ALJ Fee Petition Cap Increasing To $12,000

     From the Social Security Administration:

We previously announced an upcoming increase to the maximum fee under the fee agreement process, the first increase in 13 years. Effective November 30, 2022, the maximum fee will change from $6,000 to $7,200.

Additionally, on November 30, 2022, we are also increasing the fee petition amount that an initial authorizer may approve if an appointed representative seeks authorization of a fee through the fee petition process. During the fee petition process, the initial authorizer may now approve up to $12,000 in connection with a claim adjudicated at the initial, reconsideration, or hearing level. ...

Halloween 2022

 

Far More Poverty Among Disabled People In U.S. Than In Other Developed Countries

 

From the OECD. Click on image to view full size

Seven Years To Correct Mistake

    I just received a $436.88 attorney fee in a case that was approved in November 2015. The fee had been miscomputed originally. We notified the payment center of the problem at that time. They agreed that there was a problem. It's taken them seven years to correct the problem. Seven years.

    In case you're wondering (or trying to find some way to blame me for the delay) the case involved Disability Insurance Benefits, Disabled Adult Child Benefits and Supplemental Security Income benefits, meaning that benefits were computed in three locations, meaning that the chances of everything being computed correctly were low. Actually, a mispayment that only affected attorney fees is about as good as you could hope for, although you would hope it would take less than seven years to correct the mistake.

Union Decries Micromanagement

    From Government Executive:

Members of the nation’s largest federal employee union on Wednesday rallied outside of the headquarters of the Social Security Administration near Baltimore, demanding more funding and staffing for the agency, as well as reform of agency leadership and workforce policies. ...

Union officials on Wednesday described an agency in a vicious cycle, where insufficient funding amid growing workloads has led managers to micromanage overworked and underpaid employees, burning them out until they quit, further increasing the output expectations on the dwindling workforce that remains. This is exacerbated, they said, by a refusal to act to modernize the agency’s workflows or provide workplace flexibilities that have become the norm not just in the private sector, but elsewhere in the federal government. ...

According to a survey of union members commissioned by AFGE Council 220, 43% of respondents reported that they were planning to leave the agency within the next 12 months, including 26% of respondents who said they were strongly considering it. And 76% of respondents said that the volume of their workload is an impairment to their ability to perform their duties. ...

Delay Even For A Terminally Ill Claimant

       From KALB in Cottonport, LA:

Hundreds of thousands of people applying for Social Security Disability benefits are having to wait up to 10 months to hear back on the status of their application. That wait is wasting time and money for families dealing with health concerns that could ultimately be the difference between life and death.

Dr. Peter Lemoine, an attorney specializing in Social Security Disability law, said he fears that number will only double given the lack of manpower and efficiency in the Social Security Administration. One of his clients, Jalisa Johnson, is a 33-year-old single mother of four children battling stage four colon cancer. Lemoine said an application for disability benefits was sent out back in March, for a family in desperate need of financial and medical support. They have yet to receive an update and yet to receive thousands of dollars worth of assistance. ...

Johnson was placed on hospice over a month and a half ago in her fight against cancer. While still waiting for her approval from social security, many community members have helped raise money for her and her children. ...

    I had posted about this earlier on Twitter. Immediately I received replies that tried to place the blame for the delay on the attorney. That's ridiculous. There's no reason to suspect that the attorney failed in any way. 

    I've recently had a case of a terminally ill client whose case was pending at the reconsideration level. We kept calling about it and were eventually told that the problem was that the claimant hadn't returned his work history report! In case you don't know, that's absurd. That form is unnecessary when the claimant is dying. By the way, we don't intentionally take on cases of terminally ill claimants. We tell them that they won't need us. In the case I've talked about the diagnosis of terminal cancer came after we took on the case.

Hardly A Surprise But Really Dumb

    From the Washington Post:

Two senior Social Security officials who exposed massive, unprecedented fines imposed on disabled and poor elderly people — prompting multiple inquiries and halting the practice — now say they’ve faced ongoing backlash from their supervisors for speaking out.

Joscelyn Funnié and Deborah Shaw, veteran attorneys in the Social Security Administration’s inspector general’s office, were removed from their jobs and placed on paid leave after expressing concerns about the fines, then eventually reinstated.

But since returning to work under Inspector General Gail Ennis, they said they have been excluded from meaningful assignments, given tasks below their experience and abilities, shut out of meetings and collaboration with colleagues, and denied opportunities for advancement. Their claims are echoed in contemporaneous emails with management officials and backed up by two senior officials familiar with their work climate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. ...

    How could OIG leadership not foresee that retaliation would draw further negative publicity? By this point, I may be more concerned that OIG leadership lacks common sense than anything else.

More COLA Numbers

     Social Security has published its complete Cost Of Living Adjustments. There's more than individual COLA adjustments to be computed. Here's some key numbers for 2023:

• Attorney user fee: $113
• FICA wage base: $160,200
• Quarter of coverage amount: $1,640
• Substantial gainful activity amount (non-blind): $1,470
• Trial work period threshold: $1,050