Plain Dealer On Furloughs

An editorial in the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Ohio, by furloughing federally paid state employees who screen Social Security disability claims, is penny-foolish and pound-foolish, too, the U.S. Social Security commissioner said during a recent visit to Cleveland. He has a point.

Because of Ohio's budget troubles, state employees represented by five unions agreed last year to take 10 unpaid days off per year for two years. They're "cost savings days," but everyone calls them furlough days.

Bureau of Disability Determination employees are among those taking furloughs, though they are paid by the federal government, not Ohio. Commissioner of Social Security Michael Astrue said that by furloughing them, Ohio will lose $6.9 million in federal money.

Furloughs will also add to their case-review backlogs. To their credit, state employees have in the last four months closed 5,000 more disability cases than in the year-earlier period. But in the meantime, more cases are being filed. From 2008 to last year, Ohio claims rose 59 percent, far steeper than the 40 percent U.S. rate. Ohio's backlog nears 46,000 cases.

A Strickland spokeswoman said Ohio can't exempt Disability Determination employees from furloughs because the state's contracts with employee unions require "parity" in givebacks. That is, givebacks must be uniform. Gov. Ted Strickland himself warned last summer that violating parity could jeopardize the $90.3 million in give-backs his negotiators won from unionized state employees.

But an Ohio Civil Service Employees Association (AFSCME Local 11) spokesman says that its contract gives a state agency the right, if it cites an "operational need," to prevent an employee from taking furlough days. (Then, at the end of each fiscal year, the agency must pay an employee for time worked on "prevented" furlough days.) And the union spokeswoman said such an agency decision wouldn't require reopening the union's contract with the state.

Strickland's spokeswoman countered that the contract clause in question "was intended for extraordinary, specific operational emergencies" -- say, if a furlough day for workers in the Taxation Department's mailroom fell on April 15. Contract wording, however, doesn't appear to be nearly that limiting.

She added that trying to spare an entire class of state employees (such as those reviewing disability applications) from furlough days "would likely lead to legal challenges that [it] violated parity."

The Strickland administration, possibly fearing union grumbling in an election year, is lawyering a molehill into a mountain.''

HIE Contract Awarded

From a press release:

On Feb. 1, 2010, the U.S. Social Security Administration awarded a contract to Community Health Information Collaborative (CHIC) and its technical partner MEDNET (www.MEDNETWorld.com). CHIC, with MEDNET, built a health information exchange (HIE) -- known as “HIE-Bridge™” -- in Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin to allow for the exchange of clinical health data over the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN). Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn., MEDNET is a leader in NHIN connectivity and HIE applications and services.

The contract will allow HIE-Bridge member providers to transition from a paper-based disability claim process to an automated claim process over the NHIN, resulting in significantly reduced costs, streamlined processes and improved patient care.

The Labyrinth

From the Kansas City Star:

The nation’s disability insurance system is in rehab.

But it’s far from well, and problems in Kansas City are particularly acute.

An aging baby boom population and high unemployment rates are combining to flood the Social Security Administration with applications for disability insurance benefits.

The result: a backlogged system that can take years to pay out benefits.

Blame the agency’s staff cuts in previous years.

Blame people who try to fake disabilities.

Blame a labyrinthine claims system that volleys legitimate applicants between federal and state offices

And, in Social Security offices such as Kansas City’s, blame a sluggish productivity rate for disability hearings.

In Kansas City, applicants for Social Security Disability Income at the end of 2009 were waiting an average of 604 days for a decision from an administrative law judge.

That processing time ranked 135th out of 143 Social Security Office of Disability Adjudication and Review offices around the country, according to an agency report.

Why did the reporter make every sentence a new paragraph? Am I just old fashioned or is this an example of poor writing and editing?

ALJ Attorney Fee Limit Raised

I have no citation but I am told that the limit on the amount of attorney fees that may be approved by an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in a fee petition case has been increased from $7,000 to $10,000. Apparently, the ALJs have been notified of this change but nothing has been released publicly yet. Fee petitions are submitted in only a small fraction of the cases heard by ALJs.

ALJ Disposition Data Posted

Social Security has now posted data online showing Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) dispositions, showing how many allowances and denials per ALJ. One hint: the difference between the "total dispositions" and "total decisions" figure would be dismissals. A few ALJs will have a very high number of dismissals. These would probably be Hearing Office Chief ALJs (HOCALJs). HOCALJs typically issue the obvious dismissals of late requests for hearings and premature requests for hearings for their office.

Attorney Fee Payments

Social Security has released the following figures on payments of fees to attorneys and others for representing Social Security claimants:

Fee Payments
Month/Year	Volume	Amount
Jan-10	32,227	$111,440,046.23

I have some concerns that the numbers that Social Security is giving out are misleading. Every attorney that I have talked with about the 1099s they recently received from Social Security reports that their 1099 was way low. The aggregate stats that Social Security is releasing may be similarly flawed.

Social Security Bulletin Released

The Social Security Administration has released an issue of the Social Security Bulletin, its scholarly journal and compendium of statistics.

Legal Aid Can Now Take EAJA Fees

The Legal Services Corporation has announced that the legal aid organizations it funds may now apply for and accept fees under fee shifting statutes, such as the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). This will make it easier for legal aid organizations to represent Social Security claimants in federal court.