Indiana Social Security Disability Attorney

Congressman Michael R. McNulty (D-NY), Chairman, Subcommittee on Social Security of the Committee on Ways and Means, announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on the performance of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) appeals hearing offices on Tuesday, September 16, 2008. Due to the limited time available to hear witnesses, oral testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only. The announcement of the hearings, does not state who the invited witnesses will be. Written statements may be submitted by those who were not invited to appear.

According to the background material in the announcement, the average processing time from the time that the Request for Hearing is filed is now 532 days. As I recently noted, the Indianapolis Office of Disability Adjudication and Review has an average processing time of 896 days and Indianapolis is ranked 147^th out of 147 hearing offices.

The background material confirms what I previously posted: years of too little money to hire support staff have caused us to end up where we are today. If you do not have enough workers to do the work, it will just pile up and take longer and longer to get it done.

In announcing the hearing, Chairman McNulty said, “Earlier hearings have demonstrated that prolonged underfunding has resulted in the loss of staff needed to process disability cases at the Social Security Administration.  This has led to an unprecedented backlog of unprocessed claims and untold suffering.  The agency must have the resources it needs to eliminate this unconscionable backlog.  At the same time, we must ensure that SSA uses these resources as effectively as possible.  This hearing will examine SSA’s management of its hearing offices, and explore measures that can be taken to improve productivity without compromising the right of claimants to a fair and impartial decision on their case.”

The announcement notes that concerns have been expressed that the agency’s plans for hiring support staff are not sufficient to address the large hearings backlog, that planned automation improvements will not meet expectations, and that an overemphasis on speed could degrade quality or compromise program integrity.