OIG Report On Assignment Of Cases At Ft. Lauderdale ODAR

From a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

We found that over a 6-year period, the Fort Lauderdale HOCALJ [Hearing Office Chief Administrative Law Judge] did not follow ODAR's [Office of Disability Adjudication and Review's] policy of assigning claims to ALJs on a rotational basis. Instead, the HOCALJ has operated a "pilot" program (Pilot) that has allowed him to hear claims from selected representatives. We found the Pilot had no documented goals, objectives or measures for success. In addition, the HOCALJ has operated the Pilot without approval or knowledge of its existence by ODAR's Headquarters and Region IV managers. Moreover, only a few representatives participate in the Pilot and the HOCALJ heard most of the Pilot claims. Consequently, four representatives had over 50 percent of their caseloads with the HOCALJ, far beyond the anticipated rate under a rotational policy. An independent assessment of the Pilot will be necessary to determine its role in the Fort Lauderdale Hearing Office's productivity and overall merit. ...

Representative Number of Approvals by HOCALJ Number of Disallowances by HOCALJ
HOCALJ's Approval Rate by Representative
Representative #1 95 42 69.3
Representative #2 219 62 77.9
Representative #3 79 17 82.3
Representative #4 79 30 72.5
Total 472 151 75.8%

Social Security Wasting Money On Beltway Bandits With Conflict Of Interest

The results of a study commissioned by Social Security and done by Webility.md and SSDC on "Use of Functional/Vocational Expertise" is now available. Like almost every one of these studies done by the so-called "beltway bandits"it is stunningly vague and presents no workable ideas, much less any practical plan.

What is particularly galling about this report is the involvement of SSDC, a company which is involved in representing disability claimants before the Social Security Administration, an obvious conflict of interest. Why would SSDC seek this contract? Why would Social Security give them a contract when they have an obvious conflict of interest?

Undoubtedly, Social Security would have liked some idea of how they can cope with the fact that disability determination at Social Security is based upon the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), yet the DOT is hopelessly outdated and its replacement, the O*NET, is completely unworkable for Social Security. Probably, this was the main reason this study was commissioned. This study hardly discusses this issue. Here is what it does recommend:

Make a gradual and orderly retreat from relying exclusively on the Dictionary of Occupational titles (DOT) and DOT-based methods and tools for addressing the questions of Step 5. Allow both internal and community-based mFV experts to use (and defend the use of) supplementary or alternative approaches to describing functional job requirements, determining feasible occupations, and estimating job prevalence when they believe that the DOT information is either obsolete, incomplete, not applicable, or missing. Require that such methods and tools be based on the most solid evidence practically available and widely accepted by organizations nationally-recognized in their field. For example, utilize tools currently in wide use by vocational experts such as The Occupational Assessor by Economics Research Institute (www.erieri.com) or Choices by Bridges (www.bridges.com). Fund the development of specialized tools that will (a) support comparisons of non-exertional functional limitations with job demands, and (b) more fully describe the nature and prevalence of sedentary and light occupations and actual jobs in today’s economy.

If you are a Social Security official, how do you implement this nonsense? How do you make a "gradual and orderly" retreat from the DOT when you have nowhere else to go? Where are the other sources of information on the availability of sedentary and light occupations in the economy? The sources they suggest are completely unworkable and they know it. The only way to support the current method of disability determination at Social Security is to completely redo the DOT from scratch, which might cost more than a billion dollars and, even then, a new DOT would probably demonstrate the near complete disappearance of unskilled sedentary employment and a dramatic reduction in unskilled light employment in the United States, a result which would result in dramatically more claimants being approved for Social Security disability benefits. The authors of this study did not want to recommend this, nor did they want to recommend that Social Security go back to Congress or completely rethink disability determination, so they come up with this nonsense, collected their money and walked away.

I can suggest only one reason why Social Security keeps wasting money on this sort of study. Social Security officials order these studies when they do not know what to do and just want to put off making a decision.

An Image From 1985

Personnel Changes

FROM: Michael J. Astrue /s/

Commissioner

TO: Senior Staff

SUBJECT: Executive Personnel Assignments - INFORMATION

I am pleased to announce that Bob Wilson, who for more than five years has been the Deputy Commissioner for Legislation and Congressional Affairs, has been selected for a position on the Appeals Council in the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review. I would like to thank Bob for his service and wish him continued success in ODAR.

Margaret Hostetler, currently Deputy Commissioner for Policy, will become Deputy Commissioner for Legislation and Congressional Affairs. Margaret's many years working on key committees in both the House of Representatives and the Senate should serve her well in this position.

Linda Maxfield will serve as Acting Deputy Commissioner for Policy.

In the Atlanta Region, Amy Roberts has been appointed to the Senior Executive Service as the Assistant Regional Commissioner for Management and Operations Support. Amy has an extensive career in Operations starting as a Claims Representative and advancing through increasingly responsible positions in the Atlanta Regional Office. Amy is a graduate of the SES Candidate Development Program Class III.

In the Office of Communications, Annie White, Associate Commissioner for Public Inquiries, retired August 31. Sheryll Ziporkin is now serving as the Acting Associate Commissioner for Public Inquiries.

Please join me in wishing everyone the best in their new roles within the Agency.

Thousands Protest No-Match Letters?

From Democracy Now:

Immigration rights activists declared Wednesday [September 12] a national day of action against new immigration measures announced by the Department of Homeland Security last month. One of the rules converts Social Security "no match" letters into a tool of immigration enforcement. "No match" letters are sent to employers when a worker's stated social security number does not match records in government databases. ...

On Wednesday, thousands took to the streets in cities across the country against this pending crackdown that threatens the jobs of 8 million documented and undocumented workers. Milwaukee, Wisconsin had the largest turnout with an estimated 10,000 people observing a day of "No work, no school, no purchases."

But I Do It For Free And I Also Check A Lot Of Other Places

A "presolicitation" notice from Social Security:

The Social Security Administration intends to issue on a sole-source basis a firm fixed priced purchase order to Acquire Media Corporation to renew an electronic subscription entitled: NewsEdge Insight/NewsEdge Live for online access to real-time news feeds from the following sources: AP Wash Report; AP in Brief; eMedia Political Transcripts; Federal Register; Reuters News Report and USA Today.

Seriously, virtually all of this stuff is available free online. I hope Social Security is not paying much for this service.

Slow Start For Senior Attorney Program

On August 9 Social Security adopted regulations allowing its senior attorneys to issue fully favorable decisions. I have not yet seen any staff instructions on the senior attorney program nor any sign that the program is being implemented anywhere. Creating the instructions should be a snap. Merely dust off the old instructions, make a few changes and you have what you need. There ought to be some training, but the process is not that difficult. Why should it take so long to get going?

I can think of one possible explanation why things seem not to be moving. If attorney time is diverted to doing the senior attorney decisions, there will be less attorney time that can be devoted to writing decisions for Administrative Law Judges, creating a backlog there. In other words, the senior attorney program may not amount to much until more attorneys are hired and trained, because otherwise the agency is just borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and will get little if any boost in productivity.

Senate Finance Committee Schedules Hearing

The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing for September 20 at 10:00 a.m. on the subject "Frozen Out: A Review of Bank Treatment of Social Security Benefits. Witnesses will be named later.