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Administrative Law Judge

The Lowdown on Quality Reviews of Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Decisions

Congress has been somewhat critical of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) handling of high allowance ALJs, alleging that oversight of these individuals needs to be stricter. So, today we’ll examine the options that exist for reviewing favorable ALJ decisions. There are two types of quality reviews that an ALJ favorable decision can undergo: pre-effectuation reviews (in which an ALJ decision can be changed) and post-effectuation reviews (in which it cannot). The Office of Appellate Operations (OAO) and the Appeals Council (AC) conduct these reviews. The AC can conduct a pre-effectuation review (a review of an ALJ favorable decision that happens… Learn More

Some Updates from the Social Security Administration (SSA)

Here are a few updates from the SSA: *The SSA has announced that it will extend its prototype testing of (1) elimination of reconsideration and (2) the single decisionmaker (the circumstance in which a disability examiner makes an initial disability determination without getting a medical or psychological consultant to sign off on it) until September 25, 2015. Prototype testing has been ongoing since 1999. *The SSA has extended the pilot program allowing the SSA itself rather than the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to set the time and place of a hearing until August 10, 2015. The original motivation behind the… Learn More

The Final Say on Scheduling Hearings

To accommodate growing numbers of disability hearings, the Social Security Administration (SSA) is making a few changes to the rules in order to speed up the hearing and decision process. The new hearing rules deal primarily with scheduling and notice procedures pertaining to video hearings. In addition to expediting the hearing and decision process, the new rules are designed to prevent people from manipulating the rules to cherry-pick Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) with higher allowance rates and avoid those with lower rates. According to the new rules, before scheduling a hearing, a claimant must be notified of the possibility that… Learn More

The House Majority Report on the Social Security Administration (SSA) Integrity Hearing

The House Majority issued a report related to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s June 11th hearing on the integrity of the SSA’s appeals process with regard to how the SSA addresses high allowance Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). The Majority’s report discussed a variety of related issues and concerns including: – ALJs with “red-flag” allowance rates (higher than 75%), and how between 2005 and 2013, these high allowance ALJs awarded some 1.3 million people federal disability benefits, costing taxpayers about $400 billion over a lifetime -Case studies suggesting the questionable conduct of several ALJs with a greater than 90%… Learn More

House Hearing on Integrity in the Social Security Administration (SSA)

In June, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a two-part hearing on the SSA’s appeals process. The hearings focused specifically on integrity of that process with regard to how the SSA evaluates ALJs with high allowance rates. The Majority’s concern is that some of these high allowance ALJs may be awarding disability benefits to individuals who are not actually disabled, thus costing taxpayers billions of dollars and unnecessarily depleting the Disability Insurance Trust Fund. The Committee explored concerns that the SSA is failing to evaluate these high allowance ALJs appropriately. Part I of the hearing featured four high… Learn More

An Update from the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR)

At a recent conference, Glenn Sklar, the Deputy Commissioner of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) ODAR provided some updates on the functionality of hearing offices (HOs) across the country. According to Sklar, between 2009-2011, a larger budget allowed ODAR to hire thousands of new support staff members and over 850 Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). The result of this was a nearly 150-day decrease in an average processing times by the end of 2012. That improvement, however, has been short lived, as budget shortages in the past few years have caused processing times to climb once again. The average is currently… Learn More

According to the Inspector General…

Here’s a brief rundown of two recent reports from the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Office of the Inspector General (OIG): one about the Appeals Council (AC) and one about claimant representatives at the state level. The AC Report: The report addressed the AC’s efforts to streamline and expedite how it processes requests for review (R/R) and general processing times. The report found that, while Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) dispositions have increased over the last 7 years (a positive step towards expediting the processing times and reducing the pending R/R backlog) so have the overall number of cases and length of… Learn More

Ranking Protocols for Hearing Offices

The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) has been helping the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) develop ranking protocols for SSA Hearing Offices based on Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) performance. The OIG began by conducting a pilot study of hearing office performace based on 5 markers (“risk factors”) of Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) performance. The 5 risk factors the OIG used were: ALJ dispositions, ALJ on-the-record (OTR) decision numbers, ALJ allowance rates, ALJ processing times (average), and ALJ dismissal numbers. The OIG then asked the SSA to decide if the methodology of the study and… Learn More

What does the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Division of Quality (DQ) Do?

The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Division of Quality (DQ) has been around since 2010 and is dedicated to making the disability process smooth, fair, and consistent for all. The DQ serves a number of important functions. It regularly evaluates a statistically meaningful collection of favorable and un-appealed, hearing-level Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) decisions for quality control. It also conducts decision studies focused on specific issues, offices, or subjects involved in the hearing process (for example: ALJs, or doctors). The reviews yield valuable data that help the DQ determine the most problematic areas of SSA policy and law, which in turn… Learn More

An Updated Position Description (PD) for Administrative Law Judges (ALJs)

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has approved and implemented an updated position description (PD) for various types of Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). The new PD is allows ALJs to maintain their full independence in the judgment and decision process, but is designed to foster greater overall compliance with the SSA’s protocols, policies, and rulings. What’s ultimately changing is that ALJs are now less free to manage their own workloads, and instead, are now subject to Hearing Office oversight. Furthermore, ALJs are subordinate to the SSA Commissioner in all matters of institutional procedure, policy, ruling, and interpretation of law. The new… Learn More

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    The National Advocates organization is pleased to announce that Mr. Fred Fleming has been selected for inclusion into its Social Security Disability Law specialty, an honor given to only a select group of lawyers as recognition of their superior skills and qualifications in the field.

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