Updated Fee Payment Information

The Social Security Administration has released the following updated information on payments of fees to attorneys and others for representing Social Security claimants:

Fee Payments
Month/Year	Volume	Amount
Jan-09	28,423	$101,128,880.69
Feb-09	31,352	$112,791,207.17
Mar-09	29,199	$104,155,187.96
Apr-09	30,963	$110,133,425.19

Speaking Of The King

I Wouldn't Read Much Into This

The Associated Press has an article about a question that President Obama answered today about the possibility of increasing income limits for recipients of Social Security disability benefits. He is not opposed but he would like any change to be part of a broader review of entitlement programs.

From The NOSSCR Conference -- Nancy Shor

Nancy Shor, the Executive Director of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR), spoke at the NOSSCR Conference (of course). Here are some points I picked up from her speech:

• She is concerned about the concept of a revolving fund in the budget for efforts to reduce "fraud" at Social Security. She thinks this could create incentives for Social Security to go overboard with Continuing Disability Reviews (CDRs).
• Bills are pending in Congress to eliminate the five month waiting period for Title II Social Security disability benefits and the twenty-four month waiting period for Medicare for the disabled.
• She hopes to have a Senate sponsor within ten to fourteen days for legislation that would raise the cap on attorney fees under the fee agreement process to the full extent of inflation, almost $6,300 and to include an automatic adjustment for inflation in the future. John Lewis is already sponsoring the legislation in the House.
  
• She predicts that Social Security will not be able to send out 1099s to attorneys and others who represent Social Security claimants even in 2010. The holdup is new regulations on recognizing entities as representing claimants.
• Ms. Shor believes that Social Security may have to publish a new Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) on recognizing entities as representatives of claimants because things may change so much from the NPRM published last year.
• Claimants' attorneys may have to use a "fob" device to obtain an code to access their clients' records electronically. Apparently, the fobs are easy to come by and inexpensive. These are already used to access some bank records.

From The NOSSCR Conference -- Barbara Kennelly

Barbara Kennelly, the Director of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, spoke at the NOSSCR Conference today. Here are a couple of points I picked up:

• She fears that if there are cuts in Social Security that disability benefits will be cut more than retirement benefits.
• She would like to see a 2% increase in Social Security benefits this year despite the lack of inflation.

From The NOSSCR Conference -- David Foster

David Foster, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner for the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review, spoke today at the NOSSCR Conference. I will try to summarize what I got from his talk, but I must tell you that I had some difficulty understanding him. I found his speech pattern a bit disjointed. In a smaller forum where I could have seen his facial expressions there might have been little problem, but this was in a room with about 1,000 people. I hope I understood this correctly:

• Foster had on a suit, but spoke in his shirtsleeves.
• There was to have been a Senate Finance Committee hearing next Tuesday at which he would have spoken, but this has been postponed.
• Social Security has seen a recent spike in disability claims filed.
• He believes that Social Security turned the corner on the disability hearings backlog last month.
• Informal remands (also known as re-recon) may end soon due to backlogs at the Disability Determination Services (DDS) offices.
• Social Security hopes to adopt regulations recognizing entities as representatives of claimants by next February. Attorney and representative internet access to claimant electronic records is on hold pending these regulations. [See my next post for what Nancy Shor had to say on this subject. See below in this post for signs of bandwidth issues. that mighgt also delay this] He wants to include electronic access to earnings records to the e-file access.
• Social Security's Vocational Experts have recently received a 10% increase in the fees they are paid for testifying.
• A raise for Medical Expert witnesses testifying at ODAR is being complicated by possible effects upon the DDSs.
• E-scheduling is about a year from proof of concept and at least two years from implementation. Foster seemed dubious about the concept. [I heard from some other attorneys about some experiment along these lines going on now, which confuses me. They did not seem to understand what was going on either.]
• Robbie Watts (name?) was recently hired to help with coordination between ODAR and the DDSs. Watts, if I understood the name correctly, had been the director of the Natonal Council of DDS Directors.
• He took a question concerning a controversy about how a claimant's attorney could help a claimant file a claim electronically. The problem is that Social Security is insisting that the claimant literally push the "send" button to do this. Foster seemed to be blaming the advocacy community for opposition to legislation on this subject. [I did not understand where he was coming from, but then I do not understand why Social Security seems to be persisting in obstructing electronic filing of claims for this reason, at the same time they are encouraging electronic filing of claims.]
  
• ODAR is looking at centralized burning of CDs of claimant files for attorneys and representatives. He said that doing this locally was eating up too much bandwidth. [If this is eating up too much bandwidth, how can Social Security be seriously contemplating giving attorneys and representatives access to their clients' records online? That would eat up far more bandwidth.]

From The NOSSCR Conference -- Jim McDermott's Aide

Jim McDermott, the Chair of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Support and Family Security, was supposed to speak at the NOSSCR Conference today, but Congressional business kept him away. One of his aides, a Ms. Bernson, if I understood her name correctly, spoke in his behalf. It seemed that she was delevering a speech written for delivery by Representative McDermott. The only news which I got from her presentation was that Mr. McDermott thinks the earned income and resource limits in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program need adjustment, including an automatic cost of living adjustment -- and the subocmmittee he chairs has jurisdiction over SSI.

From The NOSSCR Conference -- Comissioner Astrue

To continue with the reports from the NOSSCR Conference, here are the points that I picked up from Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue's speech:

• 55% of the $250 economic stimulus checks went out last week. Most of the stimulus checks going out to SSI recipients will go out in the next two days.
• Astrue expects to send proposed regulations on "single decision-maker" to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for approval soon.
• He expects to hold two more compassionate allowance public hearings this year -- on Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. [I have a suggestion. Why not just make a simple confirmed diagnosis of schizophrenia enough to meet the Listing. That is what is happening anyway.]
• The actuaries predict a million more disability claims in the next three years as a result of the recession. Astrue seemed skeptical of the actuaries' ability to predict this. [I'm with Astrue, although maybe for different reasons. In my experience the number of claims filed has much more to do with public perceptions of the adjudicative climate at Social Security than with economic circumstances. At any given time there are several million people who could file a claim for Social Security disability benefits but do not have a claim pending. The decisions of members of this group to file or not file have little to do with the state of the economy.]
• Precessing times at state Disablity Determination Services (DDSs) will get worse this year.
• 8% of New York state DDS employees are being laid off due to state budget problems, even though Social Security is willing and able to pay for the New York DDS to hire 15% more employees.
• He believes that Social Security is hiring at an "incredible" rate, attempting to hire 6,400 employees this fiscal year.
• For four straight months the number of cases pending at Social Security's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) has gone down.
• Social Security plans to send a proposal for an extension of the senior attorney program to OMB for approval.
• ODAR will be adding 1,000 new staff on top of attrition this year. Many of those have already been hired.
• 157 new Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) are bing hired this month -- in the next week or so.
• Another 208 ALJs are to be hired before the end of the next fiscal year (September 30, 2010), with perhaps 55 of those to be hired in September of this year (which would still be in this fiscal year).
• Finding enough office space for additional ALJs is a problem which could hold back some hiring.
• Social Security is now aiming for 1,400 to 1,450 ALJs total.
• Social Security now has goal of an average ratio of 4.5 staff to each ALJ.
• Astrue expects to open 14 additional hearing offices in FY 2010.
• Astrue noted that it takes the General Services Administration (GSA) 18 to 24 months to lease space for federal agencies. This slows down the process.
• Astrue said that Fayetteville, NC would have a full hearing office once space can be leased which will take time. In the meantime, a large remote video site would be opened. I had previously posted that I thought it misleading for Astrue to talk about opening a hearing office in Fayetteville when all that was planned was a large remote hearing site. Astrue made reference to this blog and to me by name in his remarks, though not in an unfriendly way. He did not think what he had said was misleading. [Local Social Security employees were unaware until quite recently that a true hearing office was coming to Fayetteville.]
• Astrue hopes for a real turaround in electronic records in the next three years, which will help Social Security reduce the time it takes to adjudicate claims.