Astrue: Agency "Moving Backwards"

From the Des Moines Register:

Todd Lindberg has lived for a year and a half in a storage garage in northwest Des Moines. He sleeps on a well-worn couch in a dark corner of the building, amid construction equipment, tools and snowmobiles.

With most of one foot amputated and part of the other missing, he qualifies for federal disability benefits that would pay for an apartment and groceries.

But getting those benefits is not easy.

A massive backlog of unresolved disability claims at the Social Security Administration has kept Lindberg and millions of others waiting years for benefits they earned while in the work force. The delays have led to splintered families, foreclosed homes and suicides.

Last year, a 49-year-old Missouri truck driver died in the lobby of a Social Security office while waiting to be called into the office for a hearing on his three-year-old claim for benefits. During the past year, the number of people waiting to have their claims processed has increased more than 30 percent, from 556,000 to more than 736,000. The head of the Social Security Administration, Michael Astrue, has acknowledged that the situation might soon get worse. The agency is "moving backwards" in its efforts to keep pace with a recession-driven influx of new claims, he said. ...

Social Security's West Des Moines hearing office handles most of the cases from Iowa. Individual judges there have tried to catch up on their workload by hearing 70 to 80 cases each month, as opposed to their usual 50 to 60 cases.

"That's too many cases," said Denzel Busick, the office's chief administrative law judge. "We can do that for a while," he said, "but you wouldn't want us doing that on a sustained basis because, as a judge, you start to think, 'What am I forgetting here? What am I overlooking?' ...

There is almost universal agreement about the cause of the disability backlog: Funding and staffing levels at the Social Security Administration have gradually dropped to their lowest levels since 1972, while the number of Americans applying for disability benefits has increased. Early this year, the number of unresolved cases was declining, but the economic crisis is making things worse: As the job market tightens, people with limited abilities have fewer job opportunities.

But in a sidebar, we get the traditional Republican response that Social Security must reorganize its way out of the backlogs:

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley said he is not sure additional spending by the Social Security Administration would help reduce the backlog. He said the agency needs to change its structure, in part by fast-tracking initial decisions on claims, improving the productivity of judges and transitioning to electronic record keeping."More money can't solve all of the problems," Grassley said. "You can never satisfy these bureaucracies if you always accept the excuse that they need more money."

Where Are The Grownups?

From the Wisconsin State Journal:

State officials are considering furloughing some 200 workers who determine Social Security benefits for the disabled at the same time they are forcing those employees to work costlier overtime hours.

To help close a gaping budget hole, the state is furloughing almost all of its employees, including the workers who help decide who can claim federal disability payments, even though furloughing those workers won’t actually save money because they’re paid by the federal government. ...

An Interesting Union Note

Joe Davidson in his Federal Diary column at the Washington Post notes that John Gage, the head of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), used to work as a disability examiner for Social Security. AFGE represents a good slice of the federal workforce, including most Social Security employees.

Decision Time At OIDAP

Social Security's Occupational Information Development Advisory Panel (OIDAP) has scheduled a meeting for September 16-17 in Los Angeles. Perhaps, I should say that Social Security scheduled the meeting since there are strong signs that OIDAP is almost completely controlled by Social Security. On the agenda, "discussion, deliberation and voting by the Panel on core recommendations to be included in the upcoming report to the agency."

OIDAP held its first meeting February 23-25, 2009 and they are going to be making major decisions less than seven months later? Social Security drags its feet on this issue for decades, but demands that the Panel make decisions with far ranging implications in such a short time? I have the strong impression that OIDAP is nothing more than an effort to provide cover for decisions that Social Security made before OIDAP was created.

By the way, I requested a copy of the briefing books that OIDAP has handed out to panel members at its meetings. No response from OIDAP even though OIDAP's website promises that "Materials presented are available on request." Social Security's occupational information system needs credibility. This is a poor way to develop that credibility.

ALJ Steverson Loses Job

Social Security brought charges before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSRB) seeking the removal of London Steverson, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). An ALJ working for MSRB issued an initial decision that suspended Steverson from his job for 35 days. Social Security appealed. The MSRB has now decided to remove Steverson from his job altogether.

Steverson had been charged with improperly using agency letterhead for personal purposes, storing sexually oriented material on a government computer, using a government computer for a personal business, giving misleading and incomplete responses when questioned about some of the charges and using the agency's address and mail for personal correspondence. The MSRB sustained all charges against Steverson.

Update: Wikipedia contains some information about London Steverson, probably self-supplied.

Health Vault

A press release from Social Security:

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, announced today that the agency has entered into an agreement with Microsoft to test the use of Microsoft’s HealthVault application in the disability process. HealthVault is a free online service that enables people to gather, store and manage their families’ health information, and share that information with their physicians and healthcare providers. These “personal health records” contain the same types of information that Social Security generally obtains from people applying for disability benefits.

“The use of personal health records holds great promise for ensuring that the medical information we collect from someone applying for disability benefits is accurate and complete,” Commissioner Astrue said. “Combined with other advancements in health information technology, our use of HealthVault should result in faster decisions for disability applicants. I look forward to working closely with Microsoft, a world-wide leader in information technology.”

Social Security and Microsoft are developing a technical prototype connecting the two organizations that will be available later this year. The agency also will collaborate with Microsoft to study current personal health record standards, gaps in those standards, and options for filling those gaps.

Social Security is a recognized leader in the use of health information technology. It is the first government agency to use the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN), a safe and secure method for receiving instantaneous access to electronic medical records. The NHIN is an initiative of the Department of Health and Human Services and is supported by multiple government agencies and private sector entities.

Land Acquired For Building To Replace Metro West

From the Baltimore Sun:

The Maryland Board of Public Works approved on Wednesday a transfer to the federal government of state-owned land in Northwest Baltimore where U.S. officials plan to build an office building to house some Social Security Administration operations.

The new structure, which federal and state officials say is needed by 2012, is planned near the Reisterstown Road Plaza Metro station. It would be one of the largest and most expensive federal office buildings in Baltimore in years. About 1,600 federal workers now at the federal agency's Metro West complex on Greene Street would move there.

Federal officials are seeking a private developer to construct a 538,000-square-foot office building and 1,076-space garage and lease it to Social Security. ...

Eventually, another 400 Metro West employees will be relocated to the Social Security Administration's national headquarters complex in Woodlawn, leaving none at Metro West.

Stimulus Checks For Prisoners

The Associated Press is reporting that 3,900 of the $250 economic stimulus checks sent to Social Security and SSI recipients went to prisoners. About 2,200 of the inmates were entitled to the checks because they had only entered prison recently. The other 1,700 were sent checks by mistake.

This information comes from Social Security's Inspector General, but the underlying report has not yet been released. Apparently, the Boston Herald got the story first. The Inspector General seemed to be leaking stories like this to the Washington Times in the past.