On A Collision Course

     The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE), an organization of the disability examiners who make determinations on disability claims for Social Security at the initial and reconsideration levels, has issued its Spring 2012 newsletter. Here's an excerpt from a summary of a meeting between the NADE Board and several Social Security officials:

SSA [Social Security Administration and the DDS [Disability Determination Services] can expect a continued decrease in the national budget.  All departments, including SSA, are facing an across the board funding cut of nine percent (9%) next fiscal year barring a legislative change in the law.  The projections is that close to 3,000 DDS employees have been lost since Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 to attrition with only the ability to hire 200 critically needed employees nationwide. The loss of each examiner equates to a loss of work on 600 claims. ...  Last FY the DDS had 59,000 staged claims awaiting assignment [to a disability examiner]. Currently there are 106,000 staged claims and SSA anticipates there will be 170,000 staged claims by the end of this fiscal year [September 30, 2012]. The Continuing Disability Review (CDR) workload has been set at 435,000 for FY 2012 with the potential for a dramatic increase for CDRs next fiscal year, depending upon the  budget.

      Note the inherent conflict between doing Continuing Disability Reviews (CDRs) to determine whether claimants are still disabled and doing reviews of new disability claims. Congress has ordered that there be great increases in the number of CDRs at a time when the agency is not being given enough funds to review new disability claims. Inevitably, this creates a large and constantly increasing backlog of new claims awaiting adjudication. This conflict may become dramatically worse next year because Social Security may be forced to do dramatically more CDRs next year with a dramatically lower appropriation.

Fee Payment Numbers

     Below are updated numbers on payments of fees to attorneys and others who represent Social Security claimants. These payments come out of the back benefits of the claimants. Since the attorneys get paid at the same time as the claimants, this is an indication of how quickly or how slowly Social Security is able to get benefit payments out to claimants after they have been approved. Note the dramatic change between January and February.

Fee Payments
Month/Year	Volume	Amount
Jan-12	29,926	89,749,312.99
Feb-12	43,946	134,207,416.10
Mar-12	47,376	139,571,577.57

$200?

     From KPBS:

A National City [California] psychologist was arrested and charged today on suspicion of completing and selling immigration and Social Security forms falsely stating that his patients had a medical disability. 

Dr. Roberto J. Velasquez, 55, was charged with making false statements in immigration documents and applications for Supplemental Security Income disability benefits. ...


For a fee of $200, Velasquez would provide a form falsely stating that a person qualified for a medical disability exception, even though the person had no actual disability, according to the affidavit. 

Velasquez was also completing medical reports for people seeking to file applications for Social Security Administration's Supplemental Security Income program, authorities said. Velasquez would falsely state that those people had a medical disability, according to the affidavit.

      I've been representing Social Security disability claimants for more than 30 years and this is the first time I've heard of this happening. I expect it's happened but it's certainly uncommon.  It's not hard to understand why it's rare. Note that the psychologist is alleged to have charged only $200. That's not much money to get in return for prostituting yourself as well as risking jail and the loss of your professional license but that's about all you could hope to get for doing this because the claimants involved are so poor. You'd have to be pretty desperate or depraved or stupid to do it.

Rate Of Retirment And Disability Claims Drops In 2011

     From the Urban Institute:

After peaking in the wake of the Great Recession, Social Security retirement and disability awards fell in 2011 as the economy improved. Only 27 percent of Americans age 62 and older began collecting retirement benefits that year, the lowest take-up rate since 1976. Disability applications and awards remained unusually high, however. In 2011, 18.9 insured workers per 1,000 applied for Social Security disability benefits, more than in any year except 2010.

     Below are a couple of charts from the report

:

Tell Me About Sharepoint

     I notice that this blog gets some hits from Social Security's Intranet Sharepoint platform. Sharepoint is collaborative software which can be used either on an Intranet or over the Internet with password access. Sharepoint looks like it might be useful software for many organizations. How widespread is access to Sharepoint within Social Security? Does everyone have access to the whole thing or are there layers of access? How well does it work? Does most people like participating? How hard is it to set up a new collaborative effort within Sharepoint? Do you think it would be useful software for a professional group?

One Little Thing Not Mentioned In Yesterday's Press Release

     In addition to partially duplicating and to some extent contradicting Social Security's Listing of Impairments, the additions to the Compassionate Allowance list announced yesterday won't even be effective until August 13, 2012, a point that was not mentioned in the press release. What was the point of announcing a policy that won't even be in effect for more than three months?

     Once Social Security gets a new Commissioner next year this whole compassionate allowance thing needs to get folded into the Listings. That's what the Listings are for. If the Listings were inadequate, they should have been amended. There was no need to add another layer on top of the Listings. It's just confusing to those who have to administer the program.

Additions To Compassionate Allowances

     Social Security has sent out a press release announcing that 52 conditions have been added to the agency's Compassionate Allowance list. Several of the conditions listed are already in Social Security's Listings of Impairments, often with restrictions not included in this list, meaning that this list to some extent contradicts Social Security's regulations! I have not done an exhaustive survey. I expect there are others where an item on this list is included in the Listings but under a more general description. I believe that hepatoblastoma might be an example since all tumors of the liver meet Listing 13.19. Also, if I remember correctly, tabes dorsalis used to be in the Listings but was removed. Here are the newly added conditions with my notation in bold of the ones where there is a Listing:

• Aicardi-Goutieres Syndrome
• Alobar Holoprosencephaly 
• Alpers Disease
• Alpha Mannosidosis
• Carcinoma of Unknown Primary Site Listing 13.27
• Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis
• Child Neuroblastoma Listing 113.21
• Child Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Listing 113.05
• Chondrosarcoma with multimodal therapy
• Cornelia de Lange Syndrome-Classic Form
• Ewings Sarcoma 
• Follicular Dendritic Cell Sarcoma with metastases
• Fucosidosis - Type 1
• Galactosialidosis - Early Infantile Type
• Glioma Grade III and IV
• Hallervorden-Spatz Disease
• Hepatoblastoma
• Histiocytosis
• Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome
• Hydranencephaly
• Hypocomplementemic Urticarial Vasculitis
• Hypophosphatasia Perinatal lethal Form
• I Cell disease
• Infantile Free Sialic Acid Storage Disease
• Juvenile Onset Huntington Disease
• Kufs Disease Type A and B
• Lissencephaly
• Lymphomatoid Granulomatosis Grade III 
• Malignant Brain Stem Gliomas - Childhood
• Malignant Melanoma with metastases Listing 13.03
• Mastocytosis Type IV
• Medulloblastoma with metastasis
• Merkel Cell Carcinoma with metastases
• Myocolonic Epilepsy and Ragged Red Fibers Syndrome
• Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis Obliterative Bronchiolitis 
• Ohtahara Syndrome
• Orthochromatic Leukodystrophy with Pigmented Glia
• Pearson Syndrome
• Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease-Classic Form
• Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease-Connatal Form
• Peripheral Nerve Cancer - metastatic or recurrent Listing 13.13.B
• Perry  Syndrome 
• Rhabdomyosarcoma 
• Rhizomelic Chondrodysplasia Punctata
• Schindler Disease Type 1
• Smith Lemli Opitz Syndrome
• Spinal Nerve Root Cancer- metastatic or recurrent
• Stiff Person Syndrome
• Tabes Dorsalis
• Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome
• Xeroderma Pigmentosum Listings 8.07 and 108.07

Office Closures In Georgia

From the Moultrie, Georgia Observer:

With the Moultrie Social Security office on the budget chopping block, officials are hoping a way (sic) to find a way to prevent the closure scheduled for the end of June.

The agency said this week that the closing was based on a review of the office, significant budget shortfalls and other service options available to residents. The move is anticipated to save $2.1 million over 10 years.

In Georgia the Social Security Administration also closed its Swainsboro office in December, Patti Patterson, regional communications director in Atlanta, said in an email response. So far the agency has closed eight offices nationally with expected savings of $2 million annually.

The 2012 closings all are of offices that employ less than 11 and serve less than 80 visitors a day, Patterson said. Moultrie’s office has 11 employees and serves about 60 people per day. Those employees will be offered employment in other nearby offices.