Administrative Law Judges

Deputy Commissioner of Disability Adjudication and Review Addresses Concerns About the Social Security Administration (SSA)

At a May disability law conference for the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives (NOSSCR), Deputy Commissioner of Disability Adjudication and Review Glenn Sklar spoke to a number of concerns about the current state of the SSA. In response to concerns about the length of hearing processing times and pending workloads, Deputy Commissioner Sklar indicated that a shortage of Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) is a contributing factor, but also noted that an improved budget will allow the SSA to hire some 500 new ALJs by the end of Fiscal Year (FY) 2016. For context, the SSA’s annual ALJ attrition… Learn More

Fraud Prevention Efforts in the Social Security Administration (SSA)

At the request of House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) the SSA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report on the agency’s efforts to detect and prevent fraud. The report is more or less a compilation of data from the OIG’s past reports on the same topics and covers all levels of the disability determination process. In the section on appeals, the report covers SSA oversight of Administrative Law Judges (ALJ), especially those with very high allowance rates. The report found that the SSA’s quality control efforts designed to root out these so-called… Learn More

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

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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.