ALJs Complain Of Threats

From the Associated Press:

Judges who hear Social Security disability cases are facing a growing number of violent threats from claimants angry over being denied benefits or frustrated at lengthy delays in processing claims.

There were at least 80 threats to kill or harm administrative law judges or staff over the past year — an 18 percent increase over the previous reporting period, according to data collected by the agency.

The data was released to the Association of Administrative Law Judges and made available to The Associated Press. ...

A Senate subcommittee is expected to hear testimony on Monday at a field hearing in Akron, Ohio, about the rising number of threats, as well as the status of the massive backlog in applications for disability benefits, which are available to people who can't work because of medical problems.

Why Didn't You Do This Before The Election?

From CNN Money:

When House Democrats return to Washington on Monday, a top priority will be putting a $250 dollar check in the mail to 58 million Social Security recipients.

Democrats plan to vote early in the lame-duck session on a bill that would provide Social Security recipients with a one-time payment, according to the office of Earl Pomeroy, a Democrat from North Dakota who authored the legislation.

Concerns Over Proposed Mental Illness Listings Changes

From the Chicago Tribune:

Deep inside a 34-page proposed federal regulation are a few sentences that are causing nightmares for mental health advocacy groups.

The regulation, from the Social Security Administration, could change how people with mental illnesses are evaluated for disability payments.

The angst is over whether standardized testing will be required to determine such payments. The proposed regulation is not clear on that controversial subject. At one point is says standardized tests will not be required but then goes into detail on how the exams would be used to determine a person's fitness for work.

The confusion over the wording — and fears that it will be interpreted to require testing — has advocates by the hundreds calling in comments to the Social Security Administration, which will accept them until Wednesday....

"We don't have good tests for this, and the way they are describing how the tests would be used suggests the goal and likely effect is to dramatically reduce the number of people who are eligible for disability," said Mark Heyrman of the Mental Health Summit, a Chicago-based advocacy group. ...

Tom Yates, an attorney with Chicago's Health and Disability Advocates, has a benign interpretation of the proposed rules. He thinks Social Security wants only to clarify its expectations for the few times a standardized test might be used in a mental illness disability claim.

For the record, I have only mild concerns about this aspect of the proposal. In my mind there is a more serious problem that has to do with substituting the word "and" for the word "or." I will write more about this in the near future.

CBO Study On Social Security Disability

From a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Study(footnotes omitted):

Between 1970 and 2009, the number of people receiving DI benefits more than tripled, from 2.7 million to 9.7 million. That jump, which significantly outpaced the increase in the working-age population during that period, is attributable to several changes—in characteristics of that population, in federal policy, and in opportunities for employment. In addition, during those years, the average inflation-adjusted cost per person receiving DI benefits rose from about $6,900 to about $12,800 (in 2010 dollars). As a result, inflation-adjusted expenditures for the DI program, including administrative costs, increased nearly sevenfold between 1970 and 2009, climbing from $18 billion to $124 billion (in 2010 dollars). Most DI beneficiaries, after a two-year waiting period, are also eligible for Medicare; the cost of those benefits in fiscal year 2009 totaled about $70 billion.

Under current law, the DI program is not financially sustainable. ... Without legislative action to reduce the DI program’s outlays, increase its dedicated federal revenues, or transfer other federal funds to it, the Social Security Administration (SSA) will not have the legal authority to pay full DI benefits beyond [2018].

NOSSCR Comments On Mental Impairments Listings Changes

The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) has posted its comments on the proposed changes to Social Security's Mental Impairment Listings. Here are a few excerpts:

II. “B” Criteria Issues ...
[W]e have a significant concern about the language change in paragraph B3, which also applies to the newly proposed paragraph B1. As discussed below, SSA should use the word “or,” rather than “and.”

The NPRM [Notice of Proposed Rule-Making] proposes to change paragraph B to read as follows:

B. Marked limitations of two or extreme limitation of one of the following mental abilities:”
1. “Ability to understand, remember, and apply information”;
2. “Ability to interact with others”;
3. “Ability to concentrate, persist, and maintain pace”; and
4. “Ability to manage oneself.”

In the preamble to the NPRM, SSA explains the change from “or” to “and,” stating that it is not a substantive change from current policy, “but only a clarification of the overall requirement” ...

We are concerned that changing “or” to “and” in the actual listing could be misinterpreted as a change in policy that would set a higher standard so that a claimant would be required to demonstrate limitation in each of the three components of the proposed B1 or B3 criteria. We do not believe that this is what SSA intends by the proposed change in light of the statement above in the preamble ...

C. Use of standardized test scores and “standard deviations”

SSA proposes to incorporate provisions from the childhood SSI functional equivalence regulation, 20 C.F.R. § 416.926a(e), regarding the definition of “marked” and “extreme.” See 75 Fed. Reg. at 51342. This results in SSA defining “marked” and “extreme” in terms of standardized testing and standard deviations below the mean. Under this change, an individual could be found to have a “marked limitation” in one of the paragraph B criteria with a score that is at least two, but less than three, standard deviations below the mean on an individually administered standardized test designed to measure that ability. The individual could be found to have an “extreme limitation” with a score that is three standard deviations below the mean. ...

This is a flawed approach which should not be used in the listings for either adults or children with mental health disorders because, to date, no standardized instruments have been developed which measure the specific functions in the B criteria and are widely accepted by professionals in the field of assessment. ...

V. Listing 12.05: Intellectual Disability/Mental Retardation (ID/MR) ...
Claimants’ representatives know first-hand that some adjudicators will ignore or give less weight to IQ test scores if the adjudicators subjectively believe that the claimant’s functioning is inconsistent with the test score, even if there is no basis for rejecting the validity of the test score. We question this practice. The proposed criteria could support the practice of some state agencies and ALJs who deny cases because the claimant can cook, take care of personal needs, care for children, or shows some other skill or strength.

Comments on the NPRM must be filed by November 17.

Study On Accelerated Medicare Benefits For The Disabled

Social Security has released a new issue of the Social Security Bulletin, the agency's scholarly publication. One article is of particular interest for the long term. Social Security has been doing a demonstration project which has allowed a few people approved for Disability Insurance Benefits by Social Security to go on Medicare immediately without the brutal two year and five month waiting period. This is the first report on that project. Not surprisingly, those few who received early Medicare reported better health care.

Virginia Attorney Accused Of Misappropriating $450,000 In Social Security Fees

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

A Richmond attorney who was fired for theft this year from the law firm of Marks & Harrison has surrendered her law license after admitting to the Virginia State Bar that she misappropriated at least $450,000 from her former employer.

The case involving Kyle Cornelia Leftwich is now in the hands of Hopewell Commonwealth's Attorney Richard K. Newman, who said yesterday that he intends to seek criminal charges against Leftwich after the matter was referred to his office by the Virginia State Bar. Leftwich worked at Marks & Harrison as a disability-law specialist from September 1994 until her termination in June. ...

According to a disciplinary board affidavit, Leftwich's practice included representing disability claimants before the Social Security Administration. When she successfully concluded a claim, the government would issue a check for legal fees payable to her as the claimant's attorney.

Although the checks were made payable to her, they were the property of Marks & Harrison, in accordance with her employment agreement. Beginning in 2003, however, Leftwich began diverting some of these checks for her own use rather than delivering them to the law firm, the affidavit says. ...

Chamberlain, Edmonds Sold

I missed this story from the Atlanta Business Chronicle from September:

Emdeon will acquire Atlanta-based Chamberlin Edmonds & Associates for $260 million.

Nashville-based Emdeon, a health care information technology company, announced Monday it will buy Chamberlin Edmonds, whose software helps hospitals determine Medicaid eligibility. Chamberlin Edmonds' customers include more than 200 acute care facilities in 30 states.

As many readers know, Chamberlin, Edmonds provides representation on Medicaid disability cases that are closely related to Social Security disability claims.