Report On Last Week’s IT Hearing

     Federal News Radio reports on last week’s hearing before the House Social Security Subcommittee on the agency’s software issues, particularly the Disability Case Processing System (DCPS) it’s developing. I hope it’s starting to work. 

     If they ever get this taken care of, it’s past time to once again tackle the Windfall Offset problem. That ought to be easier but in past decades the agency invested huge sums of money in developing software to automate the calculations without achieving any success.  If you work at a hearing office you wouldn’t know but I assure you, this is a very big deal. Way too many man hours are spent on something that computer systems ought to handle in a flash.

Agency Argument On Lucia

     For what it's worth, here's the argument that Social Security filed in one case pending in District Court on a Lucia issue. They're probably filing something like this in every case.

     The really powerful argument going against them is that Social Security had announced that they were refusing to consider any Lucia arguments administratively. Why require a claimant to make an argument that wouldn't have been considered anyway?

     Click on each page to view full size.

If This Is Allsup, No Wonder They've Been In Trouble

     One prominent non-attorney group representing Social Security claimants allowed researchers to peek at some of its data. The group isn't identified but I'll guess it was Allsup. Below are some numbers from the study that resulted. Click on each image to view full size.

     I'll speak here mostly to others who represent Social Security claimants since Social Security employees may find what I'm about to say mystifying or boring.
      Note that the company won only 62.6% of the time when they represented (or arranged representation) for claimants at hearings even though 77.5% of their clients came from Long Term Disability (LTD) insurance companies or self insured employers. LTD cases are gold plated. You should win a very high percentage of them. The reported success rate is very unimpressive. If this is Allsup, no wonder they've had problems.These LTD carriers ought to look at other options.
     This study also demonstrated the big problem with internet advertising -- low yield. This company reports that 55.6% of its potential clients came from "Internet/PR" but only 5.2% of their actual clients came from "Internet/PR." (By the way, the use of the term "PR" suggests this is Allsup since Allsup engages in heavy PR.)  That's a very low yield. From my somewhat limited experience with internet advertising, that's a low yield even for internet advertising.

Off Topic: Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearing: What Do You Think?

     What do you think about the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing? Who do you believe? Should he be confirmed?

Rush To Judgment

     From the Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader:

The Social Security Administration was slow to halt corruption within its own ranks, but has been eager to penalize Kentuckians who were victimized by their crooked, now-imprisoned lawyer, Eric Conn, and the Social Security judge who pocketed Conn’s bribes.

A new round of redetermination hearings has begun for almost 2,000 former Conn clients. The SSA should delay the hearings until the outcome of two things are known:

▪ The discovery earlier this year of thousands of records at Conn’s office that might help clients prove they were disabled when they were approved for benefits — if only they could gain access to their files.

▪ An appeal to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals that could entitle almost 800 people to a reconsideration of their benefits terminations. That ruling could guide how the SSA handles Conn clients’ cases in the future.

The Kentucky Bar Association, whose actions during the Conn saga are almost as puzzling as those of the SSA, continues to disappoint. First the KBA was slow to discipline Conn and protect the public from his unethical conduct. More recently, the KBA refused to help get the files from his closed law office into clients’ hands.

The KBA has a procedure for distributing records to clients after an attorney dies or is disbarred. The U.S. Justice Department asked the KBA to activate that process and take control of the 6,000 to 8,000 files at Conn’s office in Floyd County.

The KBA refused.

Then, because of what the Justice Department described as the KBA’s “complete abdication of responsibility,” a federal prosecutor asked U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves to appoint a receiver to take charge of the records. The Justice Department recommended former state Supreme Court justice Janet Stumbo for the task.

But because Stumbo is married to attorney Ned Pillersdorf, who has been the leading advocate for Conn’s clients, Reeves instead ordered the government to submit the names of at least three potential receivers. Reeves scheduled an Oct. 10 hearing. ...

Reamore here: https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/editorials/article219030325.html#storylink=c

Read more here: https://www.kentuc/opinion/editorials/article219030325.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/editorials/article219030325.html#storylink

Hearing On Saul Nomination

     The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing for October 2, 2018 on the nomination of Andrew Saul to become Commissioner of Social Security. However, this is only for the term ending January 19, 2019. 

     What bother to confirm him for a term that ends so soon? The reason that comes to mind is that they don't think he can be confirmed for a full term if Democrats win a majority in the Senate in the November election. They want to get him in the job so that he can hold over as Acting Commissioner.

Where Are You Going To Find The Personnel To Do All Those Face To Face Interviews?

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

... Based on a recommendation in our August 2012 review ... SSA [Social Security Administration] implemented MNUP [Medicare Non-Utilization Project] in September 2013. SSA and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) exchange data, and CMS identifies Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance beneficiaries who are Medicare enrollees age 90 or older, are in current payment status, have a domestic address, and have not used Medicare Part s A or B for 3 years or longer. [The idea being that they may be dead.] ... 

We reviewed a sample of 46 beneficiaries SSA interviewed via telephone during its 2013 MNUP.  ...

During its 2013 MNUP, SSA incorrectly concluded via a telephone interview that 5 (11 percent) of our 46 sample beneficiaries were alive when, in fact, these beneficiaries were deceased at the time of its interviews. On average, the beneficiaries had died 12 years before SSA’s 2013 MNUP, but Agency personnel concluded they were alive. As such, we estimate d SSA overpaid 73 deceased beneficiaries about $16.5 million, which included over $5 million SSA paid after it incorrectly concluded these beneficiaries were alive. We also estimated that SSA would pay over $1 million in additional over payments to deceased MNUP beneficiaries over the next 12 months if it does not suspend or terminate their benefits. ...

SSA can strengthen its policy for interviewing MNUP beneficiaries. For example, we believe SSA should conduct face-to-face interviews of all MNUP beneficiaries to establish a baseline of individuals who are alive. By conducting face-to-face interviews, SSA could enhance its ability to ensure MNUP beneficiaries are alive and reduce its risk of individuals who falsely claim to be the legitimate beneficiary via telephone. ...

SSA did not agree to require face-to-face interviews for all MNUP beneficiaries. ...

     This is one of those OIG reports that assumes that the Social Security Administration has either unlimited staff or zero responsibilities other than reducing overpayments. Of course, you can't overpay someone if you never get around to putting them on benefits to begin with.

Two Congressional Hearings On September 27

     From a press release:

House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) announced today that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing titled, “The State of Social Security’s Information Technology,” on Thursday, September 27 at 11:00 AM ...

To deliver services to frontline employees and to the public, the SSA relies on a massive IT infrastructure.  The SSA’s systems are housed and supported by two modern data centers and more than 7,000 physical and virtual servers.

However, many of the SSA’s core IT systems and databases are more than 30 years old. Many of these also rely on tens of millions of lines of antiquated programming languages, such as COBOL, FORTRAN, and PowerBuilder.  To overhaul its systems, in October 2017, the SSA began a multi-year $691 million IT modernization effort.  As part of the FY 2018 Omnibus appropriations bill (P.L. 115-141), Congress appropriated $280 million in dedicated funding.

At the same time, the SSA is in the third year of a second attempt to develop the Disability Case Processing System (DCPS) to replace the legacy case processing systems used at the state-run, federally funded Disability Determination Services.  Since the reboot in 2015, DCPS has faced development delays and recently increased its cost estimate for completion of the project by more than 25 percent due to a failure to adequately identify the scope at the outset.

This will be Chairman Johnson’s final hearing as Subcommittee Chairman.

     Ignore the language about "antiquated programming languages." Those programs actually work. The real issue here is DCPS which isn't working. Unless the agency can find a way to turn DCPS around, it's heading rapidly towards debacle status.
     In other Congressional hearing news, the Senate Finance Committee has rescheduled the hearing on the nomination of Gail Ennis to become Inspector General at Social Security for 10:00 the same morning.