News From NOSSCR Conference

     Here are a few items from yesterday's National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) Conference in Washington:

• David Camp received the Eileen Sweeney Distinguised Service Award. Camp spearheaded the legal assault on the "secret ALJ" policy.
• Acting Commissioner Carolyn Colvin said that Social Security is now 60 days out in scheduling appointments with its field offices, that is, that if you call in wanting to make an appointment to transact business with the agency, expect a 60 day wait. She also related that she had recently visited the agency's field office in Alexandria, VA. She was told that customers were lining up starting at 7:30 in the morning. The office opens at 9:00.
• Glenn Sklar, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner for Disability Adjudication and Review, said that his agency expects to introduce an Appeals Council status report in August 2013 as part of its appointed representative services package. He also showed a chart demonstrating that more than 25% of claimants now receive their hearings by video.
• Nancy Shor, NOSSCR's retiring Executive Director, received two well deserved standing ovations. She said that she was hearing the idea of time limited disability benefits more and more often.

Charlotte ALJ Harper Passes

     Charlotte Administrative Law Judge Richard Harper has passed away. He was the Administrative Law Judge in Charge (ALJIC) of that office until the name of the job changed to Hearing Office Chief Administrative Law Judge (HOCALJ). He remained in that position until quite recently. It will give readers some idea of how long he managed that office that I interviewed with him for a staff attorney position in 1978!

CRS Report On Proposals To Cut Social Security Disability

     William R. Morton has done a report for the Congressional Research Service (CRS) on "An Overview of Proposals to Reduce the Growth in SSDI [Social Security Disability Insurance] Rolls."  The report is impressively footnoted but to say it breaks no new ground would be an understatement. I keep thinking I must have read this before even though it's brand new. 

     Morton accepts the premise that the Social Security Disability Reform Act of 1984 relaxed the criteria for approval based upon mental illness or musculoskeletal ailments even though a simple reading of that Act shows that it did nothing of the sort. Apparently, Morton never bothered with simple reading the Act. 

     Morton also has a poor understanding of the proposals that have been on the table since forever. For instance, Morton examines the possibility of making Social Security hearings before Administrative Law Judges adversarial. He thinks an experiment with adversarial hearings might be a good idea. Morton is aware that an experiment was tried previously but he is clearly unaware of the results -- a lot of expense but no effect upon the rate at which disability claims were approved -- a point made recently by former Commissioner Astrue. Why didn't Morton ask someone at Social Security what happened when this was tried previously? Morton is also unaware that since the time of that prior experiment the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) has been passed. Because of EAJA, if Social Security went to adversarial hearings, the agency would end up paying the attorney fees for most claimants who got approved. In my view, bring on the adversarial hearings. They wouldn't hurt my clients but they would sure help my bottom line!

     The biggest thing reassuring me about the future of the Social Security disability programs is the unsophisticated nature of its opposition. There's a good chance that even though Republicans want to make it harder to get Social Security disability benefits, unsophisticated reports like this one will cause them to stumble into unworkable proposals or even into proposals that are contrary to their goals. I have yet to read a study or proposal that worries me. They're all stale rehashings of ideas which have already failed or ideas which haven't been tried because they're so obviously unworkable.

Rockaways Office Reopens

     From the New York Daily News:

The Rockaway Social Security office, another casualty of Superstorm Sandy, re-opened Monday.

Staffers from the location had been temporarily working out of Assemblywoman Michelle Titus' office while the facility at 113-06 Rockaway Beach Blvd. was repaired.

"The return of the Social Security office to the Rockaways represents the federal government's ongoing commitment to our communities," said Carolyn Colvin, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

Meet The New Judge, Same As The Old Judge

     Let's say a claimant has a hearing before Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) X and is denied. The claimant decides not to appeal the decision but to file a new claim. That new claim is denied at the initial and reconsideration levels. The claimant then requests a new hearing. Are there some hearing offices that automatically assign the claimant's case to ALJ X again instead of assigning the case in rotation to whichever ALJ's name comes up? Is this in accordance with Social Security policy? Does it comply with the provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act that requires that cases be assigned in rotation? I'm not talking about remands here but new requests for hearing.

      I thought that a new request for hearing was supposed to be assigned in rotation just like any request for hearing but I am hearing rumors that some hearing offices may take a different approach. Is this actually happening? If so, are these hearing offices supposed to be doing this?

You Can Scare People But They Still Want Their Social Security

     From a poll conducted for the National Academy of Social Insurance:

Percent who agree strongly or somewhat:
Don't mind paying Social Security because it provides security and stability to millions -- 84%

It is critical that we preserve Social Security even if it means raising taxes -- Working Americans 82%, Wealthy Americans 87%

Percent who favor increasing Social Security's Cost of Living Adjust (COLA) beyond what it is now -- 64% Percent who oppose -- 10%

Percent who are very/somewhat confident in the future of Social Security -- 43% Percent who are not very/not at all confident 57%

Percent who are very/somewhat confident they will receive all of the Social Security benefits they are supposed to receive -- 31% Percent who ore not very/not at all confident -- 69%

ALJ Positions Popular

     There's a report that there were more than 5,000 applications filed when the government recently took applications for positions as Social Security Administrative Law Judges (ALJs).

Return To Benefits After Disability Termination

     From a study published in the Social Security Buletin:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) periodically reviews the disabilities of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients and Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) beneficiaries to determine if their impairments still meet the requirements for program eligibility. For individuals whose eligibility was ceased after a full medical review from 2003 to 2008, we track subsequent program participation for up to 8 years. We use survival analyses to estimate the time until first return to SSI and DI and explore the differences in returns by various personal and programmatic characteristics such as age, disability type, time on program, and SSA expectations regarding medical improvement. Overall, we estimate that about 30 percent of SSI-only recipients whose eligibility ceases because of medical improvement return to the SSI program within 8 years. For DI-only worker beneficiaries whose eligibility ceases, we estimate that 20 percent will return to the DI program within 8 years.

     The study's authors note that SSA has been able to do relatively few full continuing disability reviews (CDRs) and has targeted those most likely to have substantial medical improvement. If more CDRs were done, the additional people terminated would be even more likely to return to disability benefits.