Disability Claims In The Time Of Covid -- Or Any Other Time

     From County-Level Drivers Of Disability Benefit Claims In Times Of Covid-19 by R. Vincent Pohl and David R. Mann:

... Counties that were closer to as SSA field office experienced larger declines in SSI and SSDI application and award rates between 2019 and 2020 compared with counties further away from the nearest field office.

SSDI application rates grew more in counties with a larger increase in unemployment rates.

Changes in SSI and SSDI application and award rates were not consistently associated with levels of COVID-19 cases and deaths. ...

Applying for disability benefits in person at an SSA field office seems to be an important factor. When field offices closed early during the pandemic, it affected potential applicants for SSI and SSDI who would have otherwise likely applied in person and were less likely to do so due to field office closures.  ...

    I don't understand how they can say that SSDI application rates "grew" more in areas with high unemployment when application rates were actually declining. Maybe they declined less in areas with more unemployment but they weren't going up.

Merry Christmas

 

Change In Workers Comp Offset Computation -- This Is The Sort Of Arcane Stuff That Can Make A Difference Of Tens Of Thousands Of Dollars To A Claimant

    From a newly added changes to POMS (Program Operations Manual Series) §DI 52150:

... A lump sum award may specify a payment amount based on the number holder’s (NH) life expectancy determined by insurance life expectancy tables. The life expectancy of the NH is often given in weeks, months, or years. These awards usually specify a life expectancy (LE) rate. ...

If the award indicates it should be prorated over the claimant's lifetime but does not specify a rate or time period, and the development proves unsuccessful, following is a link to a table provided by SSA's Office of the Chief Actuary to assist in determining the life expectancy:

https//www.ssa.gov/OACT/HistEst/CohLifeTablesHome.html ...

    This doesn't help if the workers compensation settlement agreement says nothing about proration but it helps in cases where there has been a simpler mistake in settling a workers compensation case, a failure to include specific language giving the proration formula. They're continuing with the no amendment provision. That needs to be changed. Don't punish claimants for failing to have an experienced workers comp attorney.

    This is also an example for ALJs. If this seems incomprehensible, it's because there's a lot more going on with Social Security disability cases than you're aware of. I have seen former ALJs struggle to represent claimants because they didn't realize that they would face a significant learning curve.

Merry Christmas

 

6% Increase In SSA Appropriation, Less Than Rate Of Inflation

      The Omnibus Appropriations bill likely to be passed by Friday includes $14.1 billion, an increase of $785 million or 6 percent, for Social Security’s administrative expenses. This is less than the rate of inflation this past 12 months.

Merry Christmas

 

Centralized Scheduling Of ALJ Hearings To End

     I'm hearing from the National Organization of Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) that Social Security has decided to ditch centralized scheduling of Administrative Law Judge hearings. We'll go back to having individual hearing offices scheduling hearings beginning February 1, 2023. This is overdue. Centralized scheduling has been a failure from every point of view. It's one of the endless examples of the longstanding instinct of high level Social Security officials that smaller agency components such as hearing offices are inefficient and the only way for things to get better is to centralize as much as possible. It seems like these centralization schemes always fail. Hearing offices scheduling of hearings wasn't perfect but it wasn't bad. There was never a good reason to expect that centralized scheduling was going to help from any point of view.

Sometimes It's Lonely At Christmas But It Will Get Better