Baltimore Newspapers Ignore The Area's Largest Employer

Neither the Baltimore Examiner nor the Baltimore Sun covered yesterday's Senate Finance Committee hearing on Social Security. The Social Security Administration is Baltimore County's largest employer, yet the local newspapers ignored this major hearing. Neither of the papers has published an interview with Michael Astrue who took over as Commissioner of Social Security more than three months ago.

Buffalo News On Backlogs

The Buffalo News is running a story on Social Security's hearing backlogs. An excerpt:

It’s clearly a broken system. As of February, about 717,000 Americans were waiting for the kind of hearing that Chini received. And if history is any indication, a majority will eventually get the benefits they deserve under the safety net Congress created decades ago for disabled Americans who can’t work.

But for many, the wait is agony — and in Buffalo, it’s longer than in most places.

Social Security Administration figures show that as of January, the typical disability claimant at the agency’s Buffalo office will have to wait 688 days — or nearly two years — for an appeals hearing.

Of the 142 Social Security offices nationwide that process such claims, the appeals delays in the Buffalo office were the seventh-worst.

Important Addendum To Astrue's Testimony

Commissioner Astrue's statement to the Senate Finance Committee is available through the Committee's website -- with one big exception. There was an important attachment to Astrue's testimony that is not currently available through the Committee website that is available through Social Security's website. Here are a few excerpts (emphasis added):

... The most aggressive timeline for eliminating the backlog is 2012 ...

We project 360 cases per judge as the ideal pending to maximize service to disability claimants without compromising our mission of providing both timely and legally sufficient hearings and decisions. That caseload of 360 cases per judge would result in an average processing time, or the time it would take a claimant to go through the hearings process from the point the request for hearing was made, in the range of 250-275 days. ...

... we are studying the experiment of 1995-2000 that authorized Senior Attorney Advisors to issue fully favorable decisions. ...

Several of our initiatives will be in place within six months. For example, we intend to fill ALJ hearing dockets by streamlining folder assembly on our remaining paper cases; remand likely allowances to the Disability Determination Service disability examiners; and mandate the Findings Integrated Template (FIT) Decision Writing System ...

To make more cases available for review, we are authorizing a streamlined approach to file assembly. Many judges advise us that they do not use the exhibit list, and it is virtually impossible to place all medical evidence in strict chronological order. They have volunteered to hold hearings with files that are not re-assembled and to review files assembled in the same format used by the disability examiners at the DDSs. We are authorizing this practice to support these judges and the claimants they serve. ...

This streamlined approach to file assembly will be used for the 225,000 backlogged paper folders and will be done on a limited basis, starting with ALJs willing to hear cases in this streamlined format. We expect to complete assembly of the paper folders by the end of this calendar year. We are working on acquiring software to automate this function for electronic folders. ...

We ask the ALJs to issue 500 – 600 dispositions each year. We may increase this range to 500 – 700. ...

Using profiles developed by the Office of Quality Performance (OQP), cases will be screened and triaged to determine whether an allowance can be issued without a hearing, whether an allowance may be issued with further development without a hearing, or whether the case requires a hearing. Cases that can be handled at the DDS will be remanded to DDSs for a determination of whether an allowance may be issued. ...

When screening by hearing office staff identifies cases likely to result in favorable on-the-record (OTR) decisions with medical input, we will have those cases reviewed by hearing operation medical experts (MEs) before assignment of the case to an ALJ. ...

Based upon receipts of 550,000 cases per year, the hearing operation could save significant numbers of workyears with the implementation of centralized noticing and printing. ...

Additional software enhancements are needed to implement eScheduling by incorporating calendaring functionality. These enhancements would facilitate the scheduling of ALJs, claimants, representatives, expert witnesses, hearing reporters, interpreters, and hearing rooms through the use of calendars. ...

Working with the OQP [Office of Quality Performance], we will develop and implement a quality assurance program for the hearing process. This quality assurance program will ensure that all offices follow Agency policy. ...

We will be moving toward co-locating all possible future remote hearing sites with field offices where necessary to accommodate the public.

Baucus Press Release On Social Security Backlogs

Senator Max Baucus, the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee issued a press release following the hearing before his committee today. Here are a few excerpts:

At a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee today, Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said it’s “unacceptable” that massive case backlogs at the Social Security Administration have left Americans waiting as long as four years for disability benefits. ...

“This whole situation is tragic. I can’t believe our country, the United States of America, has let this happen. It’s an outrage,” said Baucus. ...

Astrue said that at the funding level recommended by the White House, which is higher than last year’s appropriation but $430 million less than Congress’s budget recommendation, it’s unlikely the agency could end backlogs entirely within the next five years. ...

The Commissioner also said that more authority to push administrative law judges to increase their productivity ... will be essential to progress on the backlog problem.

Some More Points From Senate Finance Committee Hearing

• Testimony was taken from the witnesses as a single panel. Over the years, the Commissioners' testimony was taken first. The Commissioners and their entourages then left before other witnesses testified -- removing about half of the audience and greatly annoying the other witnesses. The method used today must have been far more satisfactory to everyone other than Commissioner Astrue.
• Astrue is trying to get video equipment in all hearing rooms.
• Astrue called "e-pulling" of exhibits "exciting. [My opinion is that it is a good way to waste a lot of money on something that will never work.]
  
• The Findings Integrated Template (FIT) method of drafting decisions will now be mandatory.
• Astrue is working with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on legislation concerning agency authority over Adminisatrative Law Judges (ALJs).
• Rick Warsinskey of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA) testified that Social Security's Voice Over Internet (VOIP) transition will cost $1 billion and that it is urgently needed. [No doubt it is needed, but $1 billion spent on VOIP is $1 billion less spent on personnel to reduce backlogs.] Update: I have been told that Warsinskey said "up to" $1 billion, rather than $1 billion.
  
• Astrue seemed to talk more about getting tools that would allow the agency to get more productivity out of ALJs than about hiring more ALJs, although he certainly talked about hiring more ALJs.
• Astrue was asked twice what he would need to make a quick dramatic reduction in the hearing backlogs. He talked a lot, but never gave any answer to the questions. I would not go so far as to say he was deliberately trying to avoid answering the questions, but he certainly was not trying hard to give responsive answers.
• The tone of the hearing was friendly. No noticeable tension or flashes of anger.
• The video technology did not work. I was able to hear the hearing, but not view it.
  

Listings As "Low-Hanging Fruit"

In his testimony before the Senate Finance Committee today Commissioner Astue talked of Social Security's Listings of Impairments as representing "low-hanging fruit", apparently meaning that too few people may be getting approved under the Listings, because the Listings are not extensive enough. He said that the Department of Health and Human Services has volunteered help from physicians on their staff to update the Listings.

Social Security Legislative Proposals?

Commissioner Astrue testified today that he has legislative proposals pending at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB cannot prevent Astue from sending legislative proposals to Congress, but they have to "score" them for their budget impact. OMB opposition can also make it difficult to get an agency proposal enacted.

What would these legislative proposals be? On the face of it I see little need for Social Security to propose anything legislatively. If anything, Social Security needs fewer legislative changes to adjust to.

One concern is that Astrue talked about needing more "control" over Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) if the agency is to achieve any time deadlines. This could mean that Astrue wants to use the backlog situation as justification for reducing or eliminating ALJ independence.

Time Frame On New ALJs

In his testimony today, Commissioner Astrue said that it would be late October of this year before a new register will be available from which Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) could be hired and that it would take four months thereafter to hire more ALJs. It would then take time to train them. Realistically, it will be a year or more from now before more ALJs are holding hearings at Social Security.