Contracting News?

Perhaps someone can advise me whether the notice reproduced in part below that Social Security recently posted is a big deal. Has Social Security been contracting out mailroom services at its central offices in the past? If this is new, will any Social Security employees be displaced? I would think that mailroom services for Social Security offices would be a major endeavor. I recall hearing that mail comes into Social Security's central offices literally by the trainload.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) intends to issue a solicitation (Request for Proposal/RFP) for a contractor to provide staffing to operate SSA Headquarters mailroom operations services located in Baltimore, Maryland (and to SSA components located in outlying locations). The contractor selected for contract award shall furnish all management, supervision, labor, required to collect, process and deliver mail.

Hit Map

Above is a map provided by Google Analytics showing the geographic location of U.S. visitors to this blog over the last three weeks or so, since I began using that service. The map does not show every last hit. I have trouble interpreting the information provided with the map, but I think it only shows locations with more than a few hits. This map does not show the geographic location of visitors from the ssa.gov domain since May 8. On May 8 I posted that this blog was receiving about one third of its visitors from the Baltimore area. Later that same day some obscure change was made in Social Security's computer network to block the relaying of geographic location information from computers accessing the internet from the ssa.gov domain. As best I can tell, it is unusual for a domain to block the relaying of geographic information. I should say that there were signs of other changes at Social Security's domain at the time, such as a switch from labeling the domain SSA.gov to labeling it ssa.gov, so the geographic change may have had nothing to do with this blog. Of course, this map still shows a lot of hits from the Baltimore area since it still shows hits from home computers.

Payment Center Direct Contact

Below is a statement from a recent issuance from Social Security's Program Operations Manual Series (POMS). POMS is Social Security's most important employee manual.

The general, but simple, rule is that a PC [Payment Center] employee will not refer development to the FO [Field Office] unless face to face contact is required, or where the FO is responsible for making a final determination on the issue (such as a representative payee determination).

The PC will always obtain information, statement clarifications or required evidence via DIRCON [Direct Contact with the claimant or others] unless a face to face or field contact is needed, or one of the exceptions in GN 01070.305C. or D. below applies.

I believe this is new and significant. Can anyone help me on this?

The Most Important News This Year On Social Security

We heard what is probably be the most important news about Social Security so far this year -- and I did not immediately recognize its significance. What is this important news? Michael Astrue said at yesterday's Senate Finance Committee hearing that the Social Security Administration could not comply with statutorily mandated time limits on holding Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) hearings without more power to control ALJ behavior.

What is so important about this? Let me share the evolution of my reactions to this.

• My first reaction was "How typical of Social Security management! They have always hated independent ALJs."
• My second reaction was "This is silly. More controls on ALJ independence would do almost nothing to get the hearing backlog down."
• My third reaction was "Astrue will never get Congress to agree that ALJs should be less independent. Social Security management has wanted this for decades, but has never gotten it. When will Social Security management realize that despite whatever problems the ALJs may have with their "outliers", that the ALJs have more credibility with Congress than Social Security management."
• My fourth thought was that the important thing here was that Astrue was talking about statutorily imposed deadlines on Social Security holding ALJ hearings. Astrue would be talking about deadlines only if he was hearing about deadlines from Congress and only if he thought that there was a good chance that statutory deadlines would pass. That is of much greater importance that Michael Astrue's puny plans for dealing with Social Security's hearing backlogs. What Astrue has in mind is little more than enough to stabilize the situation. His plan will hardly make a dent in the backlog. Statutory deadlines would force the Social Security Administration to propose what is really needed -- ramping up to 2,000 or more ALJs with another 8,000 or so support staff. That is not going to happen without statutory deadlines or the serious threat of them.
  

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.