Re-start re-recon and senior attorney decisions
Re-recon was never Social Security's term, but no one remembers what term Social Security was using. Re-recon was the term most people were using. When re-recon was last used, during the Clinton Administration, once a Social Security disability claimant was denied at the reconsideration (often called "recon") level and asked for a hearing, the case was quickly examined to see if it fit into one of several categories of cases that were frequently allowed by Administrative law Judges (ALJs). If the case fit into one of these categories, such as claimants over 55 or claimants suffering from chronic mental illness, the case was diverted to one of several special units where it was reviewed to see if the claim should be approved. The review was something like a new reconsideration review, hence the term re-recon. The re-recon review was done quickly. If the claim was approved, the case was over and done with in a month or two without any ALJ ever having to look at the file. If the case could not be approved at re-recon, the file was sent on for a hearing, with no delay for the claimant. I would give a guess that re-starting re-recon could reduce the number of cases requiring ALJ review by around 5% and the vast majority of the cases would have been approved by ALJs anyway. Social Security should have statistics showing what effect this had the last time it was done. This could be implemented in about six months to a year, without the need for new regulations.
Senior attorney decisions could be implemented more quickly since those personnel are already in place. Once case files reach ODAR, which is the office where ALJs work, they are routinely reviewed to see if the case can be approved without the need for a hearing. These are called on the record reversals, or ORRs or OTRs. Usually, it is a staff person rather than an ALJ, who does the ORR initial review at ODAR. Once a staff person identifies a case that he or she thinks is a good candidate for ORR, he or she must get an ALJ to sign off on the ORR. Most of the time the ALJ does agree with the ORR, but there are some ALJs who seem to believe that virtually no case is appropriate for ORR and some other ALJs seem unwilling to take the time to review these case files, which may not be as unreasonable as it might sound when you consider ALJ workloads. In the senior attorney program, which was also employed during the Clinton Administration, Social Security's senior attorneys reviewed case files for potential ORRs, much the same as now, but instead of taking potential ORRs to an ALJ for action, the senior attorney was able to take action on his or her own to approve the claim. Like re-recon this can be criticized as paying down the backlog, but the vast majority of the time these claims would be approved by ALJs later anyway. ALJs do not like senior attorney decisions because they feel it reduces their status. Under the circumstances neither objection seems important. My estimate is that re-starting the senior attorney program would reduce the number of cases requiring ALJ hearings by 5-10%. Again, Social Security should have numbers showing what the results were the last time this was done.
The problem with restarting the senior attorney program is that the regulations which allowed senior attorney decisions have lapsed, meaning that an official re-start of the program would require new regulations which would require the approval of the Office of Management and Budget, which could take months, but the re-recon regulations are still on the books. There is nothing in those regulations that prevents the re-recon regulations from being used as authority for senior attorney decisions. Using this authority the senior attorney program could be restarted in less than three months, although, again, the complaints about it would continue for years.
