Public Hearing On Compassionate Allowances

How many Social Security Commissioners have thought that one key to solving Social Security's disability backlog is finding ways to speed up allowances for those who are most obviously disabled? I have not kept count but I think it has been at least the last three. The current Commissioner has scheduled a public hearing on his Compassionate Allowance plan for November 9 in Baltimore. The subject of this hearing is cardiovascular diseases and multiple organ transplants.

Pomeroy In Tough Battle

Earl Pomeroy, the Chairman of the House Social Security Subcommittee, trails narrowly in his race to gain re-election to his seat as North Dakota's sole member of the House of Representatives, according to a Rasmussen poll.

You can contribute to Pomeroy's campaign online. It would be a shame if this able, experienced and decent man is swept out of office by a candidate who has been endorsed by Sarah Palin, a candidate who has proposed that the nation "save" Social Security by drilling for oil in our national parks.

You Won't Believe This

Snopes.com is website that tries to correct the wild rumors that float around the internet. Currently, they are trying to correct a rumor that there will be no Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) this year not because there has been no increase in the cost of living but because Social Security is using that money to pay for an electronic medical records processing system! Of course, this is preposterous. It is hard to imagine how this got started accidentally but it is also hard to imagine why anyone would deliberately concoct such nonsense.

Training At The Social Security Administration

Social Security had a public relations problem last year when it was revealed that the agency had a training session at the Arizona Biltmore -- even though it was off-season, the thermometer probably said it was 115 degrees outside and the hotel rates were not much more than one would pay at a Motel 6. Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) was asked to do a study on Social Security's training expenses in general. Here is a summary of what they found:

Although SSA’s cost systems were not set up to specifically track and accumulate training costs in one report or management information system, we reviewed the available financial data and estimated the Agency spent approximately $409 million on training-related activities in Fiscal Year (FY) 2009, representing about 3.8 percent of SSA’s $10.7 billion administrative budget. This amount does not include training costs incurred by the State disability determination services, which we estimated could be another $64 million. SSA incurred approximately $9.7 million in off-site conference costs in FY 2009, or about 2.4 percent of the estimated $409 million spent by the Agency on training in FY 2009 (and less than 0.1 percent of the Agency’s administrative budget). Beginning in FY 2010, off-site conferences became subject to centralized oversight to ensure such training closely adhered to the Agency’s training procurement policies.

Not Feeling The Excitement

From Federal Computer Week:

The Social Security Administration’s recent video competition generated fewer than 10 entries, and is the latest in a string of federal video-production promotions with lackluster participation.

The contests to create original videos are part of open government/innovation programs at several agencies. In April, a video contest at the Environmental Protection Agency drew in about 20 entries, and another one at the General Services Administration attracted about 30 entries. Both those competitions offered $2,500 prizes.

The SSA contest to create a publicity video for the agency offered no cash prize, yet generated high hopes. “We anticipated selecting the winner – or even several – from a sizable collection of contest entries," Frank Baitman, SSA chief information officer, wrote on the White House Open Government Blog on Oct. 1. "Well, we didn’t get as much participation as we’d hoped. Fewer than ten solid entries came in.”

Encryption Of CDs

I have reproduced below the contents of a letter that I received recently from Social Security. I am not sure whether this has been distributed nationally. I used Adobe Acrobat's optical character recognition (OCR) on this. I hope I have straightened out all the misreads.

Dear Colleague:

We are writing to tell you about an important change that furthers our commitment to protect our claimants' personal information.

In October, we will begin a pilot program to encrypt the claim folder CDs sent to you by the Social Security Administrations' Office of Disability Adjudication and Review. We expect to expand the pilot rapidly, so that by the end of 20 10, we will be encrypting all CDs sent to appointed representatives and medical/vocational experts. We developed the decryption password formula in collaboration with members of the appointed representative community. The encrypted CDs are easy to use and provide a major and necessary improvement in safeguarding the personally identifiable information in our possession. We huve enclosed a guide that describes the process.

We appreciate your ongoing support to help strengthen the security and privacy of our claimant's

data.

Jim Borland
Associated Commissioner
Office of Electronic Services and Strategic Information

Jim Bentley
Associate Commissioner Acting Associate Commissioner
Office of Electronic Services and Office of Budget, Facilities and Security

Opening an Encrypted CD

No additional software is necessary to read the information on the encrypted CD. The following instructions will allow proper viewing of the contents of the CD.

1. Insert the Electronic Folder CD into your PC's CDROM drive.

2. Double click on "My Computer"; next double-click on your PC's CDROM drive to display the contents of the CD.

3. Double-click on the pme.exe file located on the CD.
4. Enter the Account Name and Password; click OK.

Account Name: ssa
All ODAR encrypted media will use the same Account Name, "ssa". The Account Name field is not case sensitive.
a. Use the following criteria to determine the encryption password. If you are unable to determine the correct password for your encrypted CD, call the local ODAR office that sent you the CD for assistance. NOTE: The password will always be nine characters long.

Representatives and Claimants Password Criteria:

• First 4 letters of claimant's first name in lower case (if the name is less than four characters, use "#"s after the last alpha)
• A number sign (#)
• Last 4 numbers of the claimant's SSN

The CD will be labeled as follows:

• Claimant's full last name
• Claimant's first 4 numbers of the SSN

Examples:
Claimant's name is Mickey Mays and SSN is 123-45-6789. The encryption password is mick#6789. Label on the CD is "Mays 1234".
Claimant's name is Tom Mays and SSN is 123-45-6789. The encryption password is tom##6789. Label on the CD is "Mays 1234".

Experts (medical and vocational) Password Criteria:

• First 4 of the expert's last name (lowercase). If the name is less than four characters, use "#"s after the last alpha.
• A number sign (#)
• First 4 numbers of the experts BPA

The CD will be labeled as follows:

• Experts full first name.
• Date of the hearing or "interrogatory".

Examples:
Experts name is Sam Jones and the BPA number is 1234. The encryption password is jone#1234. Label on the CD is "Sam 080910" (date ofhearing is 8/9/10) or "Sam interrogatory",

5. To decrypt the contents of the CD, highlight the words "[Encrypted Device]" and click on the Extract button.
6. The Browse For Folder window will appear. The first time you decrypt a CD, highlight the drive where you want to save the file and click on [Make New Folder] button. NOTE: If a folder already exists, navigate to that location to download the file.
7. Change the folder name then highlight the new folder and click on the OK button.
8. Go to the folder created, or the location you extracted the files. Double-click on the index.html file
9. Close the Pointsec encryption window by clicking on the "x" in the upper right hand corner of the screen or by selecting File/Exit from the menu.
10. A deletion window will appear if files were extracted to your computer.
11. If you extracted files to your hard drive or server and DO NOT want the files deleted from your computer, select "No". By selecting "Cancel", you will return to the Pointsec encryption window.

1.0 Frequently Asked Questions

What happens if the account name and/or password entry is incorrect?
If incorrect information is entered in the Account name and/or Password fields, you will receive a Pointsec Media Encryption box, pop-up message say that says, "Your password or account name is wrong. Please try again."

Click the OK button on the screen to reenter the correct Account name and Password. If you continue to get this message, please contact the local ODAR office that sent you the CD.

What happens if the files are copied or viewed beforethey are un-encrypted?
If the files are copied or view straight from the CD without running the decryption process, they will be unreadable.

Once the contents ofthe folder is decrypted, can I simply view the files without copying or extracting them to my computer?
Yes, you can view the files individually from the Pointsec Media Encryption window without using the index.html to navigate to them. You will have to select each separate document in the "docs" folder. If you open the index.html from the Pointsec window, it may not display correctly.

To view the actual tiff images you will need to navigate to the "docs" folder and select the desired
image.

One Reaction To The News That There Will Be No COLA This Year

Word is beginning to filter out that since there has been no increase in the cost of living that there will be no cost of living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security benefits this year. The Associated Press quotes Andrew Biggs, former Deputy Commissioner at Social Security who is now in residence at a right wing think tank, as saying that "If you're the ruling party, this is not the sort of thing you want to have happening two weeks before an election."

It's A Roller Coaster

Updated figures on payments of fees to attorneys and certain others for representation of claimants before the Social Security Administration:

Fee Payments
Month/Year	Volume	Amount
Jan-10	32,227	$111,440,046.23
Feb-10	29,914	$105,708,101.59
Mar-10	34,983	$122,874,426.87
Apr-10	44,740	$153,478,589.32
May-10	34,686	$119,527,194.40
June-10	32,432	$111,887,579.72
July-10	32,232	$132,328,622.27
Aug-10	34,755	$119,424,346.42
Sept-10	32,660	$108,650,373.60