Waiting In Portland -- Shifting The Blame To The "Billion-Dollar Judge"

From The Oregonian:

The slow pace of a few judges and an overwhelmed staff at Portland’s Social Security hearing office are key reasons that people seeking disability benefits here endure some of the longest waits in the nation.

Across the country, it takes an average of 480 days to get a judge’s ruling on a Social Security disability claim — but 650 days if your case is in Portland.

The problems in Portland reflect a broader national crisis, according to Social Security Administration records obtained by The Oregonian under the Freedom of Information Act. Only about half the agency’s administrative law judges here meet its minimum goal of clearing 500 cases a year. Only three of nine Portland judges hit that mark in recent years, agency records show.

Last year, according to the national records, 132 of the agency’s judges — about 11 percent — failed to reach even half of the agency’s goal, dragging out appeals of disability claims as people faced financial ruin, got sicker and even died waiting.

And from a sidebar article:

Charles Bridges is Social Security’s billion-dollar judge.

When it comes to paying out disability benefits, no other Social Security judge comes close. Bridges awarded cash to 2,285 people last year — eight times that of the agency’s average judge — and he turns down only a small number of the people who plead for a check.

The cost to taxpayers? More than $2.1 billion for this judge over the last four years.

Bridges, 62, is the chief administrative law judge in the Social Security Administration’s Harrisburg, Pa., hearing office.

Inside Social Security, Bridges is a controversial figure, a symbol of the agency’s desperation to unclog its bottleneck of disability claims at any cost.

Stories about an unnamed judge who pays 2,000-plus cases a year arose in a congressional hearing in February, but the agency has never named him. The Oregonian identified Bridges through internal Social Security records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. ...

Each time a judge approves a disability case taxpayers will pay out an average of $250,000 in lifetime cash and medical benefits, according to estimates. Experts say judges should spend hours considering each case, and that Bridges’ extraordinary production makes that all but impossible.

“It’s preposterous,” said Sylvester J. Schieber, chairman of the Social Security Advisory Board, an oversight agency, who has studied productivity of the agency’s judges.

“As complicated as these cases are, it’s outrageous that he’s doing 50 cases a week when most other judges are toiling to get out 10 to 15.”

The agency’s top officials can’t seem to agree about Bridges.

Social Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue — without naming Bridges — told The Oregonian in a statement that if any judge produces that many cases a year, it “invariably means the quality of the review is low or nonexistent.”

But Frank A. Cristaudo, the agency’s chief administrative law judge, said Social Security has reviewed the record of high-producing judges (which would include Bridges) and found no problem with their accuracy. Cristaudo declined to comment on the quality of Bridges’ work.

“He’s putting in incredible hours,” Cristaudo said. “He feels very committed to public service.”

And from another sidebar:

Last fall, after investigating the glacial pace of Social Security’s disability claims process for several months, I decided to talk my way into one of the hearings in which people make their pitches for benefits.

Portland’s hearing office was one of the slowest in the country, and no one had adequately explained why. So I figured a look inside might show what a brutal system it was for thousands of people.

Trouble was, the hearing rooms were supposedly closed to the public — even though the judges inside award untold billions of dollars in taxpayer money each year. ...

I would later learn that judges frequently permit friends and family into the hearings, and that they have in the past admitted law students, academics and congressional staffers.

It seemed the only class of people denied access, after having been invited by claimants, were news reporters.

It is obvious to me that someone at Social Security gave this reporter the idea that the Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) are to blame for the backlogs and that a "billion-dollar-judge" is giving away the store. I cannot imagine this happened without Commissioner Astrue approving it.

Social Security's ALJs are not above criticism, but the idea that blaming them is going to work as an excuse for the backlogs at Social Security is just preposterous. It may sort of work with one reporter one time, but it is not going to fly as a general matter, because it is not true. Blaming the ALJs would not have worked even when Republicans were in control of Congress and the White House and it certainly will not work now. If this is Michael Astrue's main plan for deflecting the blame from himself, he needs to come up with a new plan.

ALJ Database

As part of the story about backlogs at Social Security discussed above, The Oregonian has posted a database online that shows the number of dispositions per Administrative Law Judge, by outcome, for each of the last four years.

From taking a look at it, I can take an educated guess that this lumps dismissals of requests for hearings with denials, which can be misleading, particularly for Hearing Office Chief Administrative Law Judges (HOCALJs). HOCALJs typically issue all or most of the dismissals for an entire hearing office when a request for hearing is clearly filed too late or too early.

New Disability Entitlement Program Proposed

They have not been making much noise about it so far, but some important disability advocacy groups are proposing a new entitlement program for the disabled. The name given to this proposal is CLASS, Communtity Living Assistance Services And Supports Act. The proposal is for a program run by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), but if this ever happens, I think it is a good deal more likely to be run by the Social Security Administration. Here are some details of the proposal:

• Financed through voluntary payroll deductions of $30 per month (with opt-out enrollment like Medicare Part B)
• Any individual who is at least 18 years old and actively working would be automatically enrolled (unless they opt out), and pay their premiums through payroll deduction or another alternative method. Any nonworking spouse could enroll in the program and pay their premiums through an alternative payment procedure.
• To qualify for CLASS Act benefits, individuals must be at least 18 years old and have contributed to the program for at least 5 years. Eligibility for benefits would be determined by state disability determination centers and will be limited to: (1) individuals who are unable to perform two or more activities of daily living (ADL) (e.g. eating, bathing, dressing), or (2) individuals who, due to a cognitive or psychiatric impairment, require supervision, cueing, or hands-on assistance to engage in activities that will enable the individual to perform at least 2 of the following critical life functions: communicating; taking medications; household management; and basic money management.
• To account for differences in independence support needs, there would be two cash benefit tiers. Tier 1 benefits ($50/day) will be payable to eligible individuals who are unable to perform 2 or 3 ADLs or have a cognitive or psychiatric impairment requiring assistance with 2 or 3 critical life functions. Tier 2 benefits ($100/day) will be payable to individuals who are unable to perform 4 or more ADLs or have a cognitive or psychiatric impairment requiring assistance with 4 or more critical life functions.
• Eligibility for CLASS Act benefits would not have any effect on eligibility for Social Security retirement, survivors, or disability benefits, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, Medicare, or Medicaid.
  

There are some problems with this proposal beyond the obvious one of whether it is possible to enact a new entitlement program even in the current political climate. I have strong doubts that the $30 a month deductions would begin to cover the costs of this program. It would be quite difficult to administer. It would exclude those who have been disabled since birth, who are the people most in need of such benefits. Still, I have to give high marks for audacity to those sponsoring this proposal. I hope this gets serious consideration.

Grievance On ALJ Productivity Standards

A grievance that several Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) filed against the Social Security Administration in the Chicago region has been posted online. The grievance concerns the production standard that has been more or less established at Social Security that each ALJ should produce 500-700 decisions per year. The grievance argues at some length that the standard is illegal and unreasonable. It is also unenforceable, but that does not mean that it is unimportant.

What Would Open Government Mean At Social Security?

From Amy Harder at the Lost in Transition blog:

Fast-forward 10 or 20 years and you might see a Congress that passes "wikied" legislation created by millions of Americans, a president who submits a daily diary via video, and a vast online repository of all the Freedom of Information Act requests ever submitted.

Rewind back to today, and you'll see a handful of innovative, tech experts discussing these ideas at Google's Washington headquarters. During a panel discussion today, a packed room listened to Internet-savvy people within Congress, from the presidential campaign and third parties weigh in on how President-elect Obama should use the Web to promote open government.

So, what sort of things should the Social Security Administration do to promote open government? What are your ideas?

I will start by mentioning one small area. Social Security should quit keeping most of its Emergency Messages to its staff secret. Anything that is available to tens of thousands of Social Security employees cannot be truly sensitive. Social Security employees do not have to engage in the old school bureaucratic nonsense of keeping pointless secrets to prove their importance. I already think Social Security employees are important. Knock off the pointless secrecy, Social Security.

Judge Judy And Disability

The clip that I posted from the Judge Judy show may not be the first time that the subject of Social Security disability benefits has come up on her show. Here are some comments from the web about two other Judge Judy shows.

• Judge Judy just had a case with a woman who was the defendant and losing and Judy did her usual grilling. She asked the woman if she worked and she said no, that she was on SSI. Judy asked the nature of her disability and she answered "multiple sclerosis." "Well, you look fine to me!" Judy said haughtily. MS World Board February 14, 2008
• We LOVED the guy on Judge Judy who sued his wife (or ex wife) for selling his musical instruments, in order to feed their children. He said he needed them in order to earn $100 a night, playing in a band. This was the only work he could do, under the table, to supplement his SSI. HUH? Judge Judy declared the instruments "marital property" and said the wife was within her rights, to sell them. She added that someone from Social Security was going to see the show and would be very interested in his case. Etiquette Hell Forum April 19, 2007

Etiquette Hell! An appropriate forum to discuss Judge Judy.

OIG Report On Processing Time

Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has done a report on the agency's processing times on Social Security disability claims. It seems to me to show that a lot of the processing time figures given out by Social Security over the years may be misleading or at least may not accurately reflect what a claimant would experience. OIG was doing a study on calendar year 2006. Social Security reported that in 2006, the average processing time at the initial level was 88 days, 483 days at the hearing level and 203 days at the Appeals Council. OIG's audit found that it actually took 131 days at the inital level, 532 days at the hearing level and 242 days at the Appeals Council. OIG's description of how they did this study could be better, but it appears that the difference is that OIG included the time it took for the agency to get a new claim or appeal to the desk of the person who was supposed to work on it and also included the time it took for favorable and unfavorable decisions to be processed after they were made, including the time it took to compute and pay benefits when favorable decisions were made. It looks like OIG did not include the time it took claimants to file appeals, so the actual experience of a claimant would be even worse.

NOSSCR Comments On Proposed Scheduling Rules

The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) has posted its comments on the proposed regulations that would allow the Social Security Administration to remove any control that an individual Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) has on scheduling hearings. NOSSCR's comments express concern that the proposal would diminish ALJ indepedence and that it is a distraction from the vastly larger problem of lack of adequate staffing at Social Security.

File your own comment online. The deadline for comments is January 9, 2009.