A New EM On Covid

     The Social Security Administration has posted Emergency Message EM-21032 REV 2 on Evaluating Cases with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). It's a classic Social Security directive to staff that means absolutely nothing. They want to tell you that, yes, they're considering long Covid but there are zero details on what that means in practice and certainly nothing that could be interpreted as a standard that the agency must meet. The first priority is to make sure that no one at Social Security could be said to have failed to abide by the Emergency Message. It's impossible to fail to meet the standard since there is no standard. Is there one person at Social Security whose job it is to draft this sort of pabulum? 

    In the real world everyone with long Covid will be denied at initial and recon and some will be approved at the hearing level.

    I'm still not seeing clients complaining of long Covid. I'm beginning to think that long Covid is definitely a thing but it's mostly a thing for those who are too old to be applying for Social Security disability benefits.

Happy Easter

 

"The Stupidest Thing I Ever Heard"

     From The Hill:

Republicans are battling among themselves over whether to push reforms to reduce Social Security spending, with some conservatives rallying around the idea of raising the retirement age. ...

But others in the party warn that talking about delaying Social Security benefits in an election year is political malpractice and would give Democrats a golden opportunity to accuse GOP candidates of wanting to cut Social Security.

“Horrible idea. Totally opposed to this,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said of raising the retirement age, even for people who don’t plan to retire soon.

“What a terrible idea. If Republicans want to be in the minority party forever, then go ahead and endorse that,” he said. “Republicans are so stupid. If they want to go to working people and say, ‘Congratulations, you have paid into this your whole life — your payroll taxes — and now we’re going to take part of it away from you. We’re going to make you work even longer than we said beforehand,’ I just think that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

Republican calls to reform Social Security got fresh attention when the House Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes more than 170 GOP lawmakers, released a budget plan this week calling for “modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy.” ...

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), who is running to become the next Senate GOP leader, said Thursday he’s sympathetic with conservatives who want to raise the retirement age, even though it could blow up in Republicans faces in this year’s election. ...

Fee Cap Going Up And Will Be Indexed

      The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) is reporting that there will soon be an increase in the cap on the amount that attorneys may charge under the fee agreement process and that henceforth the cap will be adjusted annually for inflation.

New SSI Regs Approved

      The final rules on the Nationwide Expansion of the Rental Subsidy Policy for SSI Recipients have been approved by OMB and should appear in the Federal Register soon.

Social Security Ready To Start Moving To The Use Of Generative AI

     From a Request for Information published by the Social Security Administration:

SSA is looking for a Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) solution capable of: 

• assisting SSA developers in developing code more expeditiously, and/or
• transforming Legacy Code to modern languages for the purpose of refactoring Legacy Systems to leverage modern technologies and platforms. ...

Emergency Message On Change In Default Rate For Collecting Overpayments

     The Social Security Administration has issued Emergency Message EM-24011 SEN on the recent decision by the Commissioner to change the default rate of benefit withholding where there's been an alleged overpayment. It's labeled as "SEN" because they consider it sensitive. It's labeled at the top as "NOT TO BE SHARED WITH THE PUBLIC" but they are sharing it after redacting significant portions of the message. I don't get a feel for what's in the redacted part.

Severe Problems Remain After SSA Appropriation Determined

     From Federal News Network:

After a months-long hiring freeze, the Social Security Administration is once again facing even further declining staffing numbers.

But with agency spending now determined for the rest of fiscal 2024, and hiring now unfrozen, SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley is readying the agency’s plans to rebuild its workforce as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Currently, SSA is at its lowest staffing levels in 27 years, while serving more customers than ever before, O’Malley told lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee during a hearing last week. As a result, customer service has worsened — there are longer wait times on phone lines, and longer delays in receiving decisions on disability applications and appeals. ...

In the 2024 spending agreement Congress reached last week, SSA received $14.2 billion for its administrative expenses. It’s a slight increase over SSA’s enacted budget of $14.1 billion for 2023. ...

Although SSA’s latest hiring freeze has ended, there have already been net staffing losses as a result of a months-long string of continuing resolutions — landing the agency once again at the lower staffing levels it had a year ago. ...

Right now, SSA employees “are understaffed, and they are overwhelmed,” O’Malley said. “Not surprisingly, when somebody’s been on hold for an hour, they come off that call hot. We right now have an attrition rate of about 24% in our teleservice centers.”     ...

“We need to change our [hiring] strategy as an agency,” O’Malley told lawmakers. “I think we target too much on college graduates and not enough on high school and community college graduates. And with proper training, that could really be an investment that holds for a long time.” ...