Service Problems In Idaho Falls

From KIDK (or view the video):

There's a problem at your local social security office and its affecting your service.

We need the social security office in Idaho Falls to change our names, get a new social security card and request benefits for retirement or disability, but when I called to set up an appointment I spent about one hour getting no where.

I made my first attempt to reach our local social security office at 10:30 in the morning, and after 20 minutes of getting a busy signal, I finally got through, not to a person but a recording.

Then I sat on hold for just under ten minutes, and was transferred to an answering machine.

40 minutes later, I got frustrated, and tried the call, hang up, call again immediately trick but fifteen minutes later that hadn't worked either.

It wasn't until after about 20 minutes later that someone answered.

The clerk I was speaking to promised me he would have his supervisor call me as soon as she was free.

Five hours later the supervisor finally called me back, and told me my complaint had been transferred to their regional office, and that she would not be answering my questions.

Two days later Joy Chang from Seattle called me. Chang told me that if I wanted to talk to someone, calling my local office was a bad idea.

"We try to give people alternatives such as calling our national 800 number their primary function is to answer phones," says Chang.

Federal Times On Social Security Staffing

From the Federal Times (emphasis added):

The Social Security Administration has a problem.

The first baby boomers started applying for Social Security retirement benefits last month, signaling what is certain to be a huge demand for the agency’s services.

Yet the agency has its lowest staffing levels in 35 years.

SSA expects its staffing to dip to fewer than 60,000 by next September, spokesman Mark Lassiter said last week. That’s the lowest level since 1973, the year before Congress ordered the agency to ramp up staffing to handle a new supplemental security income program, which provides cash for elderly, blind and disabled people to pay for food, clothing and shelter. ...

“This is a cause for concern,” Lassiter said. “We’re seeing a significant increase in the number of disability claims in recent years directly because of the baby boomers. And we can’t do any hiring.”

Lassiter said SSA imposed a hiring freeze at the start of the current fiscal year. Congress has not yet passed any spending bills, so the agency — like all others in government — is operating under a continuing resolution that keeps its funding at the 2007 level of $9.3 billion. ...

To whittle down its backlog of disability claims cases, the agency plans to hire more administrative law judges: 150 by spring and 125 more in 2009. SSA wants to have 1,250 judges in all by September.

The agency expects to lose about 65 of its 1,040 administrative law judges to attrition over the next two years. [Less than 3% annual attrition among a group of employees who, on average, are probably in their mid-50s! Who are you kidding?] Lassiter said SSA also will hire 92 support staffers this fiscal year to assist the judges.

The agency plans to replace only one of every two state disability determination service (DDS) employees who leave in 2008, Lassiter said. These SSA-funded offices decide whether people claiming severe disabilities should receive benefits.

About 1,500 of the 15,000 DDS employees nationwide are expected to retire in 2008, and 750 are expected to be replaced.

250 More ALJs?

From the Capitol Insider put out by the Disability Policy Collaboration:

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on Tuesday on the conference report on the FY 2008 appropriations bill for the Departments of L-HHS-ED [Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Department, but also includes the Social Security Administration]. Should the conference report on the Labor-HHS-Ed appropriations bill be passed in the House, the Senate is expected to vote on the bill this week. House and Senate Democratic leadership have yet to announce a final strategy on which appropriations bills, singly or in combination, to send to the President for his signature or veto.

The Labor-HHS-Ed conference report is expected to include an appropriation of nearly $9.9 billion for the Social Security Administration’s funding to cover administration of its programs, known as its Limitation on Administrative Expenses (LAE). This amount is $576 million above the FY 2007 level and $275 million above the President’s request for FY 2008. Much of the increase will simply allow SSA to keep pace with inflation in office leases, security expenses, and employee salary and benefits costs. In addition, the National Council of Social Security Management Associations predicts that the Conference Report amount will allow SSA to hire about 250 more administrative law judges to help reduce the backlog in hearings for claimants with disabilities.

Suspension Of New Claims To Federal Reviwing Officers

The Social Security Administration has submitted the following item to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review before publication:

AGENCY: SSA	RIN: 0960-AG53
TITLE: Proposed Suspension of New Claims to the Federal Reviewing Official Review Level (3394F)
STAGE: Final Rule	ECONOMICALLY SIGNIFICANT: Yes
** RECEIVED DATE: 11/05/2007	LEGAL DEADLINE: None

Compassionate Allowances Public Hearing

From today's Federal Register:

SUMMARY: We are considering ways to quickly identify diseases and other serious medical conditions that obviously meet the definition of disability under the Social Security Act (the Act) and can be identified with minimal objective medical information. At present, we are calling this method '‘Compassionate Allowances.’’ We plan to hold four public hearings over the next year. The purpose of this first hearing is to obtain your views about the advisability and possible methods of identifying and implementing compassionate allowances for children and adults with rare diseases. We will address other kinds of medical conditions in later hearings.

DATES: Dates and location: We must receive written comments by December 21, 2007. Comments made at the hearings will be considered in preparation of a final rule. The first hearing will be held on December 4 and December 5, 2007, between 8:45 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST), in Washington, DC. The hearings will be held at 500 E Street, SW., Washington, DC 20436, in the main hearing room of the International Trade Commission. Space limitations and time constraints require hearing attendance to be by invitation only. However, you may listen to the proceedings by calling 1–888–456–0278, at 9 a.m., EST, the mornings of December 4 and 5. If you plan to listen in, please send an e-mail to Compassionate.Allowances@ssa.gov by November 21, 2007.

Let me take a guess as to the thinking behind this:

We really want to push "compassionate allowance" since it sounds really nice. It makes it sound like we are doing something, when we really cannot do anything of consequence due to lack of budget. The problem is that we have no idea what "compassionate allowance" means, much less how it is different from what we already do, so we will hold "hearings", which will allow us to publicize "compassionate allowance", while actually doing nothing. Since allowing real people to testify and ask questions and even demonstrate could be inconvenient, we will keep these "hearings" carefully controlled.

This sounds like something cooked up at the White House. Why would an independent Social Security Administration be part of this nonsense?

The notice indicates that Diane Braunstein is now the Director of the Office of Compassionate Allowances and Listings Improvement of the Office of Disability Programs, Office of Disability and Income Security Programs at Social Security. I have found an old document showing that Braunstein was Legislative Affairs Advisor in the Office of Policy Development at Social Security in 1988. She was working for the Alzheimer's Association at one time. She was working for the National Governors Association in 2003. Braunstein appears not to be a career employee at Social Security.

Web Service Beta Test

From today's Federal Register:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is pleased to announce that, in 2008; the agency will develop and implement a Beta test of a web service which will allow the submission of Initial-level claims, including Disability applications and Adult Disability Reports, from companies who assist the public with filing for benefits. In 2008, SSA plans to develop the web service to initially collect data on the Internet Social Security Benefit Application and Disability Report. Note that when a third party submits an application, SSA must contact the claimant before it is considered valid. In the initial phase, organizations will be able to submit claims data in bulk and receive a confirmation of receipt of the submitted data. In subsequent phases, the systems interface will also include the ability for organizations to check on the status of previously submitted claims information.

SSA would like to extend an invitation to companies who assist individuals with their Social Security benefit applications, to participate in this web service claims data exchange Beta test. The Beta test is structured to use the ``consolidator'' model, where the participating company serves as a conduit to receive claims data from their client base and electronically transfer the data to SSA. After the initial disability claims data collection effort in 2008 is evaluated, SSA will add functional capabilities in future years to collect data on electronic appeal forms and integrated claims applications. This multi-year initiative will provide a comprehensive systems interface for companies to send claims data (including Title II Retirement and Spouse application data, disability data, and medical evidence) to SSA on behalf of their clients. The envisioned long-range solution beyond 2008 is a web service that will facilitate the collection of data through the entire life-cycle of Internet applications, including Title II and Title XVI initial claims and appeals.

Verification Now Required For Comments

Because this blog has been hit lately with dozens of roboposts, I have had to implement word verification for commenting. It is a small extra step to prevent what amounts to spam.

Federal Register Alert

A notice about an item to appear in the Federal Register tomorrow:

PROPOSED RULES

Social security benefits and supplemental security income:

Federal old age, survivors, and disability insurance, and aged, blind, and disabled--

Compassionate allowances for rare diseases; hearing, E7-21828

I think this is only about a public hearing, rather than an actual proposed rule. Social Security rarely holds public hearings about proposed rules, but they can. Michael Astrue may be familiar with this sort of public hearing process from his prior experience with the Food and Drug Administration.