New York Social Security Disability Lawyers Blog

Here's one that all Social Security Disability lawyers can be happy with! The Graduate School has awarded its 2011 W. Edwards Deming Award to the Social Security Administration's (SSA's) Office of Appellate Operations (OAO) for its new training program, aimed at bringing new employees up to speed quickly and cutting down the SSA's backlog of appellate cases.

A person who files a Social Security disability claim that is later denied in an initial decision by the SSA - following a subsequent request for reconsideration for New Jersey and Connecticut social security disability applicants - may appeal the decision by requesting a hearing before an SSA Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). A claimant who disagrees with the ALJ's decision may further appeal in federal court or by filing an appeal with the SSA's Appeals Council, a group of more than 100 Administrative Appeals Judges and Appeals Officers.

The OAO prepares the certified record for federal appeals and staffs the Appeals Council. In response to an increased case load, OAO needed to find a way to train its employees faster and better. In announcing the award, the Graduate School noted that OAO created "a state-of-the-art course...focused on curriculum that revolutionized how employees are taught new skills, with the desired goal of achieving a high rate of efficiency and accuracy." As a result "150 of its 200 new employees were trained to be fully productive in just eight months, an improvement on a learning curve that had previously last eighteen months."

The new training methods are just one of several attempts to reduce the SSA's backlog of appeals cases. In 2007, SSA Commissioner Michael J. Astrue announced that the Administration had developed a plan to eliminate the backlog and prevent its recurrence by focusing on: (1) the Compassionate Allowance program, a system that allows Social Security disability applicants suffering from certain serious medical conditions - including various forms of cancer, Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease and Mesothelioma - which require only minimal objective medical evidence in order to prove disability to speed the claim process to a matter of weeks; (2) improving hearing office procedures; (3) increasing adjudicatory capacity; and (4) increasing efficiency with automation and improved business processes.

At the time the plan was announced, more than 750,000 claimants were awaiting a hearing on their disability applications and the average claimant waited more than 500 days to receive a decision. In 2010 the SSA averaged 464 days in rendering a hearing decision. The Administration plans to reduce the wait to 270 days by 2013.

Continue reading "Social Security Disability Appeals Office Hailed for Efforts to Reduce Backlog" »

One way to expedite a Social Security Disability Hearing is with a "dire need" request. The Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) identifies two types of "dire need."

The first type of dire need is medical: that the condition is so severe that the claimant may not survive to the hearing! The real question here is why a case like that wasn't approved earlier, but it's always possible that a condition has changed or a new has condition cropped up after the earlier denials. We rarely see this, however.

The second type of dire need is financial need. Unfortunately, since almost every claimant is having financial difficulties due to being out of work, Social Security has determined that "dire need" of this type is only found when a claimant is in danger of losing his or her dwelling--- being evicted or foreclosed. While this will lead to a shorter wait for your hearing, it's definitely not a situation you want to be in!

Almost all offices are willing to grant an "OTR" (On the Record) favorable determination in appropriate Social Security Disability claims. Typically, that is where the medical evidence is overwhelming but some of it was never reviewed by the State Agency at the lower level. We typically ask for an OTR after submitting new evidence in only about 10-20% of our cases. The OTR requests are reviewed and written by staff attorneys known as "attorney advisors." They know us and know that we only ask for OTR's in appropriate cases, and we know they appreciate that, since they tell us that a lot of the national "advocates" routinely ask for OTR's in every case.

The method of requesting an OTR and the frequency at which they are granted varies from office to office. One constant, however, is that they are typically granted for physical claims only, not psychiatric claims or cases where pain is the main problem.

On a national level, the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) has established a "virtual screening unit" where potential OTR cases are reviewed by attorney advisors around the country, not at your local ODAR. These attorney advisors contact us and ask us to obtain additional medical information on a rush basis. We have had a good amount of success on these cases, since the attorneys at ODAR already feel they are reviewing a strong case and we are not starting from scratch in convincing them.

Similarly, some ODAR staff attorneys will contact us and ask for particular records that they think will allow them to render an OTR favorable after their initial screening. Obviously we like getting those calls and we try to respond immediately.