Vaccine Mandate Compliance Rate Increases At Social Security While Suspensions Loom For Those Who Fail To Comply

     From The Hill:

Federal government agencies are preparing to take increasingly harsh steps against unvaccinated employees in order to implement President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal workers.  

Some agencies plan to send letters warning of possible suspensions to employees who have not complied with the mandate. Many are also prepared to fire employees who don’t follow the rule, though such moves would be further down the road. ...

The departments of Treasury, Transportation and Agriculture as well as the General Services Administration, Social Security Administration and Nuclear Regulatory Commission are all expected to begin suspending employees who are not complying with the mandate in the coming weeks. ...

Some agencies also saw success in convincing unvaccinated workers to get the shot toward the end of the year. The Social Security Administration, for instance, as of Friday had achieved a 98.9 percent compliance rate and a 91.5 vaccination rate, compared with a 95 percent compliance rate and 87.7 percent vaccination rate as of November.  ...

Is This A Good Idea Or Just Too Intrusive?

     From a posting by Social Security on SAM.com:

This is a Request for Information (RFI). This RFI is for informational and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a solicitation or as an obligation or commitment by the Government.  ...

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is conducting market research to identify potential vendors capable of providing record locator services to help identify interactions between a disability claimant and the healthcare system (e.g., physician visits, hospitalizations). ...

During the application process [for Social Security disability benefits], claimants may spend a great deal of time gathering information and trying to remember dates of medical treatment and provider details.  The process relies solely on claimant recall for the names and addresses of medical providers and dates of treatment.  As such, the body of medical evidence assembled for evaluation may be incomplete and omit information that could be critical in making an accurate determination of disability. ...

Technical Requirements:

• The service shall support the ability to accurately identify a patient based on key demographic information supplied by SSA, such as patient name, date of birth, gender, address, and Social Security number.
• The service shall support the ability to provide an encounter/treatment history within a specified timeframe for an identified patient, which consists of a list of treating facilities/providers, including address information, Medical Record Number (MRN), date of encounter, and conditions that were treated or evaluated.
• The service shall support the ability to provide a list of active medications within a specified timeframe for an identified patient, including the prescription date along with the prescribing doctor, facility, and address.
• The service shall support the ability to identify the electronic address of a specific patient’s electronic medical record based on key demographic information supplied by SSA.  ...
• The service shall support the ability to notify SSA when specific patients, identified by key demographic information supplied by SSA, have had medical encounters, and provide information about the treating provider or facility, the date of the encounter, and the electronic location of where the associated electronic medical record could be found.

      I really want for Social Security to have a complete medical record on my clients. I try hard to figure out who they've seen and to help complete the record set that Social Security has. Contrary to what some would think, the problem isn't claimants trying to conceal medical sources they've seen. I don't think that's what this RFI is even about. The problem is that medical histories get complicated and claimants forget. Still, this RFI seems a bit creepy to me. Do we really want the government to have the power to troll across all medical records to find every last bit of records on an individual? To be able to construct a list of prescribed medications at any given moment? Would you want the government having this kind of power to gather your medical records?

If Full Retirement Age Is Based Upon Life Expectancy, Shouldn’t It Go Down Now?

 

     

     To be clear, I think full retirement age should be considered a proxy for the physical infirmities that go along with increasing age rather than life expectancy. We should not be forcing older people to be filing disability claims when their health problems are just to be expected at their age. However, there are others, particularly on the right, who think that full retirement age and life expectancy should be linked, although I think that this stance has had more to do with hostility to the general concept of social security than anything else. Increasing life expectancy gave them an argument to do something they wanted to do anyway -- cut Social Security benefits.

What Do You Think?

bike trails

Two Members Of Congress Call For Improved Service At Social Security

      From a press release:

U.S. Rep. John Katko (R, NY-24) today called on the Social Security Administration (SSA) to provide information on the agency’s plans to improve access to essential services through the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. This effort comes amid continued disruptions to Social Security services due to the ongoing closure of SSA field offices in Central New York and across the country. Rep. Katko led this bipartisan effort alongside U.S. Rep. Kathleen Rice (D, NY-4).

...Rep. Katko today urged SSA to provide requested information on its timeline for reopening Social Security field offices and expanding in-person appointments, as well as safety precautions the agency will take to protect staff and visitors during the pandemic. ...

 

About A 4% Market Share For Trajector

      Events at Myler Disability which is now a division of Trajector, are fascinating to people like me. That plus the lack of other news in the Social Security world has led me to post a good deal about Trajector this week. However, it's best to understand that while Myler's 2020 revenues were $48.48 million, the total Social Security attorney fees paid in 2020 were $1.08 billion, meaning that Myler only had about a 4% market share. Could a larger entity like Trajector expand that market share? Perhaps, but maybe most claimants prefer to have someone local represent them. Maybe most prefer to meet with their attorney prior to the date of their hearing.

That Was Quick

      Trajector, which had acquired the Myler law firm, which is probably the largest entity representing Social Security disability claimants, has decided to withdraw its initial public offering of shares to the public, citing market conditions.

More On Sale Of Myler Disability

      I posted yesterday about Myler Disability being sold to a much larger company that plans an initial public offering (IPO). Here's some information about the Myler Companies recent financial status from the IPO document (S-1) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Click on image to view full size

     By the way, the purchase price for Myler Disability was $88.2 million. Page 74 of the S-1. Not bad for an entity that was losing money. 

     I keep thinking of Binder and Binder. The owners sold out to a private equity firm. Binder and Binder later ended up bankrupt. There probably won't be a repeat in this case but it's hard not to think of that history.