Social Security Administrative Expenditures As Percentage Of Total Expenditures Have Declined Over The Years

      Source: Social Security Administration. Click on each page to view full size.

Are Electronic Medical Records A Good Thing? It’s Complicated

     If you spend a lot of time reading medical records, and I know that, like me, many of you do, read this New Yorker piece by Atul Gawande, Why Doctors Hate Their Computers.

Field Office Reopens After Car Crash

     The Social Security field office in Egg Harbor Township that was closed after a car crashed into it on Tuesday reopened on Friday.

Saul Nomination Advances

     Andrew Saul’s nomination to become Commissioner of Social Security was reported out favorably by the Senate Finance Committee. It was a unanimous vote.

Ticket To Work Not Working

     From the Washington Free Beacon:

The Social Security Administration has spent $3 billion on programs designed to incentivize disability recipients to go back to work over the past 16 years. So far, less than 3 percent of beneficiaries have signed up, with "no consistent evidence" the program has helped participants find a job. 

The inspector general for the agency released an audit last week calling for Congress to evaluate the "viability" of the programs 

including Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency (TTW) and Achieve Self-Support (PASS)."SSA has spent about $3 billion administering two ongoing congressionally mandated return-to-work programs and a time-limited demonstration project designed to determine whether a policy change would help beneficiaries return to work," the inspector general said. "However, these programs and demonstration project enticed a small percentage of disabled individuals to return to work." ...

Since it began in 2000, the TTW program has cost $2.8 billion and enrolled 1.2 million disabled welfare recipients, a participation rate of only 2.6 percent. Those beneficiaries have saved the government approximately $5.9 billion. For each beneficiary served, the government spent $2,300 through the program, as opposed to the average $5,000 benefits forgone. ...

      You might say that this shows that even though TTW is only minimally successful that it still more than pays for itself but the problem is that it is more than possible that the vast majority of those “helped” by TTW would have gone back to work on their own. To what extent are TTW providers helping people who wouldn’t otherwise get back to work and to what extend are TTW providers just profiting from people who don’t need their help? We just don’t know. Any advantage from TTW is, at best, unproven. The problem with all the efforts to get Social Security disability recipients back to work is that they are premised upon a deep seated belief that it’s easy to get on benefits. It’s not. It’s terribly difficult to get on disability benefits. As sick as people have to be to get on Social Security disability benefits, we shouldn’t expect many to go back to work.

Social Security Proposing Mandatory Video Hearings

     From a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) that the Social Security Administration will publish in the Federal Register tomorrow:

We propose to revise our rules to explain that the agency retains the right 

to determine how parties and witnesses will appear at a hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ) at the hearing level of our administrative review process, and we will set the time and place for the hearing accordingly. ... 

We propose that parties to a hearing will not have the option to opt out of appearing by the manner of hearing we choose.  ...

     This is a proposal. The public can comment on it. Congress can’t prevent its adoption but can certainly weigh in on it. The new Democratic  majority in the House could make Andrew Saul pay a price for going ahead with it. Expect a House Social Security Subcommittee hearing on this issue next year.

Saul Nomination To Get Committee Vote Tomorrow

     The Senate Finance Committe has scheduled a vote on Andrew Saul’s nomination for Social Security Commissioner for tomorrow.

20 Injured At Social Security Field Office In Egg Harbor, N.J.

     From NBC:

Twenty people were injured, two of them seriously, Tuesday morning after a car crashed into a Social Security building in New Jersey, At least one person was critically injured and another in serious condition after a 1998 Nissan Sentra smashed into the lobby of the building in Egg Harbor Township about 9:50 a.m. ET, police said. 

At least one person was critically injured and another in serious condition after a 1998 Nissan Sentra smashed into the lobby of the building in Egg Harbor Township about 9:50 a.m. ET, police said.