And Yet We Have A Five Month Waiting Period For Social Security Disability Benefits And A 29 Month Waiting Period For Medicare For The Disabled

     From the Associated Press:

Two-thirds of Americans would have difficulty coming up with the money to cover a $1,000 emergency, according to an exclusive poll released Thursday ... 

Seventy-five percent of people in households making less than $50,000 a year would have difficulty coming up with $1,000 to cover an unexpected bill. But when income rose to between $50,000 and $100,000, the difficulty decreased only modestly to 67 percent.

Even for the country's wealthiest 20 percent — households making more than $100,000 a year — 38 percent say they would have at least some difficulty coming up with $1,000.

Social Security To Track Disability Claims Related To Flint Water Contamination

     The Social Security Administration has decided to start tracking disability claims related to the lead contamination in the Flint, MI water supply. They're not going to treat the claims differently; just track them.

About That Priority Processing At The Appeals Council -- No One At The Appeals Council Seems To Know Anything About It

     I posted some information that Social Security had given to the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) about a plan for the Appeals Council to give priority in the processing of the cases of certain claimants. The most important category in the plan is claimants 55 and older.

     I've noticed and others in my firm have noticed that despite this plan claimants 55 and older don't seem to be getting any special treatment at the Appeals Council. We're starting to ask questions. Here's a note that one legal assistant at my firm put in our database concerning her inquiry about one client:

05/19/16: TC [Telephone Call] to the AC [Appeals Council] and spoke to ____ who told me the case is pending in branch ____. I told her about the new list that NOSSCR has put out this month for expediting AC cases and this case meets that list since the clt is over 55yo. She didn't know anything about it and transferred me to the supervisor, ______. Spoke to her at length and she pulled it up on the blog [this blog] and said they haven't been told anything about it and she doesn't even know how to flag a case for these reasons.

She's going to speak to the Council Ombudsman, Terry Jensen about this and call me back

Stealing From The Disabled

     From the Tampa Bay Times:

The former chief financial officer of a program for disabled people admits in a court paper that he and others diverted $617,435 in Social Security payments, raiding client personal accounts for a decade to cover operating expenses.

Frank Pannullo, 69, is the third employee of the now-defunct Hillsborough Association for Retarded Citizens to enter into a federal plea agreement. ...

HARC, which had been renamed the Hillsborough Achievement and Resource Centers before it closed in 2013, ran group homes and community programs, caring for people with disabilities such as Down syndrome or Alzheimer's disease. ...

Residents had individual bank accounts. Each month, HARC deducted $637 for expenses, leaving the rest behind.

But if accumulated savings topped $2,000, clients were at risk of losing need-based Supplemental Security Income.

So HARC put away the excess in a separate, pooled account that collected about $617,435 over the course of 10 years. ...

Not long after the account's 2001 creation, Pannullo and the CEO began taking money out of it to feed HARC's operating fund, according to the plea agreement. ...

Hearing On Social Security Information Systems

     The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing at 9:00 on May 26 on Social Security's information systems. No further details are available at this point other than that this is a hearing before the whole committee.

Cut Government Until It Bleeds And Then Complain About The Bloodstains

     The Social Security Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing yesterday on Protecting Social Security From Waste, Fraud and Abuse. The only witness was Patrick O'Carroll, who will soon be leaving his position as Inspector General at Social Security. I don't see anything particularly new in his prepared remarks.

     The ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, Xavier Becerra, entered an interesting statement in the record. Here is an excerpt:

Congress’ current trend of prioritizing program integrity activities at the expense of service to applicants, beneficiaries, and taxpayers is unsustainable.
Social Security’s budget should not be treated as a zero-sum game. We should not be robbing Peter to pay Paul.

In my six years as Ranking Member of this Subcommittee, not once have we held a hearing on SSA’s operating budget.

There is no question that funding for program integrity is absolutely integral to ensuring that Americans receive benefits in the right amount, and that only those who are eligible receive payments.

But it is equally important to ensure that: SSA has the tools and resources needed to provide quick and timely service to the millions of Americans receiving Social Security, and to the millions more who will – in the coming years – be applying and qualifying for the benefits they and their families have earned.

     Below are some charts from the statement illustrating the problems at Social Security.

 

     By the way, Becerra's name gets mentioned from time to time as a potential Vice-Presidential candidate.

Social Security's Biggest Contractors

     Social Security is required by law to publish an annual list of its largest contractors. Here's the top twenty-five from the list for 2015, although the list may be somewhat misleading since some contractors are listed more than once:

Vendor Name	Amount
LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION	$99,367,423.18
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION	$94,089,718.92
COMPUTER SCIENCES CORPORATION	$48,663,052.74
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE	$40,155,560.67
ACCENTURE NATIONAL SECURITY SERVICES, LLC	$28,811,804.81
M V M, INC.	$23,115,406.92
KONIAG TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS, INC	$17,787,707.12
MAXIMUS FEDERAL SERVICES, INC.	$16,385,736.00
AVAYA FEDERAL SOLUTIONS, INC.	$16,149,021.77
OBXTEK INC.	$12,634,046.00
ABT ASSOCIATES INC	$11,667,000.00
INTEGRYS ENERGY SERVICES, INC.	$11,300,000.00
AHTNA ENGINEERING SERVICES	$10,769,172.00
LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION	$10,100,531.54
ACS FEDERAL SOLUTIONS LLC	$9,823,987.24
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE	$7,500,000.00
EPS CORPORATION	$7,269,839.67
OBXTEK INC.	$7,077,128.00
NORTHROP GRUMMAN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY GLOBAL CORPORATION	$6,904,176.80
NATIONAL CAPITOL CONTRACTING, LLC	$6,840,000.00
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION	$6,549,313.86
HENSEL PHELPS SERVICES LLC	$6,360,948.96
BROOKS RANGE CONTRACT SERVICES, INC.	$6,358,150.68
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION	$6,153,296.70

Priority Processing At The Appeals Council -- What A List!

     This month's issue of the newsletter (not available online) of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) has an article prepared by the Social Security on priority processing at the Appeals Council, which has a huge backlog. Here's an excerpt:

A list of the Appeals Council-level cases with newly submitted evidence is generated several times a week. A group of employees has started screening the listed cases to see if they meet any of the 21 circumstances below. If so, the branch chief receives the case and assigns it for priority processing. The circumstances are:

(1) Age 55
(2) Any indication or report of death
(3) Hospice, nursing care, or claimant cannot care for personal needs
(4) Intensive care unit for more than 3 days
(5) Hospitalization for more than 7 days
(6) Transplant notes (kidney, heart, heart/lung, liver or bone marrow, etc.)
(7) Transplant waiting list
(8) Cancer with poor or no response to treatment
(9) Cancer that has spread to other areas/
(10) Coma
(11) Heart attack or myocardial infarction
(12) Stroke, or cerebral vascular accident
(13) Prescribed use of home oxygen 
(14) Prescribed use of wheelchair
(15) VA disability rating of 70% or more
(16) Letter or notice approving other forms of disability payments
(17) Medical report(s) of a terminal prognosis
(18) Dialysis or End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD)
(19) Blood transfusion(s)
(20) Bed or home confinement
(21) Very rare, unusual, or compassionate allowance diagnoses

Although attaining the age of 55 is on the list, it is not necessary to submit additional evidence of a claimant’s age as SSA also screens for this. If the claimant has died, representative correspondence to that effect is sufficient. NOSSCR is working with SSA to obtain written documentation of this practice.

To verify that the Appeals Council knows a client meets one of the 21 circumstances, call the Congressional and Public Affairs Branch at 1-877-670-2722 or fax Appeals Council Ombudsman Terry Jensen at 703-605-8691.

Cases that meet one of the 21 circumstances still should not be decided in less than 25 days unless the Appeals Council obtains permission from the claimant or representative to make a faster decision. See adjacent article on this page for more information.

     This is a far more extensive list of types of cases to be expedited than is used at the Administrative Law Judge level. Why shouldn't these cases by expedited at all levels?
     I think the existence of these lists of types of cases to be expedited demonstrates the pressures caused by backlogs at Social Security. This isn't about helping people who are hurting. They're trying to expedite the cases that would make for good newspaper or television pieces on the suffering caused by the backlog.