Question For The Day

      Once field offices reopen, should vaccination for Covid-19 be required of Social Security employees who have extensive dealings with the public?

     On the one hand, we generally respect personal autonomy when it comes to healthcare decisions. On the other hand, while even vaccinated employees pose some risk of spreading Covid-19 to the public and ever though the evidence isn't yet definitive, it seems clear  that un-vaccinated field office employees will pose a much greater risk to the public.

     I've got zero sympathy for vaccine skeptics. Even though I've got relatives, friends and neighbors in this camp, I regard them as dangerously deluded fools. I have no problem with putting pressure on them. That's what it's going to take for us to fully get past this pandemic.

Covid-19 And Federal Workers Compensation

      I don't know whether there have already been cases of Covid-19 associated with employment at Social Security. If not, there may be before this is over. The Department of Labor has issued some guidelines for federal workers compensation cases alleging Covid-19 as an occupational disease.

     By the way, I once had a client who got workers compensation benefits for a really bad case of tuberculosis that was affecting parts of his body well beyond his lungs. There was no dispute about it being a compensable occupational disease. He had been a monkey handler working for an enterprise doing medical research. It turns out that tuberculosis is endemic among monkeys used in research and that getting tuberculosis is a well known risk of handling those monkeys. The things you learn in this line of work.

Puerto Rico Case Won't Be Heard By SCOTUS Until The Fall

      The Supreme Court has issued what should be its final oral argument schedule for this term of Court and it doesn't include U.S. v. Vaello-Madero, the case on the constitutionality of denying SSI to U.S. citizens residing in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. That means the case should be argued early in the October term of the Supreme Court, which always begins on the first Monday in October. An opinion might come in early 2022.

     This delay would also give the Biden Administration time to settle the case if it wishes. I doubt they will but it's not out of the question. We still don't have a Solicitor General, the official responsible for handling cases at the Supreme Court on behalf of the federal government.

EM On E-Signatures

     From Emergency Message  EM 20022 REV 2 issued yesterday:

... While this EM is in effect, use the instructions below if any of the forms are submitted without a signature the agency would otherwise recognize as valid, so long as such forms are accompanied by an electronically signed SSA-1696:

· SSA-1693 Fee Agreement for Representation before SSA (or other written fee agreement)
· SSA-16 Application for Disability Insurance Benefits
· SSA-8001 Application for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) (Deferred or Abbreviated)
· SSA-8000 Application for Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
· SSA-L2 Comprehensive Notice and Application Summary for Third Party Filed iClaim
· SSA-820 Work Activity Report – Self-Employment
· SSA-821 Work Activity Report - Employee
· SSA-827 Authorization To Disclose Information To The Social Security Administration
· SSA-455 Disability Update Report

If a representative submits any of the above forms along with an electronically signed SSA-1696, technicians should, in one single telephone contact with the claimant, ensure that he or she take all steps for each form submitted. ...

e1696?

      From a notice that Social Security posted online but has not promoted:

New online service - Electronic filing of a representative's notice of appointment  On February 22, we released a new service to allow representatives to initiate an SSA-1696 notice of appointment online where they and their claimants can complete, sign and submit the form electronically with no personal contact. This is a two-step process the representative must initiate. Once the claimant completes the second step and submits the signed document, the service will automatically route the document for processing. This service will help expedite the appointment process and give representatives and claimants flexibility. We will continue to accept submissions of appointment notices via mail, eFax, or uploaded through our filing portals and Electronic Records Express as before. The link to the e1696 is located at the top left of this page, so be sure to bookmark it!

     And this is the link to the e1696. I haven't tried it yet but I'm told it's not working, which may be why they're not promoting it.

 

     Update: Social Security just posted this today:

How will SSA process my notice of appointment while emergency procedures are in place?

Date: March 11, 2021

Beginning March 11, 2021, we have revised our temporary procedures to allow you to use different methods to sign the notice of appointment of a representative and fee agreement, if the fee agreement is submitted with the new notice of appointment, during the current COVID-19 health emergency. During this time, if we receive an appointment document such as the Form SSA-1696, on its own or along with an SSA-8000, SSA-8001, SSA-L2, SSA-820, SSA-821, SSA-827, or SSA-455 form, and your signature appears to be an electronic or digital signature, we will make three attempts to contact you to verify your identity and confirm the signature. If we verify your identity and signature, we will process the appointment as usual. If the first attempt to reach you by telephone is unsuccessful, we also will send a call-in letter to you and the representative you requested. If we cannot reach you and you do not return our call, or do not verify the signature, we will return the paperwork to the person who submitted it without recognizing the appointment.

We also have temporary procedures in place permitting you to verbally appoint a representative during a “remote” telephone hearing with an administrative law judge, if you submit a written notice of appointment afterwards. In this case, we will accept an electronic signature on the written appointment notice, without needing to call you again.

NIOSH Visits A Field Office

      Social Security management has invited representatives of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to tour four Social Security field offices and to give recommendations for safety for those already working at the field offices. A representative of the labor union that represents most agency employees has written up a summary of the inspection of the Hamilton, OH field office. 

     The union rep asked management officials present on the day of inspection whether there was any plan to provide vaccination to Social Security employees prior to their return to work and received "no acceptable response" as he put it. 

     If, as promised, vaccines are freely available by sometime in May, I doubt it will be necessary for the Social Security Administration to provide vaccinations. I'd be more interested in the answer to a question that wasn't asked: Will Social Security require that its employees who deal with the public be vaccinated? I don't know whether there is legal authority for such a requirement. You'd hope that front line employees would have enough common sense to be vaccinated but there are a lot of vaccine skeptics in the country.

Social Security Isn't Ready

      Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times has written a column about the threat that Social Security faces from Covid-19 "long haulers." We could see a huge wave of disability claims from Covid-19 survivors coming in the aftermath of the pandemic. This is in addition to the routine claims that people have deferred filing because of the closure of Social Security's field offices, the large backlog of cases that have built up at the initial and reconsideration levels during the pandemic and the possibility of a huge surge of SSI claims from Puerto Rico and other territories depending upon what the Supreme Court does with U.S. v. Vaello-Madero. The Social Security Administration isn't ready for any of this.

Bad Times At Field Offices

      An anonymous e-mail I received:

Hi Charles - I have been reading your blog for years.

Im a field office manager and felt compelled to share what management has sustained for nearly twelve months.

First off - kudos to SSA for putting somewhat of pan together by sending everyone home after cancelling telework...of course. Since that time things have gotten just awful and unsustainable.

We don’t have centralized print so management is asked to go in and pack every letter daily. Many ma agents don’t have updated mail machines so we must weigh envelopes individually and seal them by hand. The process takes hours. After outgoing is done all day - we handle incoming. Hundreds of documents from the public daily in some cases. Items go missing regularly. We open every piece and scan them into a program so employees can work. This process is even longer than outgoing mail. When it concludes - the day is likely over. As this work from home progresses we were slowly told things would return to normal but from home. Problem is we don’t the technology - everything at home takes longer. Managers were drowning in mail and still are- the calls exploded - an office like mine went from 600 calls to roughly 2000. We could not keep up - Area directors insisted on 90% answer rates. Workload immediately fell off. Instead of adjusting they increased our PSI goals in one area in particular- ssi redetermination. We had some of the highest targets ever yet we were receiving no help. Through all this management was told they could not work OT because it would look bad. We were told that management doing production was also frowned upon.

Months have passed and the agency did little to aid mgmt. in fact they made it worse. They made exceptions to allow individuals in office and mgmt was asked to pull away from mail to risk ourselves with claimants. It’s ok - they bought flimsy sneeze guard to protect us. When we asked for hazard pay or ability to carryover we were told no.

We have been wildly mistreated by the DCo front office. This year is worse still

For your audience our initials claims have gone from 125 as a goal for an initial decison to 170 days and recons from 118 to 152 days . In short it’s now average 11 months before you make it to a hearing In many cases - replacement cards take a month before processing . Record request from attys - I haven’t been able to get to them in months. You want certified record - that’s 6 months minimum. We are a disaster and holding it all together on the back of managers that are breaking. We are told we can’t let calls go but due to a nearly 500 million budget shortfall we won’t have any OT , are still expected to clear 20% more redeterminations and answer 90% of goals. Oh and all mail most be processed in 60 days.

I could go on forever - I only share to say how truly dire SSA situation is. I also share to show this who represent people that we are in a giant spiral with zero plan.

How out of touch you say - well dco touted a great Mobil check in program that they didn’t realize can’t handle foreign ss5 because a lack of having a number. They actually developed , designed, shared , gloated and didn’t realize its flaws until a manager pointed out the obvious.

Sorry for the rant and misspelling -perhaps you can take some blurbs to share with readers that we aren’t bad - we work hard - we just are given no chance for success and it’s getting worse. Thanks Charles