I'm Shocked! Shocked!

     From a press release issued by Sam Johnson, Chairman of the House Social Security Subcommittee:

Recently, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued the first of two reports looking at Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) who are outliers because of the number of cases they have or have not handled or the number of awards they have handed out. ... The request was made in the wake of a Wall Street Journal article exposing the practices of an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in a West Virginia hearing office who granted awards in 1,280 of the 1,284 disability cases he decided.  

“As Chair of the Social Security Subcommittee, I am extremely troubled by the enormous freedom this ALJ had in assigning himself cases – and then rubberstamping approval for nearly all of them with no accountability or oversight,” said Sam Johnson (R-TX). 

“This report is a real eye opener.  How can we trust the fairness of ALJ decisions when even some of their own co-workers say that the decisions could be influenced by the ALJ’s own political views and personal biases?  While ALJs must be free to do their jobs without agency interference or reprisal, they are supposed to follow the rules, not make their own.  The Subcommittee’s hearing series on securing the future of the disability insurance program will ask the tough questions and seek the right answers in order to ensure that the public is served fairly and that precious taxpayer dollars are not wasted,” added Chairman Johnson.  

     Political views and personal biases affecting judicial decisions! I'm shocked! Shocked!
     Let me let Representative Johnson in on a secret that lawyers don't generally share with laypeople. There is no judge whose decisions are completely unaffected by their political views and personal biases. This is especially the case when judges make decisions in cases where there is no clear cut "right" answer. This is more visible in Social Security disability cases because they are unusually difficult to judge.
     The same problem is also quite visible at the U.S. Supreme Court. I think that Representative Johnson is quite happy with political views and personal biases affecting judicial decisions when it's, let's say, Justice Scalia or Justice Thomas making the decisions.
     In any case, I don't know what report Representative Johnson was reading. The one I read didn't show anything that would shock anyone familiar with Social Security disability hearings. I was under the impression that there wasn't anything like a bombshell in the report.

New Regs On Recontacting Medical Sources And Dangerous Claimants

     Social Security has posted two separate notice in today's Federal Register. Here's an excerpt from the first:

We are modifying the requirement to recontact your medical source(s) first when we need to resolve an inconsistency or insufficiency in the evidence he or she provided. Depending on the nature of the inconsistency or insufficiency, there may be other, more appropriate sources from whom we could obtain the information we need. By giving adjudicators more flexibility in determining how best to obtain this information, we will be able to make a determination or decision on disability claims more quickly and efficiently in certain situations.

      And from the second:

We are revising our regulations at Sec. Sec. 404.937 and 416.1437 to further describe when the Hearing Office Chief Administrative Law Judge will find a claimant or other individual poses a reasonable threat to the safety of our employees or other participants in the hearing. We are making these changes to respond to public comments we received.

ODAR Processing Time Report

     Below is a processing time report for Social Security's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR). This is from the newsletter of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR).

Processing Time Report 1-27-12

Strategic Plan

     Social Security has posted its Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2013-2016. Here are the agency's near term goals:

• Goal 1: Faster hearing decisions
       By the end of FY 2013, we will reduce the average time for a hearing decision from 345 days at the end of FY 2011 to 270 days.
• Goal 2: Reduce Supplemental Security Income (SSI) overpayments
       By the end of FY 2013*, we will increase our SSI overpayment accuracy rate from 93.3 percent at the end of FY 2010 to 95 percent.
• Goal 3 Increase use of our online services
       By the end of FY 2013, we will increase our online filing rates from 36 percent at the end of FY 2011 to 48 percent.

This Doesn't Look Good

     From Joe Davidson's column in the Washington Post:

As the federal workforce endures a two-year freeze on basic pay rates and faces a possible increase in pension payments and as new employees will have to contribute more to their retirement program, Barbara Murchison has reason to smile.

A decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit could finally end her employment discrimination case against the Social Security Administration (SSA), which began 11 years ago. ...

As we reported in January, Murchison was reassigned from her team leader position at Social Security’s main office in Woodlawn, Md., in 2001. The agency conceded that she had been discriminated against, for reasons of race, age and sex, among others, after a ruling by an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) administrative judge. SSA agreed to give Murchison her gig back but did not.

Social Security, however, erroneously said it had restored Murchison to her position, and the EEOC accepted that false assurance.

This left Murchison in limbo. She fought to get her job back even after the District Court ruled against her at least in part because the EEOC did not issue a formal finding that the SSA had not followed the EEOC’s order to restore Murchison. She took it to the Court of Appeals, whose opinion really makes the Social Security Administration look bad. 
The opinion said the lower court’s decision and the EEOC’s acceptance of Social Security assurances were based on “what can only be deemed a deceptive and false assertion of compliance made by the SSA.” ...

In January, an SSA statement said that “we deny all of the allegations made by Ms. Murchison about the agency, and we expect to prevail” in the case.

They got that wrong, on both counts.

What's Up With Social Security's Occupational Information System Project?

     I have uploaded to Scribd a part of Social Security's Fiscal Year 2013 appropriation justification, that is their explanation of why they need the money they have requested. This part discusses research, particularly the planned Occupational Information System (OIS). You will note that Social Security tries hard to play up the role of the Department of Labor. Don't be fooled. This is completely controlled by the Social Security Administration. It has been clear all along that Social Security wants to control every aspect of its OIS project. That is the primary criticism that people outside Social Security have made of the OIS project.

Work Reviews Challenged

     From Courthouse News Service:

     The Social Security Administration will have to face claims it failed to make work reviews accessible to the mentally and developmentally disabled, a federal judge ruled.
     U.S. District Judge Edward Chen refused to dismiss two related cases accusing the SSA of violating Title II and Title XVI of the Rehabilitation Act, finding allegations of emotional distress in the review process sufficient to constitute an injury for purposes of standing.
     Work reviews take place after a person has been deemed disabled and granted benefits and are conducted to ensure beneficiaries are not earning above a certain income level, in which case benefits can be terminated, suspended or reduced.
     Terrence Davis and "John Doe" claim the SSA does not train claims representatives how to conduct work reviews when the person under review has mental or development disabilities or how to communicate with such people and that the SSA failed to modify its forms to make them understandable to people with such disabilities....
     Davis originally filed his case in 2006 as a class action but Judge Marilyn Hall Patel rejected his motion for class certification while allowing him to re-file. Davis instead chose to file an amended individual complaint without class allegations. Doe filed his individual complaint a few months later also without class allegations.

Disability Claims Increase

    From the Rupert Murdock owned New York Post:

Standing too many months on the unemployment line is driving Americans crazy — literally — and it’s costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

With their unemployment-insurance checks running out, some of the country’s long-term jobless are scrambling to fill the gap by filing claims for mental illness and other disabilities with Social Security — a surge that hobbles taxpayers and making the employment rate look healthier than it should as these people drop out of the job statistics.

“It could be because their health really is getting worse from the stress of being out of work,” says Matthew Rutledge, a research economist at Boston College. “Or it could just be desperation — people trying to make ends meet when other safety nets just aren’t there." ...

During the recent economic boom, only 33 percent of applicants were claiming mental illness, but that figure has jumped to 43 percent, says Rutledge, citing preliminary results from his latest research.