SSAB Meeting Agenda

I would have posted the agenda for the Social Security Advisory Board's meeting on May 8. However, their website still says only that "a detailed agenda will be available at a later date."

Lawyers Scamming On PTSD?

From StrategyPage.com:

As feared, lawyers are increasingly soliciting troops coming back from duty overseas, and urging them to claim they have Combat fatigue (or PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder) and apply for disability benefits. This recently became big news in Australia, but the involvement of crooked lawyers in disability scams has been big business in the United States for decades. ...

The problem with the lawyers assisting troops in scamming the government for benefits payments is nothing new. It has been going on for years in the civilian disability insurance and social security disability systems. Lawyers involved in class action suits, for large numbers of victims have been caught doing coaching, and records falsification, on a large scale.

I have no idea what this person is talking about. There have been issues with plaintiff lawyer behavior in asbestosis class action law suits, but lawyers have hardly been involved in Veterans benefits cases. The only scandals concerning "civilian disability insurance", by which the author must mean long term disability benefits under pension plans, have been scandals concerning the conduct of insurance companies. As for attorneys representing Social Security claimants, there are far too many real disability cases out there to think about concocting something. As a practical matter, to win on a PTSD disability claim with Social Security, the claimant needs to be under regular psychiatric treatment. Who is going to see a psychiatrist on a regular basis with a feigned mental condition? It is hard enough to get people who suffer from unquestioned mental illness to see a psychiatrist on a regular basis!

New GAO Report

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report on Social Security's implementation of the Medicare Part D Low Income Subsidy program. Here is a summary:

SSA approved approximately 2.2 million Medicare beneficiaries for the low-income subsidy as of March 2007, despite barriers that limited its ability to identify individuals who were eligible for the subsidy and solicit applications from them. However, the success of SSA’s outreach efforts is uncertain because there are no reliable data to identify the eligible population. SSA officials had hoped to use Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax data to identify the eligible population, but the law prohibits the use of such data unless an individual has already applied for the subsidy. Even if SSA could use the data, IRS officials question its usefulness. Instead, SSA used income records and other government data to identify 18.6 million Medicare beneficiaries who might qualify for the subsidy, which was considered an overestimate of the eligible population. SSA mailed low-income subsidy information and applications to these Medicare beneficiaries and conducted an outreach campaign of 76,000 events nationwide. However, since the initial campaign ended, SSA has not developed a comprehensive plan to distinctly identify its continuing outreach efforts apart from other agency activities. SSA’s efforts were hindered by beneficiaries’ confusion about the distinction between applying for the subsidy and signing up for the prescription drug benefit, and the reluctance of some potential applicants to share personal financial information, among other factors.

In all fairness, Social Security was given a difficult task. There was no hope for a neat, seamless implementation, especially given Social Security's acute staffing shortages.

Hello Baltimore!

I had no idea this blog was such a hit in the Baltimore area. This blog has always had a hit counter. It is at the bottom of the page. It simply counts the number of visits to this blog. I did not bother with trying to get more information until this past weekend when I signed up with Google Analytics, which will eventually give me an incredible amount of information on visits to this blog. However, it is already telling me something that surprises me. About one-third of the visitors to this blog are located in the Baltimore area. For those who might not be that familiar with the Social Security Administration, Baltimore is where the agency has its headquarters.

Fraud Allegations Involve Hundreds In Midwest

There was already a story that several dozen people had been arrested in Michigan for Social Security fraud for cashing a duplicate Social Security check issued after claiming that the first check issued had not arrived as well as cashing the original check. Now, there are reports in the Battle Creek Enquirer, the South Bend, IN Tribune and TV station WOOD indicating that many hundreds have been arrested, perhaps more than a thousand in total, on the same type of charge

I expect that the majority of the defendants knew they were doing something wrong. However, I also expect that quite a number of those charged were just confused. The standard of guilt in criminal cases is beyond a reasonable doubt. I would not want to have to prosecute these cases. These are small time offenses and many of those charged are going to demand a trial and end up being acquitted. The whole thing is unlikely to be worth the effort put into it.

Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has administrative sanctions available as an option for this sort of thing. I think that using that authority would have been a more sensible option for OIG. What has happened looks like OIG is too interested in making a big splash. My guess is that many, perhaps most, of these case will be plea bargained down to administrative sanctions anyway.

SSA Offers Help For Tornado Victims

From the Hutchinson News:

The Social Security Administration is prepared to assist Greensburg tornado victims through its office in Dodge City.

People who were severely injured can file a claim for disability benefits or for supplemental security income benefits. Surviving spouses and minor children of those killed in the tornado can also inquire about benefit programs. ...

Those who normally receive a paper Social Security check in the mail should to contact Social Security to provide a new address or to set up direct deposit, to prevent missing their next check. This can be done by calling the Dodge City office or the national toll-free number at 1-800-772-1213.

Astrue: "I want to fix this thing on my watch"

Excerpts from an Associated Press article:

More than 160 new administrative judges are needed to ease the backlog of hundreds of thousands of disability cases and eliminate yearslong waits to determine who qualifies for benefits, the new head of the U.S. Social Security Administration said.

“I want to fix this thing on my watch,” said Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue, who was sworn in Feb. 12.

Astrue and Republican Sen. George Voinovich held a meeting in Columbus on Monday to explain the problem and Astrue’s proposed solutions. ...

Adding 168 administrative law judges to the 1,082 currently hearing cases would speed up the process, Astrue said. He also said he favored fast-tracking urgent cases, such as those of cancer patients, and allowing some cases to be heard electronically.

Those are just three out of dozens of recommendations Astrue plans to make to the Senate Finance Committee later this month.

“There’s no one magic bullet,” he said.

Monday’s discussion was the second time in recent years that Voinovich brought a Social Security official to Ohio to explain the backlog.

New York Daily News On Social Security Backlogs

The New York Daily News is running a story on Social Security hearing backlogs. It is reproduced above, but, probably, you will be unable to read it. It is a fairly generic article on the subject.