Appeals Council Slides Further Into Worthlessness

     David Paletta has put together an interesting chart showing what's been happening at Social Security's Appeals Council in recent years. What's mostly been happening is that the rate at which the Appeals Council is giving relief to the claimant, either by remand or reversal, has plummeted. Click on the chart below to view it at full size. Also, though not shown on the chart below, productivity has declined from 138,262 decisions in 2013 to 116,078 in 2015.

Waiver For SSI Overpayments Resulting From Legal Acceptance Of Same Sex Marriage

     Social Security has issued Emergency Message (EM) 16013 to give its staff instructions on overpayment issues resulting from legal acceptance of same sex marriage. Some readers are now thinking "Wait, what? I thought legal acceptance of same sex marriage would result in more money being paid." Overall, yes, somewhat more money will be paid. That's almost always the case for Title II benefits, those based upon someone's earnings record. (For sticklers, I said almost always. I know marriage could eliminate entitlement to widows benefits in some cases, for instance.) However, in Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which is a needs-based benefit, marriage usually causes reduction or elimination of entitlement to benefits. There are two ways that same sex marriage can hurt SSI recipients. The first and less common way is if both partners to a same sex marriage are on SSI. The rate for a married couple where both are eligible for SSI is less than the total of what the two would receive if they were not married. The second and more common way that same sex marriage can reduce SSI benefits is that if you're married the income and resources of the person you're married to are attributed to you for purposes of computing your SSI benefit. If, for instance, a disabled person is living with and being supported by a healthy person who is working and has a good income, if they're not married, the disabled person will suffer, at worst, a one-third reduction in his or her SSI benefits for "living in the household of another" whereas if they're married, the disabled person will lose his or her SSI benefits altogether.

     Now that I've explained the problem, what's Social Security going to do about the SSI overpayments resulting from legal acceptance of same sex marriage? Social Security will assume that the claimant is requesting waiver of the overpayment and will waive the overpayment. The claimant need not even file the form normally required to obtain consideration of waiver of an overpayment. The agency is saying it would be "against equity and good conscience" to try to collect these overpayments.

House Social Security Subcommittee Hearing Announced

     A press release:

House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) announced today that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on “Social Security and Public Servants: Ensuring Equal Treatment.” The hearing will focus on Social Security provisions that affect certain public employees, as well as proposals for calculating public employees’ benefits in a proportional manner. The hearing will take place on Tuesday, March 22, 2016 in B-318 Rayburn House Building, beginning at 10:00 AM.

     There has been substantial agitation in Johnson's home state of Texas over the application of the Windfall Elimination Provision which reduces Social Security benefits because of the receipt of pension benefits from wages not covered by Social Security. Apparently, the wages of teachers in Texas  are not covered by Social Security. 

     I'm mildly surprised that Johnson cares. In my state, North Carolina, the Republican Party is openly, bitterly, angrily hostile towards teachers. I think it's the same in many other states. 

Social Security Ruling 16-3p: A Disability Claimant's Honesty Doesn't Matter

     The Social Security Administration will be issuing Ruling 16-3p on Evaluation of Symptoms In Disability Claims tomorrow. Here's some excerpts:

...[W]e are eliminating the use of the term “credibility” from our sub - regulatory policy, as our regulations do not use this term. In doing so, we clarify that subjective symptom evalua tion is not an examination of an individual’s character. Instead, we will more closely follow our regulatory language regarding symptom evaluation . ...

In evaluating an individual’s symptoms, it is not sufficient for our adjudicators to make a single, conclusory statement that "the individual's statements about his or her symptoms have been considered" or that "the statements about the individual’s symptoms are (or are not) supported or consistent." It is also not enough for our adjudicators simply to recite the factors described in the regulations for evaluating symptoms. The determination or decision must contain specific reasons for the weight given to the individual’s symptoms, be consistent with and supported by the evidence, and be clearly articulated so the individual and any subsequent reviewer can assess how the adjudicator evaluated the individual’s symptoms. ... 

In evaluating an individual’s symptoms, our adjudicators will not assess an individual’s overall character or truthfulness in the manner typically used during an adversarial court litigation. The focus of the evaluation of an individual’s symptoms should not be to determine whether he or she is a truthful person. ...

New Acquiescence Ruling

     The Social Security Administration has released Acquiescence Ruling 16-1(7) concerning Boley v. Colvin, 761 F.3d 803 (7th Cir. 2014). I had written earlier about that 7th Circuit's decision.  It took an unusual degree of foolishness and arrogance at Social Security for this case to have reached the court of appeals.

Two New Rulings Coming Monday

     Even though it's in the middle of adjudicating about 1,500 cases of alleged fraud or similar fault, the Social Security Administration is issuing two new rulings on Monday, one dealing just with  the issue of similar fault and the other dealing both with fraud and similar fault.
     I don't know how much good it does to so conclusively demonstrate that you're changing the rules for one specific group of cases. It's like they're trying to bootstrap a weak case.

Patent Applied For

     A summary of a patent application filed by Jeffrey A. Killian of Grove City, OH:

A computerized system and method for determining eligibility for social security disability insurance benefits (SSDI) through a computer network who have been placed on a waiting list for medical treatment. The network provides access to State waiting list databases containing information relating to persons wanting to receive treatment for developmental disabilities and/or mental illness from a State licensed care facility and Federal Social Security records containing information relating to person's status of SSDI benefits and parental/marital information relating to person's eligibility of SSDI benefits. The system and method is programmed to automatically determine who is potentially eligible for SSDI benefits and determine those who are eligible for SSDI benefits based on the information identified within the State and Federal databases. Moreover, the computerized system and method may also automatically identify lump sum payments paid out on behalf of at least one person who want to receive treatment for disabilities and/or mental illness from a State licensed care facility, yet have been placed on a waiting list.

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?