Hearing Backlog Growing

I have received a report from a well placed source that the backlog of cases at Social Security awaiting a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) is currently a whopping 769,000 and increasing at the rate of about 10,000 per month. Currently, 59% of these cases have not been worked up for review by an ALJ.

The math is pretty simple. On average, each Social Security ALJs is currently disposing of about 50 cases per month. 10,000 divided by 50 is 200. This means that just to prevent the backlog from growing, Social Security would need an additional 200 ALJs. To reduce the backlog would take more than 200 ALJs. Social Security's plans do not call for increasing the number of its ALJs by anything like 200. Therefore, Social Security has no current plan for preventing the backlog from growing, much less a plan for reducing it.

Voinovich Meets With Astrue About Backlogs

From a piece by Senator George Voinovitch (R-Ohio) published in the Bucyrus Telegraph Forum:

In addition to overseeing individual cases for constituents, I am also pushing for improvements in Social Security on the national level. I have met with Michael Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security Administration, on multiple occasions to raise my concerns about the backlog of claims and the long delays in scheduling hearings throughout Ohio. In fact, Commissioner Astrue attended my roundtable in Ohio last year, where he sat down with the managers of all the Hearing Offices in the state.

I am particularly pleased that Commissioner Astrue has recognized the significance of the problem in Ohio and -- since January -- has hired 13 new administrative law judges. He assured me that the Social Security Administration expects to see further improvements when the automated case writing system and template is deployed.

Notice the willingness to believe that Commissioner Astrue has a plan to resolve the backlogs -- a very different tone than Democrats in Congress are taking.

NPRM Coming Tomorrow On Evidentiary Standard

Social Security has filed a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) that will appear in the Federal Register tomorrow. This NPRM, if adopted, would include for the first time in Social Security's regulations the following definitions:

Preponderance of the evidence means such relevant evidence that as a whole shows that the existence of the fact to be proven is more likely than not.

Substantial evidence means such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.

This touches upon something very important, but it still seems so innocous that it is hard to understand why they are bothering. This are standard definitions. Is there something here that I am missing?

Did They Notice The Irony?

From a press release issued by Allsup, a large non-attorney representer of Social Security disability claimants:

The nationwide rollout has begun and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) recipients in some states already have the option of receiving their benefit payments electronically on a debit card, rather than via a paper check. However, eligible individuals – many of whom are “unbanked” – should have a clear understanding of the pros and cons of opting for the debit card, particularly the financial ramifications, according to Allsup, which represents tens of thousands of people in the SSDI process each year. ...

One of the reasons that some Social Security recipients continue to insist on paper checks is the fear that their bank accounts could be attached by creditors. However, under federal law, Social Security benefit payments are protected from attachment, meaning creditors do not have the right to take these funds from a recipient’s bank account. The same rules will apply to funds placed on Direct Express debit cards. ...

''At any given time, there are likely millions of dollars in Social Security payments that are at risk because people on fixed incomes got into debt or are having a dispute with a creditor,'' said Gada. ''Unfortunately, they are acting on inaccurate information that has them afraid to put their money into bank accounts where it can be protected and they can be afforded other benefits of being banked.''

Here is a little nugget from Allsup's website concerning the services Allsup offers to corporations:

Maximize Social Security offsets and overpayment recovery for disabled participants. With our Overpayment Recovery Service, we will: ...

Recover

:

Withdraw overpayment funds directly from claimant’s bank account using our patented electronic process.

Everyone Is Covering The Story Now

The Louisville Eccentric Observer, a free weekly, is running a story on the terrible backlogs of people awaiting hearings on Social Security disability claims, complete with a photo of the tombstone of a claimant who died awaiting a hearing. The tombstone was bought with the man's back pay.

An Inside View

From the minutes of a May 6-9, 2008 meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management personnel (emphasis added, as well as some explanations and a few comments):

Roger [McDonnell, Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Operations, who was meeting with the Executive Committee of NCSSMA on behalf of the Social Security Administration] stated they are very pleased with the volume of hires and that 2350 out of 3900 went to the field [as opposed to Hearing Offices]. He told us they are trying increase the 800 number staff including those in the DOC [Data Operations Centers]. They have increased 800 number resources to make sure we have enough staff to reduce the busy rates and assist some FOs [Field Offices] with their general inquiry calls. ...

Ready Retirement, the new online retirement application, will be released in September 2008. (Note: the September release is now called i-RRET) This release will be piloted for a few weeks and then implemented nationally. [Notice that they are hardly bothering with piloting. Lack of adequate piloting is a longstanding problem at Social Security and has caused many problems over the years, but management is so sure that new processes are going to work and feel so much urgency to achieve productivity gains that they plow ahead and hope for the best, often creating major problems for the employees who actually have to work with the inadequately piloted processes.] i-RRET will streamline the number of questions and will be in a more user friendly format. The release will only affect the front-end application. They expect that some time in 2010 back-end changes will be made which will allow some of the simplest RSI [Retirement and Survivors Insurance, i.e., not disability] claims to go right into pay. ...

Ron [Mitchell, an Executive Committee member] brought up problems with claims-taking companies and the poor product we get from them. Roger [McDonnell] said that there is another project called Disability Direct which they are developing and which they are hoping will encourage these groups to use the internet for their claims submissions. We asked if we will be creating a new retirement claims- taking workload for local for-profit companies, such as H&R Block. Roger [McDonnell] said they are trying to make all of this so easy that such companies would not be needed. [Note that it appears that he did not answer the question.] ...

The first five months of the FY [Fiscal Year] show that FO [Field Office] productivity is up by 11%, which virtually wipes out our backlog on paper. For the last six months, we were up by 9% (March was down). Roger [McDonnell] speculated that perhaps the rest of the FY will show decreased productivity as much of the increase was linked to claims which may be slowing down in the second half of the FY. ... Bethany [Paradis, Executive Committee member] asked if it would be possible to convert some of our overtime hours to FTE staff. Roger [McDonnell] said it would not be fiscally prudent because as soon as October 1 comes those funds could go away. If that were the case, we would find ourselves needing to layoff those new hires....

There is some speculation that more of the smaller TSCs [Teleservice Centers] may be closed and their staffs relocated to Card Centers ... Action: Greg [Heineman, NCSSMA President] should call Donnell [Roger McDonnell?, who was not present at this point in the meetings] or Linda [McMahon, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner for Operations, Roger McDonnell's boss] directly and ask them why they are not putting replacements into the smaller TSCs. He should try to get as many specific answers as possible. [Note the concern about getting straight talk from Social Security upper management about an office closing issue.]

Much of these minutes was lined through on the NCSSMA Website. I assume this is a technical problem.

Social Security Starting To Look For Updated Occupational Data

One of the major bases for disability determination at Social Security is the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT). There is just one little problem with the DOT. It is terribly out of date, meaning that there is a terrible flaw in disability determination at Social Security. I know, someone in an office in D.C. is reading this and thinking, "What are you talking about? Disability determination is medical. What does occupational data have to do with it?" Trust me. Occupational data is important in disability determination. To be disabled for Social Security purposes you have to be unable to do not only the work you have done in the past, but other work. How do we know whether there is other work that a person can do despite their physical or mental impairments? We look at occupational data. If that occupational data is out of date -- and not just by a little bit, but by about 20 years, the whole disability determination process is dubious.

What to do about the DOT problem? For a very long time, Social Security has looked the other way and just hoped no one would notice the problem, but people are noticing. The ground underfoot is starting to feel pretty shaky and Social Security is casting about for a solution.

I do not think this is going to come close to being a solution, but the Social Security Administration just posted this "presolicitation" notice on FedBizOpps.Gov:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has a need to acquire occupational information based on the Department of Labor’s Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), 4th edition. This DOT-based information will be evaluated in order to determine whether the data can be used in SSA’s disability evaluation process in terms of current SSA disability guidelines. ... SSA anticipates awarding one or more firm-fixed price type contract(s) for this effort. The period of performance is anticipated to be for nine months in duration. The solicitation will be issued as a small business set-aside. It is anticipated that the Request for Quote (RFQ) will be issued on or about June 23, 2008. The selection decision will be on a low-priced, technically acceptable basis. ...

Pressure For More ALJs in NY

From a press release issued by Senator Clinton (emphasis added):

With a massive backlog of pending disability cases continuing to build in Buffalo’s Social Security hearing office and other offices across New York State, U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton today demanded that the Social Security Administration (SSA) revamp their efforts to reduce case backlog. SSA recently announced that they hired 135 new Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) to help ease the burden so many offices across the country are feeling. However, only ten of these new hires were assigned to New York hearing offices, despite the fact that New York residents wait on average a year before they even receive an initial hearing of their case and almost two years before their cases are fully processed. Of the nine New York State hearing offices, only four were offered new staff. ...

Today, in response to the weak arguments involving office space and the disappointing allocation of new hires to New York SSA hearing offices, Schumer and Clinton wrote to Commissioner Astrue, demanding a detailed explanation of the allocation process and how the SSA assignments would help reduce backlog in New York. The senators also urged SSA to reconsider their current allocation plan so additional placements could be made the high-traffic New York hearing offices as soon as possible.

“It is beyond unacceptable that we have Buffalo residents waiting over a year or more for SSA to process their disability cases,” said Senator Schumer.

If Obama is elected and Astrue decides to hang on, he is going to end up feeling like a punching bag.