Over The Top Press Release

     See if you can make any sense of the press release issued by the South East Michigan Health Information Exchange touting its work on a contract with Social Security to create a system that "automatically pulls health records and creates a comprehensive set of medical information that populates a Continuity of Care Document (CCD)."  According to the press release, the contractor has succeeded in "accelerating the [Social Security disability] process from an average of 457 days by paper to 6 hours electronically." In case you don't know, this claim is preposterous in many ways. There is no way that every health care provider in the area is part of this exchange. There is no way that the exchange can guarantee that every person is accurately identified in all their medical records. There is no way that the exchange can make reasonable determinations as to what records to obtain. A single hospitalization that lasts a few days can generate a record running into hundreds of pages. How much of that does Social Security need or want? How can any software make that determination? Records created before a provider switched to electronic records -- which may have been last year -- are unlikely to be searchable electronically. Not all providers in any area of the country have made the switch to electronic records. There is no way under current circumstances that disparate electronic records software can work together seamlessly. Finally, 457 days would have to be the entire time from the date a claimant files a claim to the date he or she receives a decision from an Administrative Law Judge. Reducing that to six hours? Give me a break.

Cutting Social Security's Budget Would Cost A Lot Of Money

     From a letter from Stephen Goss, Social Security's Chief Actuary, to Xavier Becerra, the ranking Democrat on the House Social Security Subcommittee:

Our current estimates for long-term program savings in benefits and payments to recipients from program integrity efforts is about a $9 long-term program savings for each $1 spent on medical CDRs [Continuing Disability Reviews], and about a $6 long-term program savings for each $1 spent on SSI [Supplemental Security Income]  redeterminations. ... Given these relationships, we can provide the following approximate range estimates [for the following appropriations scenarios]:

1. Assume 2013 funding for continuing disability reviews (both Title II and Title XVI) and Title XVI eligibility redeterminations was $272 million, rather than its current (2012) level of $757,484,000 [which would be the case under the appropriations bill for Social Security put forward by Republicans in the House of Representatives]. With this reduction in funding for 2013 of about $485 million, assuming that the funding levels assumed in all other years in our baseline estimates are unaffected, we would expect program benefit/payments to be between $3 billion and $4 billion more over the lifetime of those who would not be reassessed due to the reduced funding.
2. Assume 2013 funding for continuing disability reviews (both Title II and Title XVI) and Title XVI eligibility redeterminations was $272 million, rather than $1.024 billion, as provided for in the Budget Control Act of 2011 (P.L. 112-25) [the sequestration provided for under last year's budget deal]. With this reduction in funding for 2013 of about $752 million, assuming that the funding levels assumed in all other years in our baseline estimates are unaffected, we would expect program benefit/payments to be between $5 billion and $6 billion more over the lifetime of those who would not be reassessed due to the reduced funding.

     Update: This letter is starting to draw media attention. See Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo. These sites may not be familiar to you  but I guarantee you that they are read widely on Capitol Hill. Themes that first appear in Huff Post and TPM often spread quickly to other media that are more widely followed. And, by the way, Huff Post and TPM are well worth reading.

Only 18% Of Women Wait Until Age 66 Or Later To Retire

     The Senate Special Committee on Aging held a hearing yesterday on Enhancing Women's Retirement. The hearing featured a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). There is much in the report that is interesting but not directly relevant to the subject of this blog, such as the fact that the poverty rate among married women and men 65 and older is 3%, while the poverty rate in this age group among separated men is 20% and among separated women it's 22%. Also, Asians 65 and older have a higher poverty rate than whites, blacks or hispanics. Didn't see that one coming. Of relevance to Social Security are these facts:

• The majority of women claim Social Security retirement benefits at 62 - the earliest age possible.
• Only 18 percent of women wait until their normal retirement age of 66 or later. 

     How many of the people who think it would be a great idea to raise full retirement age to 70 are women?

Biloxi Office To Close

     The Associated Press reports that the Biloxi, Mississippi Social Security field office will permanently close its doors on September 30. This is supposed to save $3 million, although the report does not say how long it will take to save that amount. It has a population of 44,000.

Hearing On SSI Administration

     The Human Resources Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on July 25 on the use of technology to improve Supplemental Security Income (SSI) administration. I noticed nothing of much import in the written statements. There were two witnesses who clearly should not have been testifying, in my opinion, but I won't go into that. I think anyone who takes even a cursory look at this will quickly understand why I say this. 

     I found this bit from the written testimony of Patrick O'Carroll, Social Security's Inspector General, interesting since it's not something that would have occurred to me -- even though I have told clients in the past to apply for these types of benefits:

A recipient may not be eligible for SSI if SSA advises him or her of potential eligibility for other benefits—such as Title II benefits, veterans’ benefits, workers’ compensation, or unemployment insurance—and he or she does not take all steps to obtain such payments within 30 days.

Another type of benefit that falls into this category is a foreign-based pension. We currently have an audit in process that is examining the issue of SSI recipients who are eligible for or receiving a pension from Russia. Foreign entities that pay income to individuals living in the United States do not usually make this information available to the IRS; therefore, SSA cannot detect these pensions as it can with domestic entities. In Russia, pensions may be payable to individuals with as few as five years of work in
the country, even though the individuals reside in the United States.

Through data analysis, we identified a population of more than 25,000 SSI recipients nationwide who might be eligible for Russian pensions.

Danger Ahead

     According to a Senate Appropriations Committee report(page 77), the Social Security Administration would suffer a major blow if the budget cuts provided for in last year's budget deal are applied uniformly across the board to all domestic agencies. Social Security would lose 5,000 employees and all of the agency's employees and all Disability Determination Services employees would suffer approximately six weeks of furloughs. The average processing time at the initial level on disability claims would raise from 111 days to 180 days and the number of pending disability claims would nearly double from 861,000 to almost 1.5 million by the end of the fiscal year.

     Let me state again that this report assumes that the sequestration would be applied uniformly across all agencies. Neither the appropriations bill reported out of committee in the Senate nor the appropriations bill reported out of subcommittee in the House would do that. They would cut Social Security but not as badly as the sequestration. We have not heard exactly what the results would be under the House or Senate bills but there would still be considerable pain for Social Security. That does not mean that this report means nothing. We are a long way from any appropriations bill passing Congress. I can certainly predict that it will not happen before the election and probably won't happen for six months or more into the fiscal year, which begins October 1, 2012. This report shows what will happen if we go into a Continuing Funding (CR) Resolution to keep government going, which is almost certain to happen, and the CR is at the sequestration rate, which may or may not happen, and Social Security is not protected -- which is a very real possibility. These dramatic reductions in Social Security's administrative budget could happen before the election and could extend well past the election regardless of who is elected President. It could even last the entire fiscal year.

     Don't assume that Social Security will be protected from this disaster. Other agencies have their own arguments for protection from sequestration. Exempt Social Security and some other agency gets hit even harder. If Congress can't pass an actual appropriations bill that deals rationally with sequestration, how will it get its act together well enough to craft a CR that makes a rational allocation of the pain of sequestration?

I Haven't Noticed Social Security Changing Its Notices To Make Them Easier To Understand -- Have You?

     From the Baltimore Sun:

Advocates for plain language have issued their first report card on how clearly federal agencies communicate with taxpayers and others — and the Social Security Administration has drawn a pair of C's.
That put the Woodlawn-based administration in the middle of the dozen agencies assessed by the Center for Plain Language. The Washington-based organization promotes clear, easy-to-understand communication in government, business, nonprofits and academia.
On the first anniversary of the Plain Writing Act, the center graded each agency this month on how well it has met the requirements of the law and how well it has followed the "spirit" of the legislation. The Social Security Administration earned C's in each category. ...
A spokesman for the Social Security Administration said the agency strongly encourages plain writing, "because it is important that our millions of public communications are clear and concise."
"Even prior to the Plain Writing Act, we began a massive overhaul of our online services, our notices, and even our internal instructions to adhere to the principles of plain language," spokesman Mark Hinkle said. "We know that we can do more to improve our communications."
But Hinkle also defended the agency, saying the report card focused more on the process of conforming to the law than the agency's actual communications.

AC Policy On Extensions Of Time

     The most recent newsletter of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) includes this recent memo concerning Appeals Council policy on extensions of time to submit additional materials. It's nothing earth shaking but it's the sort of thing that needs to be in the public record. I know that this cannot be viewed from Social Security computers but you should have other ways of finding this document. Posting it on Scribd puts it in a more accessible archive than just putting it on this blog. Besides, Social Security ought to unblock Scribd. There's nothing dangerous about Scribd.

AC Extensions Policy