Cutting Processing Time In Half At VA With Just A Form?

     From the Columbus Dispatch:

... Starting today, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will offer veterans seeking disability benefits the chance to be eligible for one year of retroactive benefits by filling out comprehensive disability forms known as Fully Developed Claims [FDCs].

The retroactive program, approved last year by Congress, is an aggressive effort by the Obama administration to dramatically shorten the wait for disability benefits that tens of thousands of veterans have been forced to endure. ...

The VA says it can process the FDCs in half the time a more traditionally filed form takes. ...

     I would say that such a program would never work at Social Security but I have no idea how a more complete claim form would cut processing time in half at VA. My familiarity with the VA system is quite limited. Does this make sense to those who are familiar with VA?

Can You Get Good Advice From Social Security?

     Yahoo! Finance doesn't think much of the advice being given by Social Security employees.

SSAB Wants BOND Ended

     From the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) (footnote omitted):

This paper is an assessment of merits of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Benefit Offset National Demonstration’s (BOND) ability to address the following: 1) will an offset incentivize more work in Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries, and 2) what will be the amount of induced entry from the change in work incentives? 

The Social Security Advisory Board finds that the BOND, as it has been implemented, is not adequate to answer these questions. In our view, BOND is a victim of both faulty conceptualization and implementation. Congress owes it to the taxpayers to call a halt to further spending on this project. The questions that were the basis for Congress originally requesting the demonstration should still be addressed, albeit more efficiently. ... 

While Congress requested a demonstration of variations in the benefit offset amount, the demonstration as implemented is testing the specific benefit reduction of $1 for every $2 earned. This demonstration, even if completed, will not yield results that have tested which ratio of benefit reduction will have the most work incentivizing results. The “2 for 1” amount would help align the SSDI and SSI work incentives but this demonstration will not further our knowledge of which particular ratio is most appropriate.... 

To be clear, we are advocating that this demonstration project be terminated because it is both without merit and costly. In our view, BOND is a victim of both faulty conceptualization and implementation - Congress owes it to the taxpayers to call a halt to further spending on this demonstration project

Fee Payment Update

     Social Security has issued updated numbers on payments of fees to attorneys and some others for representing Social Security claimants. These fees are withheld and paid by Social Security but come out of the back benefits of the claimants involved. The attorneys and others who have their fees withheld pay a user fee for this privilege. Since these fees are usually paid at the same time that the claimant is paid, these numbers show how quickly or slowly Social Security is able to get claimants paid after a favorable determination on their claims.

Month/Year	Volume	Amount
Jan-13	32,663	$96,690,734.65
Feb-13	35,508	$102,242,540.93
Mar-13	45,189	$130,690,281.94
Apr-13	33,178	$92,566,832.32
May-13	42,841	$122,781,135.03
June-13	33,954	$97,627,420.68
July-13	35,221	$103,494,644.97

Seeking Child Support As Condition For SSI?

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

SSA [Social Security Administration] could save approximately $151.2 million, annually, if the number of individuals receiving and/or reporting child support increases by 100,000. Alternatively, SSA could save approximately $302. million, annually, if the number of recipients receiving and/or reporting child support increases by 200,000. These dollar figures are conservative and are greatly reduced from figures we calculated assuming the results from 1999 SSA and Government Accountability Office studies are similar today

     I think there are at least a couple of questions here. What would be the offsetting costs to state child support enforcement agencies? How willing would state child support enforcement agencies be to cooperate when cooperating won't necessarily save the states any money?

Man Arrested For Threatening Ann Arbor Office

     From a WDIV in Detroit:

Federal investigators say Daniel Norton is a dangerous man who may have been planning a mass murder and escape into the wilderness.

The Ypsilanti man was out on bond for making violent threats against workers at an Ann Arbor Social Security office. Then, on Wednesday, Homeland Protective Services looked in the trunk of his car and found an arsenal of weapons similar to an AR-15 assault rifle, body armor, ammunition, a generator and meals ready to eat like the ones used by the military....

Norton allegedly called into the Ann Arbor office saying if he did not receive benefits for heart medicine he would have a tactical response. He faxed the office an extensive litany of alleged expert certificates in weaponry and combat. ...

Information Sharing Missions Which Support Homeland Security?

     Social Security is advertising two Intelligence Operations Specialist jobs in Woodlawn, MD. According to USAJobs:

This position [actually positions] is located in the Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Budget, Finance and Management (DCBFM), Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness (OSEP), Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP). Once selected for this important position at SSA, the incumbent will serve as an Intelligent Operations Specialist responsible for complex assignments involving defensive counterintelligence (CI) and information coordination with a broad set of Communities of Interest (COIs) to establish and maintain SSA's defensive CI operations, collaboration, and intelligence and information sharing missions which support homeland security.

     Social Security certainly needs defensive counterintelligence to protect its data but the "information sharing missions which support homeland security" part concerns me. Just how much data is Social Security sharing with homeland security? For that matter, is anything being shared with NSA?

Anonymous Contact Form Functioning Again

     The anonymous contact form for this blog is functioning again. It had gone down when the service I had used previously suddenly went belly up. It's working again with a new service.