It Takes Longer In Ohio

From the Dayton Daily News:

Ohio residents seeking Social Security Disability Insurance wait longer for a hearing than residents of any other state, says a study released Tuesday, April 6.

More than 19 months on average pass before disability claims are heard by administrative law judges who determine eligibility for benefits, said Allsup, an Illinois company that processes Social Security disability claims.

For more on this, see a Government Executive article.

Open Government

In response to a Presidential initiative, Social Security has posted an Open Government page online. I see nothing new completely here but it is a useful compilation of resources made available by the agency.

Do note how agency expenditures as a percentage of the Social Security trust funds have declined dramatically over the decades.

What The Managers Think

The National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management personnel, surveys its membership each year, asking about their experiences in managing Social Security field offices. Here is their summary of this year's survey:

• QUALITY OF WORK
• 87.4% of Survey respondents reported that they receive complaints weekly from the public about the accuracy or timeliness of the work being produced.
• 82.5% of managers report that the number of quality case reviews performed in their office is insufficient to ensure an accurate and timely work product.
• 71.9% of managers considered inadequate staffing to be the first or second greatest obstacle to ensuring a timely and accurate work product from their office. 61% said that competing operational priorities was the first or second greatest obstacle.

• FIELD OFFICE TELEPHONE SERVICE
• 64.6% of Field Office managers said that their offices were able to provide prompt telephone service less than half of the time.
• Virtually all of the managers (98.1%) receive weekly complaints about telephone service provided by their office. 72.8% said they receive up to four such complaints each week.
• 67.8% of the respondents said that the increased volume of visitors walking into their office is due in moderate or very large part to the inability of their office to provide prompt telephone service. 36.5% attribute the increased walk-in traffic in large part to the limited ability to answer the phones. The cause and effect is clear. 71.7% of managers said that they frequently or very frequently reassign staff from handling phone calls to helping in the reception area to reduce waiting times.
• Field Office managers overwhelmingly (88.7%) said that more staff was the most necessary element to improve telephone service in their office. Only 5.2% said that better telephone equipment was the single greatest need.

• STAFFING
• As in recent Surveys, the need for additional staff is the most significant concern for Field Office managers. 95.5% of the managers said that they need to hire at least one more employee to provide adequate public service; 89.2% said that they need to hire at least two more employees; and 71.2% said that they need to hire at least three more employees.
• Despite 1:1 staff replacements as a result of the FY 2010 SSA budget, 42% of the respondents indicated that they were not given authority to hire in FY 2010.

An E-Mail From The Commissioner

From: Commissioner Broadcast
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 6:07 PM
Subject: COMMISSIONER'S BROADCAST--04/06/10

To All SSA And DDS Employees

Subject: New Hires

I know that our unprecedented workloads continue to pressure every part of the agency. To help ease this pressure, we have been replacing staffing losses across the agency and hiring a substantial number of employees in the DDSs and ODAR. We have recently reassessed resources, and today I approved 900 new hires for front-line positions in Operations; virtually all of this allocation is for field offices. Moreover, I have decided to provide many of the additional hires to the most stressed offices. To the extent that space allows, we will be adding an average of 3 hires to the 200 field offices we found to be the most short-handed.

We can take this step forward because we have honored our commitment to Congress and the American public to make disability backlog reduction our top priority. We have 25 new hearing offices coming on line, and ODAR has reduced the number of pending cases for 15 straight months. Average processing times, particularly for the most backlogged offices, are dropping steadily.

In the face of furloughs and a deep recession, the DDSs have kept the number of pending cases well below our original projections so far this year.

Thank you for all you are doing in hard times to keep serving the American public.

Michael J. Astrue

Commissioner

Trust Funds Report Delayed

The Associated Press has put out a story saying that the annual report on the state of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds is being delayed until June 30, three months later than usual so that the effects of health care reform can be factored in. I doubt that health care reform will have any effect upon the Social Security trust funds in the near term. Increased longevity could have an effect upon the trust funds in the long term. In fact, I have read that health care reform should be judged primarily based upon its effects upon longevity. Health care reform certainly will have major effects upon the Medicare trust funds in the next five years.

One Shining Moment

GTHC

Cert Denied In Encarnacion

The Supreme Court has denied the petition for a writ of certiorari (scroll way down), that is they decided not to hear, the case of Encarnacion v. Astrue which concerns Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability benefits for disabled children. There had been earlier speculation that the Court might hear the case.

Happy Easter