Why Doesn't Social Security Have A More Sophisticated Telephone System?

      My calls to larger institutions are usually answered by sophisticated systems that tell me that "All agents are busy" but which also often give me an estimate of how long it will take before a human answers the phone. Probably more important, many of the systems give me the option of a call back. All I have to do is enter my phone number and I get a call back in less than half an hour. 

     Why doesn't Social Security's phone systems have these features? I'll give you my best guesses on the answers. They don't want to tell you how long you may be on hold because they don't want to admit just how bad their telephone service is. They can't include a call back feature because they lack the personnel to do it. Their system depends on callers getting fed up with the wait and hanging up. If that's not enough, Social Security's system just hangs up on persistent callers. They lack the personnel to handle the calls they're getting. Not now, not later in the day, not tomorrow, not ever. They have no choice but to deprive telephone service to many members of the public one way or another.

     Social Security management could just publicly admit to how bad their telephone service is and plead for more budgetary help but they feel ashamed of the situation and do everything they can to hide the problem or downplay it. They act like it's a management problem that they ought to be able to fix instead of a problem inherent in the lack of funding the agency has received. They're aided in their pathetic pretense by the House Social Security Subcommittee. In years past, that Subcommittee would have held hearings that would have exposed the problem and forced the agency to admit how bad things are. Now, it's mostly crickets. The Chairman of that Subcommittee, John Larson, seems largely uninterested in holding hearing on agency operations. I don't understand why he even wants to be the Subcommittee Chair.

     By the way, can Social Security say "Your call is important to us. Please hold" with a straight face? It seems to me that the unstated message in Social Security's telephone system is "Your call is unimportant to us. Please hang up and quit bothering us."

More On Reopening Agreements With Unions

      From Federal News Network:

... The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents employees in SSA’s Office of Hearing Operations, said NTEU Chapter 224 has negotiated an agreement that increases telework opportunities for all employees for the first six months of the reentry back into the workplace, extends scheduling flexibilities and maximizes safety for those who return to the office.

NTEU President Tony Reardon said in a statement Thursday the union has not yet received a 30-day notice of exactly when the reentry process will begin ...

“NTEU expects the agency will revisit telework, and bargain as appropriate, on extending and expanding telework opportunities in the future,” Reardon said. ...

AFGE [American Federation of Government Employees, which represents most SSA employees] and SSA, in a memorandum of understanding, agree to hold several meetings over component-level reentry, workplace safety and evaluation period issues.

The first of these reentry meetings will take place no later than Feb. 1. The agreement requires two follow-up meetings should be completed no later than March 1.

The memo specifies that a phased reentry for AFGE bargaining unit employees will begin no earlier than 30 days after the agreement is implemented.

Within seven days of the final reentry meeting, the memo states AFGE may submit a bargaining request to address “unresolved issues.” ...

As long as the MOU remains in effect, all AFGE employees, contractors, visitors and members of the public will be required to wear masks inside SSA facilities, regardless of vaccination status. ...

     And more from Government Executive:

...  According to an agreement reached between the Social Security Administration and the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents workers across several of the agency’s subcomponents, the current target date for employees to return to the office is March 30, although that date can be postponed if there is another spike in COVID-19 cases.

 The deal also provides AFGE’s various component-level councils and locals the opportunity to bargain over reentry issues specific to their offices between now and March 1, something the union has been pushing for since last year. And it sets up a framework for the union and management to continue to negotiate for six months after reentry begins over operational and personnel policies, including over issues like post-pandemic telework. ...

The agreement with AFGE also eliminates some pre-pandemic barriers to telework instituted under a Federal Service Impasses Panel-mandated contract during the Trump administration, including so-called "core days" in which every employee was expected to report to the office, and the use of minor reprimands to bar employees from working from home altogether. ...

SSA Reaches Reopening Agreements With All Three Labor Unions

     A press release:

Statement from Kilolo Kijakazi, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, about Agency Reentry

“I am very pleased to share that we have successfully reached agreement with our three labor unions on our reentry plan.

This will be a significant step toward improving access to our services as we implement this plan.

I want to thank our labor representatives for working with management to achieve this outcome, which will help us better serve the public.

I also want to thank the public and our employees for their patience during this unprecedented time.

I know the public will have questions about what this means to them.

For now, you should continue to reach us online at www.socialsecurity.gov or by calling our National 800 Number or your local office. We will let you know when we are able to restore additional services.”

Memorandum Of Understanding Between ALJ Union And SSA

     NOSSCR has obtained a copy of the memorandum of understanding between the union representing Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) and the Social Security Administration. I suppose I may as well post the link here. 

     I guess we all hope that a lot of what's in this agreement will turn out to be overkill because after the Omicron variant subsides almost everyone will have some degree of immunity to Covid and the number of Covid cases and their severity will die down to the point that the threat is similar to the threat posed by seasonal influenza. I'm really, really tired of Covid and so are you.

When I Say Attorneys Representing Social Security Claimants Are Hurting, I'm Not Kidding

     Social Security has posted final numbers showing total fees paid to attorneys for representing claimants in 2021. Let's do a comparison with the last two years:

• 2019: 390,809 fees were paid for a total of $1,214,557,861. 
  
• 2020: 360,493 fees were paid, down 8% from 2019. The total fees paid were $1,081,523,523, down 11% from 2019.
• 2021: 296,847 fees were paid, down 18% from 2020 and down 24% from 2019. The total fees paid were $932,887,938, down 14% from 2020 and down 23% from 2020.
  

      One big problem is that even though the number of new claims filed has gone down significantly, the number of clients at Social Security law firms hasn't gone down much because cases are so piled up at the initial and reconsideration levels, not to mention the huge backlogs of claimants waiting to be paid after favorable decisions. Our workloads are still there even though our gross receipts have plummeted. There are fewer hearings but more effort expended trying to make sure Social Security does what it is supposed to do. In the current environment many cases get sidetracked for months. Some get lost. Overwhelmed agency employees do little to sort out these problems. Social Security employees may get tired of lawyers repeatedly contacting them about cases but if you're on the receiving end, it's impossible to tell a case that's just in a backlog pile from one that's not even in the pile.

     Contrary to what many Social Security employees may think, representing Social Security claimants is a high overhead, low profit margin business in the best of times. Everybody need normality at Social Security. Social Security attorneys also need and deserve a cost of living adjustment in the maximum attorney fee under the fee agreement process.

ALJs To Start Returning To Their Offices In May

Welcome Back!

      The ALJ Discussion Forum is a message board for Social Security Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) and wannabe ALJs. It's independent of the Social Security Administration. Yesterday, reports began to be published on the message board about an e-mail that ALJ union members received telling them of an agreement to allow ALJs to return to their offices on a voluntary basis beginning on May 4 with return required in June. However, ALJs will only be required to come in on days on which they have hearings. The reports on the board indicate that there's still no agreement with the larger AFGE union that includes most non-ALJ personnel at Social Security.

A Question

      I have cases at the Appeals Council whose status is variously given in ERE as Assigned to Adjudicator, Assigned to Analyst and Case Workup. What is the difference? What can I tell from these case statuses? Anything?

Slow Progress In Obtaining And Analyzing Medical Records Via IT

      From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

Despite spending more than 10 years trying to increase the number of medical records received through health IT, SSA still receives most records in paper or ERE format. In the Fiscal Year (FY) that ended on September 30, 2020, SSA received only 11 percent of medical records through health IT. 

SSA experienced a decreasing trend in adding new health IT partners from 56 in FY 2018 to 12 in FY 2021 (as of August). During this time, SSA reduced the number of staff and contractors involved in health IT outreach and did not fully fund projects to increase electronic medical evidence. Also, expanding the number of health IT records by adding new partners is not a unilateral decision made by SSA, as prospective partners must be willing and able to meet SSA’s technical requirements, and COVID-19 was a factor. In October 2021, SSA informed us it was (a) working on Memorandums of Understanding with 3 entities to exchange health IT records with over 30 large health IT organizations and (b) adding more staff to develop and implement strategies to expand health IT.

Challenges in expanding the number of health IT records include some partners’ inability to send sensitive medical records, acceptance of SSA’s authorization form to release records to the Agency (Form SSA-827), and medical industry-wide differences in patient-identifying data fields. 

Additionally, SSA has had limited success analyzing medical records because MEGAHIT is limited to analyzing only structured data. MEGAHIT generated data extracts on only 7.3 percent of the 1.6 million health IT records SSA received in FY 2020. The extracts assist SSA disability examiners in making accurate disability determinations. Since 2018, SSA has been developing and testing the Intelligent Medical-Language Analysis GENeration application with new capabilities for reviewing medical records. As of August 2021, SSA was still testing and rolling out this application to its offices. ...