Hearing Backlog May Get Better In Buffalo, But Nationally?

     A local TV station reports that the Social Security Administration is working on the hearing backlog at one of the worst hit offices, Buffalo, but can we expect improvement nationally? Social Security says it will hire 200 more Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) this year and 250 in each of the next two years, which sounds like a lot, but is that enough to even take care of ordinary turnover as ALJs retire, quit and die, much less enough to improve the situation nationally?

OIG Report On Rep Payees

     Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report on the agency's efforts to police organizational and volume representative payees. Representative payees handle funds for claimants who are judged to be incapable of handling funds. The report talks about abuses by some of these larger rep payees. Social Security does not always obtain reimbursement from abusive rep payees. Sometimes, the agency allows a rep payee who has misused funds to continue to be a rep payee. This is sometimes appropriate if the misuse was minor and unintentional. The agency is supposed to reimburse claimants who are the victims of rep payee abuse but sometimes fails to. 

     On the whole, I'm sure the agency could do better but rep payees have always been and will always be a problem area for Social Security. It's hard to get people to be rep payees. There's only so much the agency can do. The problems identified are, in my opinion, minor.

Claims Rep Accused Of Fraud

     From the Reading, Pennsylvania Eagle:

Federal investigators have charged a Bernville man working for the Social Security Administration of allegedly defrauding the agency of more than $6,000.
Miguel Gutierrez, 42, was charged Friday by the Eastern District of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia with three counts of wire fraud for the incidents that began in October. - See more at: http://www.readingeagle.com/news/article/bernville-man-charged-with-defrauding-social-security-administration#sthash.ObpE4ebl.dpuf

 Federal investigators have charged a Bernville man working for the Social Security Administration of allegedly defrauding the agency of more than $6,000.

Miguel Gutierrez, 42, was charged Friday by the Eastern District of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia with three counts of wire fraud for the incidents that began in October. ...

Gutierrez was employed as a claims representative in the Social Security Field Office in Reading when he allegedly used access to the agency's computer system to redirect benefit payments intended for third-party individuals into his own bank account. He allegedly received three stolen benefit payments totaling approximately $6,166.66 from October to December. ...

Gutierrez was employed as a claims representative in the Social Security Field Office in Reading when he allegedly used access to the agency's computer system to redirect benefit payments intended for third-party individuals into his own bank account. He allegedly received three stolen benefit payments totaling approximately $6,166.66 from October to December. - See more at: http://www.readingeagle.com/news/article/bernville-man-charged-with-defrauding-social-security-administration#sthash.ObpE4ebl.dpuf

Federal investigators have charged a Bernville man working for the Social Security Administration of allegedly defrauding the agency of more than $6,000.
Miguel Gutierrez, 42, was charged Friday by the Eastern District of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia with three counts of wire fraud for the incidents that began in October. - See more at: http://www.readingeagle.com/news/article/bernville-man-charged-with-defrauding-social-security-administration#sthash.ObpE4ebl.dpuf

Federal investigators have charged a Bernville man working for the Social Security Administration of allegedly defrauding the agency of more than $6,000.
Miguel Gutierrez, 42, was charged Friday by the Eastern District of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia with three counts of wire fraud for the incidents that began in October. - See more at: http://www.readingeagle.com/news/article/bernville-man-charged-with-defrauding-social-security-administration#sthash.ObpE4ebl.dpuf

Social Security Disability Claim Files Getting Longer And Longer

     The Springfield, Ohio News-Sun is running a piece on Social Security's horrendous hearing backlog. It's always good to see these pieces but they seldom contain any information that's not already well known to regular readers of this blog. Here's a few nuggets of news from this piece:

Judge Marilyn Zahm, the [Administrative Law Judge] association’s president, said each case is a very labor intensive process ...

Zahm said the size of the case files has exploded in recent years, particularly as new regulations have been added. As a result, up to 30 percent of the files now contain more than 1,000 pages of medical evidence, she said.

“Do you have any idea how long it takes to review 1,000 pages of medical evidence?” said Zahm. “We are the only adjudicatory body that I’m aware of that allows such loose requirements for representatives.”

A work analysis study commissioned by the Association of Administrative Law Judges in 2014 found it would take a judge more than seven hours to process and render a legally sufficient decision on a case containing 652 pages, the national average for that year.

But with an expected quota of at least 500 dispositions a year, a judge would have available only 2.5 hours per case, the study found. ...

     I doubt that the rapid increase in the size of Social Security disability claim files registers with Social Security management. They never look at these files. It's all very abstract to them. The increasing file size matters. It takes more Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) time and it takes more time for those of us who represent Social Security disability claimants. ALJ productivity standards need to be adjusted. The fees paid to those who represent Social Security disability claimants need to be adjusted.

I'm Guessing That Ms. Hyde Isn't Obese And Doesn't Have Much Time For Those Who Are

     Jody Schimmel Hyde of the Mathematica Center for Studying Disability Policy has issued a report on the prelevance of obesity among applicants for Social Security disability benefits. Not surprisingly, the study shows an increasing rate of obesity among Social Security disability applicants. I say not surprisingly because the incidence of obesity in the population in general has been increasing.

     The interrelationship between obesity and disability is complex. Take a construction worker who becomes disabled by orthopaedic problems. It's a near certainty that he or she will gain weight, probably a fair amount of weight. This happens because he or she will probably continue to eat about the same amount of food even though he or she is no longer nearly as active. It may also happen because he or she is trying to deal with a good deal of stress because of the sudden change in their life and financial problems. Stress often leads to weight gain.

     Hyde makes the suggestion that people shouldn't be found disabled if obesity is a material factor in causing their disability. That would be a great way of institutionalizing prejudice against the disabled.

Zahm Elected To Head AALJ

     From the Buffalo Law Journal:

A judge from Buffalo has become the first woman to head the union of federal judges that hear Social Security disability cases.

The Hon. Marilyn Zahm was elected president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges. AALJ said that she will serve a three-year term.

Zahm is the first woman to head the AALJ, which represents 1,200 federal judges across the nation involved in Social Security disability cases. ...

Zahm defeated Miami-based AALJ member Thomas Snook in a runoff election, 335-296. She succeeds Judge Randall Frye, an administrative law judge based in Charlotte.

OIG Report On Households With Multiple Children Receiving SSI Due To Mental Impairments

     The Social Security Administration's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has recently completed a report on Households with Multiple Children Receiving Supplemental Security Income Payments Because of Mental Impairments. If you're expecting it to be a big expose of rampant fraud or, indeed, of any fraud you're going to be disappointed. It's mostly about efforts the agency has taken and can take to make sure there isn't fraud. 

     Please don't make the assumption that there's fraud just because a family exists which has multiple children with mental impairments. That's not a justified assumption. To give a couple of examples where this might occur, consider a couple who adopts multiple children whom they know have mental impairments or consider a family where one child is born with a congenital mental impairment who then have another child who happens to have the same congenital mental impairment. I've seen these cases.

A Novel Idea

     Henry Aaron and Lanhee Chen have a novel idea for how to deal with the terrible hearing backlog at Social Security. Turn over the process for vetting applicants to become Administrative Law Judges (ALJ) to some other agency, perhaps the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS). 
     This assumes that Social Security has really been wanting to hire more ALJs for years but has been held up by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that persistently fails to provide the agency with an adequate number of ALJ candidates and the only solution is to take it out of OPM's hands. The first problem with this theory is that Congress recently passed legislation providing:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Office of Personnel Management shall, upon request of the Commissioner of Social Security, expeditiously administer a sufficient number of competitive examinations, as determined by the Commissioner, for the purpose of identifying an adequate number of candidates to be appointed as Administrative Law Judges ... The first such examination shall take place not later than April 1, 2016 and other examinations shall take place at such time or times requested by the Commissioner ...

     Why isn't that enough? Are we already assuming that OPM will fail to do what it has been explicitly ordered to do? Wouldn't transferring this responsibility to ACUS just cause more delay as ACUS struggles to get up to speed?
     The second problem is that there is reason to question how much delay OPM has caused. If you look around the Social Security Administration there are backlogs everywhere. Has Social Security really, really wanted to hire far more ALJs only to be held up by the dastardly OPM or is the bigger part of the problem lack of budget and lack of will at Social Security? Take a look at the Appeals Council. There's a huge backlog there. OPM is no obstacle to hiring there. Why haven't they hired more?

     The third problem is that anyone who thinks that ACUS can take on this job must not know much about ACUS. ACUS arranges for studies of administrative issues and holds conferences on these issues. I'm not aware of them ever taking on any line responsibility for anything. It's hard to imagine these academics wanting to take on such a responsibility or being able to do so effectively. It would be like turning over the responsibility for running a publishing company to the English department of some university. Yes, publishers and English professors are both interested in the written word but that's about the extent of the overlap.