Information About Claims Backlogs

VA Backlogs

    The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) puts out a quarterly report showing its claims backlog. Above is a chart from that report showing how things have been going at VA.

    I wonder if Social Security should do something like this. It would be more complicated at Social Security. I expect it would take separate charts for initial, reconsideration and hearing reviews for disability claims as well as charts showing the backlogs claimants face to get telephone appointments with the agency and in getting favorable decisions implemented. I know that if you search hard enough you can find much of this information online but putting it all in one easily accessible location and issuing regular press releases could only help the agency in getting the funding it needs. 

    Traditionally, Social Security has tried to sweep its problems under the rug -- minimize them, treat them as isolated problems even when they're routine, hide the information showing the extent of the backlogs, shift agency resources to reduce agency backlogs that attract public attention (thus insuring that other backlogs grow), etc. 

    Isn't it time to straight up tell the public what's going on and let them decide how much service they're willing to pay for? Quit being ashamed. These backlogs aren't due to management failures.

Purely Coincidental -- Would Have Happened Anyway

     Woman applies for Social Security disability benefits. After more than a year there's still no determination on her claim. She contacts a newspaper reporter who sends an e-mail to Social Security on a Friday inquiring about the case. The following Monday the woman gets a call from Social Security saying her claim had been approved.

    By the way, Social Security doesn't normally call you to tell you that your disability claim has been approved unless there's an SSI claim involved and the description in the article of the woman's family income suggests that there wasn't an SSI claim involved.

Time Off For Voting A Problem At SSA?

     From Government Executive:

Several agencies are ignoring or putting tight restrictions on the Biden administration’s directive to provide extra time off for employees to vote or work at the polls, according to dozens of workers, the union representing them and internal policies reviewed by Government Executive.  ...

To qualify for the bonus leave, GPO said, employees must be unable to vote due to work duties—such as due to work-related travel—and not have access to absentee voting. Early voting options must also be the same hours as normal election day hours to remain eligible for the time off. If an employee can vote on alternative days earlier in the morning or later at night than is available on Nov. 8, GPO would not provide administrative leave. ...

[A]gencies that employees flagged as non-receptive to leave-for-voting requests included the Veterans Affairs Department, Transportation Security Administration, Social Security Administration and Defense Department. ...

Can This Business Survive?

    From the Messenger Inquirer:

Will Craig retired from the Social Security Administration in December after 25 years.

He said he’s seen the problems people have in filing claims and appeals.

So Craig has started The Social Security Advisor, a business “where I can help people seeking guidance with Social Security-related issues, such as help with completing complex forms, filing appeals or just help filing their applications,” he said. “I’ve see how everything works. I can’t file claims, but I can help people fill them out correctly.”

Craig said when he worked at Social Security, “I had to get people in and out in 10 minutes. Often they said they wished they had more time to talk with me.”...

Craig charges $50 an hour for his services. ...

Craig’s website says, “People often feel that they don’t need an attorney to qualify for Social Security disability, but might still need help completing the piles of forms and questionnaires that the Disability Determination Service can send. Have you tried calling your local Social Security office to see if they can help? Most likely they told you that there is no one available or that you should seek help from a friend or family member. With 25 years of experience working for the Social Security Administration, I’ve assisted people just like you fill out those forms.”

    I wish Mr. Craig all the best with his new business. I think this sort of service is needed. However, I think that Social Security is going to effectively shut it down by insisting on a fee petition for each fee he receives from a customer and that all monies he receives be held in escrow until a fee is approved. I have to say that this sort of thing -- where help is provided a Social Security claimant but there is no direct contact with Social Security -- has always been a gray area. I can't be entirely sure that Social Security will try to shut him down. I think it would not be in the public interest for them to shut him down. Why shouldn't it be legal to provide this sort of service if there's a demand for it? By the way, don't tell me that insisting that he file a fee petition to get paid isn't the same thing as shutting him down. Anyone who says that doesn't know how slow and tedious the fee petition process is. He would expend more effort filing fee petitions and following up on them than he would helping customers.

They Don’t Know How Much They Don’t Know

     Americans know so little about Social Security in general and about Social Security disability benefit in particular. According to new research, 24% of Americans don’t realize that there is such a thing as Social Security disability benefits. 7% don’t realize that you need to apply in order to be approved for those benefits. Yes, I have clients who have a hard time understanding that they won’t have a chance at being approved for Social Security disability unless they apply.

Please Read Before Commenting On This Blog

     I don't know why but there seem to be more and more comments posted on this blog. I think it may be a good idea to discuss the way that comments are handled here.

     Any comments you make on this board are moderated by me. They don't appear until I approve them. I approve comments one by one. Lately I have been deleting more comments. I don't think that's because my standards have changed. It's because the comments have changed. There are more objectionable comments offered. 

    I don't have any comprehensive list of standards for comments but let me list some that will get your comment trashed:

• Comment has no relevance to what I posted.
• Comment has only tangential relevance to what I posted. (There's a lot of subjectivity here. How tangential is too tangential?)
• The comment is repetitive. (Sometimes people repeat their comment merely because the fact that it didn't immediately appear confused them. Often, multiple comments seem to come from paid shills and, yes, it's obvious to me that this blog is targeted by paid shills. I try to knock them all out.)
  
• The comment seems intended to be insulting. (Some subjectivity here but there are way too many really insulting comments offered. I offer more leniency when we're talking about public officials.)
  
• The comment seems intended to troll. (Some subjectivity here.)
  
• The comment contains a clearly false and misleading statement of fact. (I few of these are honest errors but there are too many attempts to offer "alternative facts.")
  

    Remember, this is my blog. It's not a democracy. I get to be an autocrat. I can turn my thumb up or down on comments as I please. My purpose is to promote a useful and civil dialog. I certainly allow comments that express disagreement with me or which say my facts are wrong but I don't allow comments that are intended to insult me or anyone else or comments which appear to be deliberate lies.

    By the way, remember that I have to get around to reviewing your comment before it appears. This may happen quickly or it may take hours. It depends on my schedule. 

      Judging by what I have to throw out, I'd guess that most of my readers would prefer that the comments be moderated.

You Snooze, You Lose

    From Bloomberg:

An attorney who won disability insurance benefits for his client isn’t entitled to the fees the Social Security Administration designated for his work before a federal court, because his 26-month delay in requesting them wasn’t reasonable, the First Circuit said.

Jose Pais was denied benefits by the SSA in 2014. In 2018, a federal district court ruled in Pais’ favor and remanded the case to the SSA, which then decided Pais was entitled to benefits.

Pais and his lawyer had signed a contingent-fee agreement. The SSA therefore sent Pais a notice of award in June 2019, saying that his lawyer was entitled under federal law to fees of up to $29,159, representing 25% of the recovered benefits.

The lawyer promptly submitted a claim to SSA for over $7,000 for the work he did in administrative proceedings, but didn’t submit a claim for his work before the district court until August 2021.   

The district court rejected the lawyer’s excuses and said that the delay was unreasonable under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b).

There is not fixed time under the Social Security law for an attorney to file a motion for fees, the opinion by Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said. But there is a circuit split over which Federal Rule of Civil Procedure applies to the request, Thompson said.

The Tenth Circuit applies Rule 60, under which parties have a “reasonable time” to move for “relief from a final judgment, order, or proceeding.” But the Second, Third, Fifth, and Eleventh circuits apply Rule 54(d)(2), which says that unless a statute or court order says otherwise, a motion for attorneys’ fees must “be filed no later than 14 days after the entry of judgment.”

Agreeing with the Tenth Circuit, the First Circuit said that the SSA never hands down a notice of award within 14 days of a district court’s judgment, which makes rigid application of Rule 54(d)(2) impossible. It also noted that some of the circuits that apply Rule 54(d)(2) toll the 14 days to the date the SSA issues a notice of award. ...

    What I want to know is how long it took Social Security to act on the fee petition. This delay may not be as bad as it seems.

It Would Be Suicidal For The GOP To Actually Try To Do This But That's Not Stopping Them From Talking About It

     From the New York Times:

Congressional Republicans, eyeing a midterm election victory that could hand them control of the House and the Senate, have embraced plans to reduce federal spending on Social Security and Medicare, including cutting benefits for some retirees and raising the retirement age for both safety net programs. ...

The Republican leaders who would decide what legislation the House and the Senate would consider if their party won control of Congress have not said specifically what, if anything, they would do to the programs. ...

Yet several influential Republicans have signaled a new willingness to push for Medicare and Social Security spending cuts as part of future budget negotiations with President Biden. Their ideas include raising the age for collecting Social Security benefits to 70 from 67 and requiring many older Americans to pay higher premiums for their health coverage. ...