SSA FALLS FURTHER BEHIND IN CLAIMS PROCESSING AND FAIRNESS

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars being poured into the SSA hearing offices over the past few years, the SSA is falling further and further behind in its ability to process disability claims, fairly and timely.
The Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) issued its newest report finding that the SSA disability hearing process is inconsistent and increasingly backlogged.
The report found that although the rules and laws for SSA disability claims are the exact same for everyone, including claimants and SSA Judges, there was an increasingly wide variance among decisions by SSA Judges hearing similar claims. The report found that variance suggested that SSA Judges “may be applying law and agency policy differently” in individual disability claims.
The report also found that an increasing number of SSA claimants are not being fully informed of their rights by the SSA suggesting a “deliberate lack of compliance” by the SSA with federal policies.
The report also found that since 2000, with the current Administration, the average processing times for claims has risen dramatically. The average processing time for a claimant who has a hearing and is waiting for a decision is now close to 500 days. At the end of 2005 there were over 711,000 cases pending: the highest in US history and more than double since 2000.
The backlog time for individual SSA hearing offices varies wildly. For example; a very large city such as San Francisco had 2898 cases backlogged as of March 2006, but a much smaller city such as Oklahoma City had a backlog of over 10,400 cases waiting to be heard.

Improving the Social Security Administration’s Hearing Process (Sept. 2006) http://www.ssab.gov/ImprovingSSAHearingProcess.htm