ODAR Numbers

     Below is the Workload and Performance Summary for Social Security's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) for the month ending February 24, 2017. Click on it to view it full size. The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) published this in its newsletter, which isn't available online.
     I noticed a number of things:

• New appeals are declining
• Overtime went up greatly starting in December
• Backlogs are going up
• Senior attorney decisions are minimal (see the footnote of the summary)

Nine Year Sentence For Stealing Social Security Checks

     From the Tampa Bay Times:

A former U.S. Postal Service mail handler was ordered to serve nine years in prison Wednesday for stealing close to $3 million in Social Security checks from a St. Petersburg mail-processing facility.

Stacy Darnell Mitchell, 48, once worked at the St. Petersburg Processing and Distribution Facility, where over the course of several months in 2012, he stole more than 3,000 checks....

That's A Total Of $83.2 Million If I'm Adding Right

     From the Associated Press:

A Kentucky lawyer facing prison time for a scheme to defraud the government of nearly $600 million in federal disability payments took another legal hit Wednesday when a judge ordered him to pay nearly $31.5 million in damages to the government and two whistleblowers.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Amul R. Thapar was the latest fallout for Eric C. Conn, the self-proclaimed "Mr. Social Security" who lived in a palatial home and was a frequent world traveler. Thapar ordered Conn to pay $12 million in damages and $19 million in penalties. The penalties represent the maximum $11,000 assessed for each fraudulent claim identified.

"He doesn't have those kind of assets anymore," said Scott White, one of Conn's attorneys.

Conn pleaded guilty recently to stealing from the Social Security Administration and bribing a federal judge. ...

As part of that plea deal, Conn is to pay $5.7 million to the government, reflecting the amount of fraudulent fees he received, and reimburse to Social Security $46 million it paid in disability claims based on fraudulent information Conn used. ...

First Social Security Regs Under Trump Administration

     From today's Federal Register:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is issuing a final rule to amend its Privacy Act regulation exempting portions of a system of records from certain provisions of the Privacy Act of 1974, entitled Anti-Harassment & Hostile Work Environment Case Tracking and Records System. Because this system will contain some investigatory material compiled for law enforcement purposes, this rule will exempt those records within this new system of records from specific provisions of the Privacy Act.

     The Privacy Act allows individuals to inspect government records about them. This regulatory change appears to be intended to prevent individuals from inspecting these records.
     By the way, the website of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) doesn't show this regulation as one that was even submitted for review. I would guess that the OMB website isn't properly reflecting what's going on.

"Disability Isn't So Easy Even For The Desperate"

     Lynda Waddington of The Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa explains why Disability Isn't So Easy Even For The Desperate.

"The Wheels Are Already Coming Off The Bus"

     From the Roanoke Times:

More than a million people, including 5,000 in Southwest Virginia, are trying to convince a skeptical federal disability program that they are too disabled to work. ...

Federal disability claimants who have been turned down for assistance, but who insist they deserve the aid, wait an average of a year and a half for a final decision from the Social Security Administration. ... 

People living in the Roanoke area wait nearly two years. The local office ranks 155th, or 10th from the bottom nationally, in average case processing time, according to agency data. 

A hiring freeze ordered by the Trump administration means there’s little to no chance for a substantial increase in staffing to address the problem, according to an association of judges who work in the system. 

“I shudder to think what will happen if we don’t get significant relief from the hiring freeze. We desperately need support staff,” said Administrative Law Judge Marilyn Zahm, president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges. 

“The wheels are already coming off the bus,” said Zahm, who hears Social Security cases in Buffalo, New York. ...  

One in three support jobs in the Roanoke office is vacant, according to association figures. One judge’s job is vacant as well. The backlog of disputed disability cases, which exceeds 5,600, isn’t large by national standards. But the office’s nine judges deal with above-average amounts of paperwork, which increases decision-making time. ... 

That’s especially true in Roanoke, where 29 percent of case files run more than 1,000 pages, above the national average of 22 percent. Small case files, those with fewer than 500 pages, make up 15 percent of Roanoke’s case load, well below the national average of 28 percent. A judge must read each file, including handwritten medical notes. ...

Inadequate Budget Causes Declines In Customer Service

     From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP):

Years of Social Security Administration (SSA) funding cuts have hampered the agency’s ability to serve the American people ...

The current 2017 spending measure, set to expire at the end of April, froze funding for basic SSA functions like staffing field offices and call centers at last year’s level. ...

SSA’s core operating budget shrank by 10 percent from 2010 to 2016 in inflation-adjusted terms even as the demands on SSA reached record highs. The freeze on SSA’s operating funds in the 2017 continuing resolution (CR) only stressed the agency further. Anticipating the CR, SSA imposed a hiring freeze in the spring of 2016 and then eliminated nearly all overtime when the CR began.  ... Beneficiaries and taxpayers are paying the price:

• SSA has lost 1,400 field staff since the hiring freeze began. As a result, 18,000 field office visitors every day must wait more than an hour for service. Nearly half of visitors must wait at least three weeks for an appointment.
• SSA’s teleservice centers have 450 fewer agents than they need to handle the 37 million calls they receive each year. As a result, most callers to SSA’s national 800 number don’t get their questions resolved. The average wait for an agent is 18 minutes, and nearly half of callers hang up before connecting. Another 13 percent of callers get busy signals.
• SSA has been able to hire more staff to address appeals for disability benefits, in part due to the $150 million in dedicated funding that policymakers provided for this purpose in 2017.  As a result, SSA has made initial progress in reducing its record backlogs. But that progress will disappear unless the President and Congress continue to provide adequate funding in the final 2017 appropriation bill and in future years.
• The hiring freeze and cutbacks in overtime have hampered SSA’s ability to complete behind-the-scenes work, leading to growing delays in processing applications or changing benefits when a beneficiary’s circumstances change. This creates unnecessary hardship for beneficiaries. It also costs taxpayers, since it allows overpayments to build up and delays their collection — increasing the risk that they will never be recovered. By the end of 2016, the number of pending behind-the-scenes tasks had more than doubled. ...

Why Do Claims Like This Get Denied?

     I just took on a client whose Social Security disability claim was medically denied even though the Disability Determination Service knew he recently had a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) installed. No, this wasn't some technical denial. No, there's no date last insured issue. They just flat said he wasn't disabled. An LVAD is a partial artificial heart. In this case, it's being used as a last ditch measure to help the patient survive until a heart transplant is available. This isn't the first time I've seen this sort of thing. I had another client recently who had an LVAD installed. He didn't make it out of the hospital alive after he had it installed. It was obvious he was headed in this direction but he was still denied.