It’s A Lot Bigger Problem Than Larry Kotlikoff Realizes

     Somebody needs to tell Larry Kotlikoff about the payment center backlogs. He can’t understand why a mildly complicated widows benefits situation can’t get straightened out in a timely way. There are hundreds of thousands of cases like the one he’s complaining about in many months long backlogs.The total payment center backlog is over four million! I’m sorry for the woman he’s writing about but I’ve got a few dozen clients with their own horrendous payment center backlog stories. These cases don’t get the media attention that used to go to the hearing backlog but they’re no less of an outrage. The payment centers will get more resources but these backlogs will be with us for some time to come.

Happy 40th NOSSCR!

     The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year with a conference in New Orleans. The first NOSSCR conference was held in New Orleans 40 years ago. I was among the 75 or so who was present at that first conference. NOSSCR asked me to write a something about my involvement in NOSSCR. Here’s what I wrote:

​I had the good fortune of hanging out a shingle to practiceSocial Security law just before NOSSCR’s first conference. Without NOSSCR I don’t think I would have made a go of it.

​I started work for what was then the Bureau of Hearings and Appeals (BHA) as a staff attorney in February 1978. While I found that I liked the field of Social Security law, I did not like working for the federal government or anybody else for that matter. I opened my own law office on the Tuesday after Labor Day in 1979.  

While working at BHA was an excellent way of learning Social Security law, I realized as I was preparing to leave the agency that I had learned nothing about how to practice Social Security law. There was no one locally to learn from since no other attorney in the area did much Social Security work. I also discovered that I would now be a small business owner. That was a real shock.

     After I submitted my letter of resignation to Social Security, I talked with another staff attorney whom I had met in training. He worked in Atlanta. He told me that there was a new organization forming of attorneys who represented Social Security claimants. He didn’t know much about it but he gave me the telephone number of a Georgia attorney, Rudolph Patterson, who was involved in the effort.

    Rudolph was gracious when I called. He told me how to join NOSSCR and told me the newly formed organization would be holding its first conference in New Orleans that November. He sent me copies of the first two or three issues of NOSSCR’s newsletter. I pored over them. Even though my finances were tight, I decided that I had to go to the first NOSSCR conference. 

    I still regret one thing about that first NOSSCR conference. Rudolph invited pretty everyone to dinner at Antoine’s the night before the conference was to begin. Because of another commitment, I took a late flight and didn’t arrive in time for that dinner. I’ve been able to dine at Antoine’s since but I still regret missing that dinner on Rudolph’s dime.

     I couldn’t afford to stay at the conference hotel, the Royal Orleans, so I stayed at a barely adequate place on St. Peter Street a few blocks away. I remember walking over to the Royal Orleans at about 8:00 on the first morning of the conference and seeing bars open and serving drinks to customers. I knew that I was definitely not in Raleigh! At that time, you couldn’t even buy a mixed drink in a restaurant in Raleigh.

I was impressed by many things once the conference beganbut most by the obvious hunger for knowledge that everyone was exhibiting. Even though we were in a city that afforded endless temptations, almost everyone stayed for almost every minute of every presentation. This was the case for NOSSCR conferences that followed for at least several years. 

     Even though people at that first conference were meeting for the first time, there was almost instant camaraderie. In addition to meeting Rudolph for the first time, I met people like Nancy Shor, Steve Babitsky, Bob Crowe, Jim Brown, Carl Weisbrod, Steve Horenstein, Cliff Weisberg, Mike Glancy and Lyle Lieberman, all of whom became friends. I have learned so much from them over the years. 

    At that first NOSSCR conference I noticed that I had something to contribute. While I knew nothing about practicing Social Security law or running a law office, I had picked uptechnical Social Security knowledge that was in short supply in the early days of NOSSCR. 

     I couldn’t afford to attend the second NOSSCR Conferencebut for many years thereafter I didn’t miss another one. They were cherished opportunities to learn, to network with other Social Security attorneys and to contribute what I could.

     Those conferences and phone calls with other NOSSCR members were opportunities to feel less isolated professionally. I was used to working at BHA with other staff attorneys and ALJs but I was now by myself. While there are dozens of other Social Security attorneys in North Carolina now, at the time there was just myself, another attorney in Charlotte who was somewhat seedy and a few fine legal services people such as Mike Glancy. Other young attorneys in private practice in Raleigh at the time doing personal injury and workers comp didn’t understand the challenges I was facing nor did I understand theirs. I think I might have eventually given up without NOSSCR because it would have just been too lonely.

     In retrospect, joining NOSSCR and going to that first NOSSCR conference were the two best moves I’ve made professionally. NOSSCR has meant and continues to mean a lot to me. I hope I’ll be there for the 50th anniversary NOSSCR conference in 2029 and even the 60th in 2039. 

Keep this organization strong. It’s needed now as much as ever.

Astrue Nomination To SSAB Withdrawn

     Michael Astrue was nominated to a seat on the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) in August of last year.  He hasn’t been confirmed. That nomination has now been withdrawn. No, I don’t know whatever stories there may be behind the failure to act on the nomination and the withdrawal of the nomination.

eCBSV Moves Forward

     From a Social Security press release:

The Social Security Administration today announced the first potential group of selected participants for its new electronic Consent Based Social Security Number (SSN) Verification (eCBSV) service. The agency will roll out the service to these users in June 2020, and plans on expanding the number of users within approximately six months of the initial rollout. ...

Social Security is creating eCBSV, a fee-based electronic SSN verification service, to allow select financial institutions and service providers, called “permitted entities” and including subsidiaries, affiliates, agents, subcontractors, or assignees of a financial institution, to verify if a person’s SSN, name, and date of birth combination matches Social Security records. Social Security needs the person’s written consent and will accept an electronic signature in order to disclose the SSN verification to the permitted entity. eCBSV returns a match verification of “Yes” or “No.” eCBSV does not verify a person’s identity. ...

Don't Know What This Means

     Social Security has issued Emergency Message EM-19025 on the Eric Conn cases. It says that:

... On November 28, 2018, the Unites States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit concluded in Hicks v. Commissioner of Social Security that our current redetermination process violated constitutional and statutory protections for individuals who challenged the agency’s redetermination process. Pursuant to the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Hicks, the courts are remanding affected cases to the agency to provide new hearings and decisions. The courts have also ordered us to reinstate benefits pending the outcome of the new redetermination proceedings. We refer to this sub-set of individuals as Hicks cases. ...

Individuals who had their cases remanded from Federal court for new proceedings will receive a letter from the Appeals Council. The letter will address their new hearing to consider their medical condition. …

Affected individuals will also receive separate notices, which will be available in the Online Retrieval System (ORS), explaining how we will comply with the district court’s order to reinstate benefits until we make a new decision and how we will schedule a phone appointment. …

     The EM doesn’t say what will be in these new letters and notices nor does it say what these phone calls will concern. These may be addressed in another EM that they're not posting. Many EMs are kept secret. There are also a number of non-functioning links in the EM. Some of them might address the issues this EM raises.

$150,000 Employee Fraud Alleged

      From an Alabama television station:

A Former Social Security Administration employee in Birmingham is accused of creating underpayments to more than a dozen beneficiaries who’s loved ones had died.

LaTanya Hatter is charged in a three-count federal indictment alleging fraud and identity theft.

Court records show Hatter used her position as a Benefits Authorizer at the Social Security Administration field office in Birmingham to create Automated One Time Payments causing nearly $150,000 to be electronically deposited into her account or the bank accounts belonging to friends or family members. ...

House Arrest For Former Employee Who Embezzled From Social Security

     From the Star News:

A Chula Vista man who worked for the Social Security Administration was sentenced Aug. 30 to eight months home detention for embezzling $65,118.

Nam-Phong Hung Le, 37, has paid all the money back which is part of the reason why he was placed on three years probation in U.S. District Court.

Judge Janis Sammartino ordered Le to pay an additional $34,890, which is a judgement found against him that relates to the fraud. He will have to pay for electronic monitoring of his house arrest.

Le worked as a technical expert in the Social Security Administration office in El Cajon and later in the downtown San Diego offices.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Hill asked for a 1-year sentence in prison, saying money was taken from six people’s Social Security accounts, including several who were deceased and whose payments should have stopped. ...

AFGE Sues Over Impasses Panel Ruling

     From Government Executive:

A federal employee union local in New York on Wednesday filed a lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of violating a court ruling blocking the key provisions of three controversial workforce executive orders.

The American Federation of Government Employees Local 3369, which represents Social Security Administration workers in New York, argued in a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that the White House, Social Security Administration and the Federal Impasses Panel effectively used the collective bargaining process to do an end-run around an injunction against the orders.

In May 2018, President Trump issued three executive orders that sought to shorten the length of performance improvement plans to 30 days, exempt adverse personnel actions from grievance proceedings, streamline collective bargaining negotiations, and significantly reduce the number of work hours and activities that union members can spend on official time. U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in August 2018 blocked the key provisions of the orders, finding that they collectively “eviscerated” federal workers’ collective bargaining rights.

In July, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Circuit Court for the D.C. Circuit overturned that decision on jurisdictional grounds, but the injunction remains in place as the court weighs whether to rehear the case with all 11 judges.

The complaint argues that the Social Security Administration’s actions in negotiating a new contract with AFGE constitute a successful effort to “circumvent” the injunction prohibiting the government from implementing the executive orders and claimed that the impasses panel exceeded its authority by acting as an implementation arm of the Trump administration, rather than an independent arbiter of labor-management bargaining disputes. ...