NADE Members Hear Of Social Securty's Plans For DOT Replacement

     The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE), an organization of personnel involved in making disability determinations for Social Security, has released its most recent newsletter, focusing on NADE's recent conference in Portland. 

     NADE members attending the conference heard a presentation on Social Security's effort to create a new occupational information system to replace the outdated Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) used in disability determinations. There are a couple of items of interest from the write-up. The number of occupations listed will go down from the DOT's 12,000 to 1,000, which means that each job title will be even more of a composite. Composite jobs are broader and can only be described in more amorphous ways. Training on the new occupational information system is supposed to begin sometime in 2016.

Disability And Survivor Benefits Matter A Lot

Social Security Planning Telecommunication System Changes

     From a recent announcement, it appears that the Social Security Administration is in the early stages of planning major telecommunications system changes. Huge contracts will be awarded.

Sanitation Problems Close Social Security Cafeteria

     From the Baltimore Sun:

Officials at the Woodlawn-based Social Security Administration took the unusual step Thursday of closing its cafeteria facilities after an internal inspection found problematic "housekeeping conditions," a spokesman said. ...

The agency did not provide detail of what was found, other than to note the issues were "sanitation-related." The agency said an inspection found conditions that "do not meet required standards."...

A spokesman for Brock & Company, the Pennsylvania-based food services vendor for the agency, said in a statement that "sanitation is a top priority at all our locations and we are working with our partner client [SSA] in addressing the housekeeping and facilities issues that were discovered during today's inspection."

     Update: The cafeteria reopens Monday.

Online Appeals System Problems

     I'm hearing many complaints about Social Security's system for filing appeals online. Attorneys are required to use the system but it's unreliable. Much of the time when you try to access the system online you get a message that "This page does not exist."

Comp Cuts Causing Increase In Social Security Disablity Costs?

     The Center for Economic and Policy Research has done a study on Rising Disability Payments: Are Cuts to Workers' Compensation Part of the Story? The charts below, extracted from the report, suggest that the answer is "yes."

Frye Out As President Of AALJ

     Randall Frye of Charlotte has been the president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges (AALJ), the labor union that represents Social Security's Administrative Law Judges for some time. I understand that he has left that position. He is resuming his regular duties as an ALJ. I do not know the circumstances of Frye's departure from his position at AALJ.

Workers Comp Changes Costing Social Security

     From National Public Radio (emphasis added):

Ten ranking Democrats on key Senate and House committees are urging the Labor Department to respond to a "pattern of detrimental changes in state workers' compensation laws" that have reduced protections and benefits for injured workers over the past decade. ...

The letter also referred to NPR/ProPublica stories last week that detailed an emerging trend that permits employers to dump out of state-regulated workers' comp programs, write their own injury plans and limit benefits on their own. ...

The Center for Economic and Policy Research is releasing a study Wednesday that estimates that more than 20 percent of the increase in federal disability cases is due to cuts in workers' comp programs. ...

A 2007 study by J. Paul Leigh, a health economist at the University of California, Davis, estimated that workplace injuries not covered by workers' comp cost government programs about $30 billion a year.

Federal intervention may also come as the result of the "opt out" movement in Texas and Oklahoma, in which employers shun heavily-regulated workers' comp and are permitted to write and administer their own largely-unregulated workplace injury plans. South Carolina and Tennessee are considering opt-out laws now and proponents are aiming for a dozen states by the end of the decade. ...