe several months of premiums, often hundreds of dollars. And private insurers are faced with the ticklish task of trying to recover the money.

Senior officials of the two agencies involved - CMS and the Social Security Administration - have been meeting several times a week recently to try to resolve the issues, said Thomas Hutchinson, acting director of CMS' Medicare Plan Payment Group.

OIG Investigates Non-Attorney Withholding

Congress passed legislation recently requiring SSA to implement a program that allows non-attorney representatives of Social Security claimants to obtain withholding of fees in much the same manner as has been the case for attorneys since 1968. This is on a five year trial basis and began last summer. Non-attorney representatives who want to qualify must pass a test and meet other requirements. Social Security's Office of Inspector General has issued a relatively brief report on this trial program. The report contains only mild criticism of SSA and does not address some of the larger questions that have been raised about the program, such as whether the test is adequate or whether other provisions, such as the requirement of liability insurance, have been properly addressed. The issue on liability insurance is whether the insurance that many non-attorney representatives have obtained would actually reimburse for errors and omissions committed by the non-attorney representative or whether the insurance would only pay for something such as a situation in which a client suffered a physical injury in the attorney's office due to negligence, such as slipping on a wet floor.

McCrery Wants Social Security Changes Next Year

Jim McCrery, a strong candidate to become Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee if Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives and the current Chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee, told a group of lobbyist and reporters recently that he wanted action on Social Security reform next year. McCrery's remarks were blasted by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

Protecting Social Security Employees?

Social Security has published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would allow the agency to refuse to release information about an employee's duty station or telephone number. The stated reason is to protect Social Security employees from the risk of domestic violence. However, the NPRM seems to fit into Social Security's longstanding aversion to releasing routine information such as agency telephone directories. For many years, Social Security stationery has been remarkable for not listing office addresses or telephone numbers, apart from Social Security's 800 number. It is a little hard to figure out why Social Security employees would need to fear domestic violence when they are at work. It is so difficult to get through to any individual Social Security employee on the telephone that it would be almost impossible to make harrassing telephone calls to any SSA employee. Almost all SSA offices now have security guards to protect employees on the job. If this rule becomes final, it would be impossible to obtain a list of Social Security ALJs with their duty station listed or a list of Module Managers at the Office of Central Operations. Is that really necessary to protect employees from attack?

Fee Payment Data Released

Social Security has released the May 2006 data on payments to attorneys and others who represent claimants before the Social Security Administration. Fee payments in May 2006 were up 3% over April 2006 and 17% over May 2005.

Fee Payments
Month/Year	Volume	Amount
Jan-06	18,752	$64,848,326.02
Feb-06	20,426	$70,312.586.15
Mar-06	26,227	$91,045,934.83
Apr-06	23,042	$79,714,961.76
May-06	23,581	$82,015,869.29

New Effort To Protect Privacy Of Social Security Records

The Social Security Administration has recently released a revised section of its Program Operations Manual Series (POMS) dealing with protecting the privacy of Social Security records. There are already reports that attorneys representing Social Security claimants are facing new difficulties in obtaining routine information from Social Security about their clients as a result of this change.