New York Times Editorial Mentions Social Security Backlogs

From today's New York Times editorial page:

As the sun sets on the Bush administration, the survival rite known as burrowing is under way. Burrowing is when favored political appointees are transformed into civil servants and granted instant tenure on the federal payroll. ...

Barack Obama the candidate smartly appealed to demoralized federal workers, writing campaign letters promising to reverse many of the Bush administration’s worst practices. ...

The promises extend to such trouble spots as staff shortages that have created a shameful backlog in Social Security disability claims ...

It’s encouraging that the president-elect recognizes that to make the changes he’s promising — and deliver a government that will protect and help its citizens — he will need energized, rather than alienated, federal workers. ...

There has been no sign so far of burrowing at Social Security that I know of. I have noticed a job opening at Social Security for the Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Disability Adjudication and Review, however. It will be interesting to see who gets that job.

Fee Payments

Below is a table showing the payments of fees to attorneys and others for representing Social Security claimants this year. These statistics are a useful analogue for how quickly or slowly Social Security is paying benefits to disabled claimants after a favorable decision. Notice the unevenness in the payments.

Fee Payments
Month/Year	Volume	Amount
Jan-08	20,559	$75,368,163.45
Feb-08	26,570	$95,228,284.32
Mar-08	23,088	$83,166,027.02
Apr-08	27,296	$98,616,579.78
May-08	29,305	$104,283,373.35
June-08	25,243	$89,786,459.83
July-08	22,238	$77,346,266.77
Aug-08	33,834	$120,819,791.05
Sept-08	25,239	$89,167,725.69
Oct-08	31,296	$111,938,127.61

No Free Parking For ALJ

From the Indianapolis Star:

The meter always read "expired." But the champagne-colored Toyota sedan never seemed to get a ticket.

A placard on the dashboard said simply "federal judge official business." No name. No authorizing signature. No date. No contact information. Nothing to suggest the car's owner had special permission not to feed the meter.

No tickets were ever issued, though, because until October there were so many different parking passes in circulation Downtown that meter enforcers could not verify whether the permit was legitimate.

It wasn't.

After a bit of digging, it turns out the car belongs to administrative law judge Reinhardt F. Korte, who is one of 13 administrative law judges assigned to Indianapolis by the Social Security Administration to hear disability cases.

SSA spokeswoman Carmen Moreno said neither Korte nor any of the other dozen administrative law judges were authorized to get free parking. They also aren't authorized to use a pass.

Korte, 63, said through Indianapolis attorney John Forbes that he acquired the permit from a now-retired judge, William Vaughn, sometime around 2006 and assumed it was OK to use. After The Star's inquiry, Korte called the Office of Inspector General to inquire himself, Forbes said, and stopped using the pass.

Attempts to reach Vaughn were unsuccessful.

"We hold our employees to a high standard of conduct,'' Moreno said, "and are disappointed with the actions of this individual."

Moreno said the agency was looking into Korte's actions. She said she couldn't discuss the results of any investigation because of privacy laws.

Chater Teaching In San Francisco

Former Commissioner of Social Security Shirley Chater is Visiting Professor at the Institute for Health and Aging at University of California, San Francisco, where she received a masters degree many years earlier.

"7 On Your Side" Gets Results

From television station WSPA in Greenville, SC (which must be 7 on the dial):

Since our story “Denied for Disability” aired earlier this month so many of you have asked for our help with your disability claim. Well we have good news for applicants who have waited more than 2 years for their hearing. In the last few weeks Greenville’s hearing office has made decisions on a record number of cases and nearly 1000 more have been moved to other offices to get processed faster. Dianne Derby has more in this follow up to a 7 On Your Side Problem Solver “Denied for Disability”. ...

[W]hen we talked to the SSA for a story that aired earlier this month they said they would be transferring cases to faster hearing offices. At the time they said Greenville was close to last place out of more than 140 hearing offices in the country taking more than 2 years on average to process cases.

Here’s the big news…since our story aired Greenville processed so many cases they jumped to second place. Plus they’ve moved nearly 1000 cases waiting more than 2 years to other hearing offices.

Apfel Now With Transatlantic Holdings

Kenneth Apfel, who was Commissioner of Social Security from 1997 to 2001, is now Executive Vice President and Chief Actuary of Transatlantic Holdings. Until recently, Apfel held the Sid Richardson Chair in Public Affairs at the Lyndon Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. The University of Texas website still shows him there but he must have left since his UT e-mail account is no longer working. This change may also explain why Apfel is not on the Obama transition team for Social Security.

Update: The Ken Apfel at Transatlantic Holdings probably is not the Ken Apfel who was Commissioner of Social Security since the Ken Apfel at Transatlantic Holdings worked for AIG from 1981 to 2004. How many Ken Apfels are there in the world?

A Request For A Contractor -- Or For a Magican

The Social Security Administration has posted this request for information from possible contractors:

SSA is interested in developing a prototype of a fully automated system that would allow SSA electronic access to information contained in claimants’ personal health records [PHR] once SSA provides authorizations to release that information it receives from claimants. The PHR prototype would require prior authorization from claimant to release information to SSA electronically in Continuity of Care Format. This system would use the standards that the Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) approved for other purposes, and apply those standards to the process of obtaining data from the PHR. The prototype will also need to provide the technical process for electronically transmitting authorizations to release medical information between a PHR and third party entities, such as SSA, based on the approach demonstrated in the Nationwide Health Information Network effort and the medical evidence gathering and analysis prototype with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

This will be workable by about 2020, I would guess.

Martin Gerry Working For Ticket To Work Contractor

Martin Gerry was former Commissioner Jo Anne Barnhart's right hand man at Social Security. Gerry tried to hang on after Barnhart left, but was abruptly fired by Barnhart's replacement, Michael Astrue, at about the same time Astrue decided to drop Disability Service Improvement, Barnart's and Gerry's ill-fated grand plan to rescue the Social Security disability programs. Gerry's firing included being marched out of the building by security guards.

From the Washington Times:

About 70 percent of the estimated 14 million Americans with severe disabilities are unemployed. Martin Gerry's job is to find ways to reduce this unemployment rate.

Mr. Gerry is executive managing director of a newly created institute within the national nonprofit agency NISH — Creating Employment for People with Severe Disabilities. A severe disability is classified as a physical or mental impairment that seriously limits one or more functional capacities. ...

Established in 1974, NISH provides job opportunities through federal contracts for people with severe disabilities.

The NISH Institute on Economic Empowerment will conduct research to see how job opportunities can be expanded and improved for people with severe disabilities. As director, Mr. Gerry will lead a team of six in establishing the institute and developing research priorities.

He said one of the main challenges of his job will be determining those priorities.

NISH is a major subcontractor in the Ticket to Work program, which aims to put Social Security disability recipients back to work, but which is mostly wasting money.