Study Finds Excellent Public Experience With iClaims

Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently did a study of claimant experience with Social Security's online application process for retirement benefits. Here is an excerpt (footnote omitted):

To obtain applicants’ perceptions of the iClaim application and determine whether applicants filing for RIB [Retirement Insurance Benefits] using the iClaim application were receiving an appropriate level of service from SSA, we discussed their experiences with 200 applicants who filed an RIB iClaim application in May 2010.5 Based on our discussions, we determined that applicants had a positive perception of the RIB iClaim application process. In fact, 198 of the 200 applicants identified their experience filing online to be excellent, very good, or good, with almost half providing the top rating of excellent (see Chart 1).

There is one big caveat to this. The report is only talking about retirement claims which are, by far, the simplest claims that Social Security takes. A study of the far more complex online disability claims would show that Social Security still has a long way to go.

Bad Signs

From the Associated Press:

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell warned on Friday that GOP senators will not vote to increase the government's borrowing limit unless President Barack Obama agrees to rein in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, laying down a high-stakes marker just weeks before the debt ceiling is reached.

Meanwhile, a senior Treasury official" warns that a government shutdown may be unavoidable

Protecting Employees And Public

The proposed rules to protect the public and Social Security employees at hearings will appear in the Federal Register tomorrow. They do not amount to much.

I am not buying the statement that there can be no further review of a decision to force a telephone hearing on a claimant. Social Security may not review that any further but the federal courts certainly would since it has obvious due process implications. However, I have no fear that this provision will be abused.

Will OIDAP Be Scientific?

The Chairman of Social Security's Occupational Information Development Advisory Committee (OIDAP) has posted an interesting statement on OIDAP's website suggesting that Social Security and OIDAP may be starting to get the message that not everyone trusts them. Here is a brief excerpt:

The OIS [Occupational Information System] project faces a variety of misconceptions that could inhibit its rapid development. Foremost, the OIS’s development is scientific. Because the elements of its development are not tangibly put into test tubes, this premise is often missed or minimized by stakeholders. The OIDAP’s advice and recommendations to SSA for the development of the OIS hinge upon the importance of good science, the scientific process, and scientific integrity as cornerstones.

So the response to the criticism of OIDAP is to claim to be scientists seeking neutral facts.

Give me a break.

No matter how wonderfully scientific the data collection is, there is every sign that OIDAP and Social Security are determined to make decisions before, during and after data collection to assure that the scientific data is presented in such as way as to conform to Social Security's desires to support current policies. Stuffing the data collected into categories such as "Sedentary", "Light" and "Medium" is an inherently imprecise business that requires many judgment calls. The agency seems to want to be certain that there is no one like the Department of Labor who can say "Stop" when it makes judgment call after judgment call in one direction. This has happened before even with the Department of Labor involved. See above. Nothing whatsoever that OIDAP has done would give the least bit of assurance that they have any other plan.

OIDAP's critics are convinced that the U.S. labor market has changed dramatically and that these changes seriously undercut current Social Security policies. The cognitive demands of work have gone up and there are far fewer manufacturing jobs. This should lead to changes in Social Security disability determination such that more claims would be approved but OIDAP's critics believe that Social Security and OIDAP are determined to prevent such changes and may even want to manipulate the data to support denying more claims.

There have been many signs that OIDAP members have been looking way outside their charter to find ways that Social Security can deny more claims.

Indiana ALJs Want Tests For Malingering; SSA Not So Much

From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG)

We received a letter, dated August 1, 2009, from a former CE [Consultative Examination] provider who served as an independent medical source while performing psychological evaluations for the IN-DDB. [Indiana Disability Determination Bureau?] The CE provider raised questions about SSA’s [Social Security Administration's] CE process and claimed the Chicago Regional Office (RO) and IN-DDB discouraged the use of certain language as well as the term “malingering” when stating a medical opinion in a CE report.6 Malingering is a term used to describe individuals who intentionally pretend to have, or grossly exaggerate, physical or psychological symptoms for their own gain. ...

RESULTS OF REVIEW
SSA Headquarters and the Chicago RO [Regional Office] have not issued guidelines on suitable language for CE medical opinions and use of certain terms, such as malingering, in CE reports. Although the Chicago RO has preferences regarding suitable language in CE medical opinions, its expectations have not been formalized. Further, while SSA Headquarters does not encourage DDSs to purchase tests for malingering and the Chicago RO would like to cease procurement of these tests, the IN-DDB is still obtaining such tests at the request of administrative law judges (ALJ). ...

While SSA Headquarters’ guidance encourages the identification of malingering, it does not encourage the purchase of malingering tests for mental and psychological impairments. Under “CE Best Practices,” SSA Headquarters’ guidance states, “Do not purchase CEs that include tests for malingering.” The guidance also states, “. . . there is no test, when passed or failed, which conclusively determines the presence of an inaccurate patient self-report.” Related guidance states it is “. . . the observation and assessment of the claimant when challenged with various tasks, and using multiple records and observations from multiple sources, that allows the clinician to make meaningful inferences about a claimant, and the likelihood of malingering.” ...

We believe the IN-DDB’s process of allowing tests for malingering for ODAR, while discouraging the same tests for initial and redetermination cases, sends an inconsistent message to CE providers about SSA’s position on the appropriateness and usefulness of tests for malingering for mental and psychological impairments.

I think it is inappropriate to even talk about "tests for malingering" since there is no accepted "test for malingering." If there were, Social Security would have long since been using it. Supposed "tests for malingering" are sometimes used to try to defeat workers compensation or personal injury claims but they have not been validated and are not generally accepted in the medical community.

My experience is that there are a hell of a lot of Social Security disability claimants with undiagnosed somatoform disorders but not many who exhibit malingering.

Senate Fails To Pass Appropriations

From the Associated Press:

The Democratic-led Senate on Wednesday emphatically rejected a budget-slashing House spending bill as too draconian. It then immediately killed a rival Democratic plan that was derided by moderate Democrats as too timid in its drive to cut day-to-day agency budgets. ...

The GOP plan mustered 44 aye votes; the Democratic measure received just 42 votes, with 10 party members and liberal independent Bernard Sanders in opposition. Moderates Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Ben Nelson, D-Neb., Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and McCaskill — each face potentially difficult re-election bids next year — were among those opposed to the Democratic version.

Update: There are straws in the wind suggesting that some very large multi-year agreement is in the works. Since this would be dependent upon the existence of some reservoir of good will between the parties, I am not going to get carried away with optimism.

Senate Appropriations Hearing Video Available

The video of today's hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee is now available online. It was not available in streaming video as best I could tell.

Update: Commissioner Astrue was surprisingly vague when asked what part of Social Security would be closed if the government shuts down because of an appropriations impasse. Perhaps it was because the answer to the question is complex. Perhaps it is because the Administration would prefer to stay vague on this. There may be more public interest in what happens at Social Security than at any other agency. In any case, we do not know exactly what to expect at Social Security if there is a government shutdown on March 19.

Further update: The hearing featured an impromptu appearance by Nancy Shor, Executive Director of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives, when Marty Ford had trouble with questions about the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). Ford's difficulty is not surprising since this is not an issue she would have had much exposure to. The House appropriations bill would have defunded EAJA for the rest of the fiscal year.

And a further update: ABC News reports on the hearing -- and, like Senator Shelby, conflates the issue of Social Security's long term financing with the immediate issue of the Social Security's administrative budget.

Commissioner Testimony On Appropriations

Michael Astrue has been testifying today before the Senate Appropriations Committee. His written remarks talk about about what is already happening because his agency is operating under a Continuing Resolution (CR) that freezes the operating budget at last year's levels and what will happen if this freeze continues:

Because of the uncertainty of our budget and the length of the CR, I have had to make choices that will begin to erode service. Our employees continue to churn out work, but they are disappointed and are becoming demoralized about the prospect of watching what they have worked so hard to achieve slip away. I regret that we may not be able to keep our commitments to the American people because we do not have the necessary funding to continue moving forward. ...

While we regret the resulting loss in service, we have tried to prepare for the CR. In July, we instituted a full hiring freeze for all headquarters and regional office staff, and then we further restricted hiring to allow only those components critical to the backlog reduction effort to replace staffing losses. Under a CR, we will continue – and likely expand – the hiring freeze. We will reduce or eliminate, overtime, which our front line employees depend on to keep up with their work.

We have decided not to open eight needed hearing offices, and we will not have staff to open our new Jackson, Tennessee Teleservice Center this year, and perhaps not even next year. We are discontinuing service in over 300 remote service sites throughout the United States. Most of these sites are contact stations housed in locations like libraries, senior centers, or other facilities where a Social Security employee travels, typically once or twice a month, to take applications for Social Security cards or benefits, as well as answer questions. We have also begun looking at field office consolidation where that decision makes fiscal sense.

Each year we send Social Security Statements to non-beneficiaries who are over age 25. These annual Statements cost us approximately $70 million each year to print and mail. In order to conserve funds, we will suspend the current contract and stop sending out these Statements.

The Commissioner also talks about what would happen if the appropriations bill passed by the House of Representatives, which would cut funding well below last year's levels, becomes law:

[T]here is a direct nexus between our funding and our service level. We want to prepare you for what a deep cut would mean. Our backlogs will skyrocket, and people will wait considerably longer to receive decisions. As our backlogs grow, it will become more difficult, expensive, and time-consuming for us to eliminate them. Waiting times in field offices and on our 800-number will increase dramatically. Deep cuts will cause billions of dollars of payment errors that will take years to address, hardly a wise use of taxpayers’ dollars. Even if we have specific funding for program integrity work, we need the people to do that work plus all of their other fundamental responsibilities. ...

I hope the House Appropriations Committee has a chance to hear this.