Social Security Boss Visits Ohio Over Backlog
 

It will be three years in July since I initially applied for disability and 29 months waiting on a hearing - I am in this backlog.


Social Security Boss Visits Ohio Over Backlog

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

The new head of the U.S. Social Security Administration came to Ohio on Monday to explain how he hopes to help hundreds of thousands of Americans who wait -- sometimes years -- to find out if they qualify for disability benefits.

"I want to fix this thing on my watch," Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue, who was sworn in Feb. 12, told a gathering of about 30 people in Columbus.

The meeting was called by Ohio's Sen. George Voinovich, the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia. The Republican senator says he is committed to making sure Social Security has what it needs to handle the huge backlog.

Nationally, more than 730,000 Americans have disability cases pending, according to Voinovich's office. Of those, 40,000 are in Ohio, with more than 13,000 in the Cleveland office.

"We've got to update the system, and we've got to improve the situation," Voinovich said during Monday's hour-long meeting. "It's frustrating thousands of Americans."

It's a problem that has grown over the years and one Voinovich has tried to tackle in the past.

In 2004, he brought the previous Social Security commissioner to Cleveland, where she promised to reduce the backlog, too. Her plan didn't work.

The list of those waiting to get an appeals hearing in the Cleveland office, which handles cases from throughout Northeast Ohio, grew from 8,800 in 2004to 12,600 in February to more than 13,600 now.

Astrue said he hopes to reduce waits across the country by adding 168 administrative law judges to the 1,082 who hear appeals now; increasing the number of cases heard electronically; and fast-tracking more applications -- especially some cancer cases -- so they can be approved in days instead of months.

"There's no one magic bullet," he said, explaining that he'll have a list of 50 to 75 fixes ready for a Senate Finance Committee meeting this month. Voinovich said the solutions should work this time.

Astrue "seems to have the management background and the commitment and the understanding to come up with a strategic plan that's necessary to deal with the problem," he said. He also said Congress shares in the blame because it hasn't given Social Security the money it needs. He'll do what he can, he said, to persuade his colleagues to change that.

"The Social Security Administration and the administration of the Congress need to work together, because frankly, as I said before, the system is broken.

"We're not talking about numbers, we're talking about God's children."

Social Security Backlog 'A Mess'

Source: Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, OH)
Publication Date: 02/21/2007

Central Ohio residents seeking a hearing on disability benefits from the Social Security Administration now must wait as long as 2 1 /2 years, local disability lawyers say.

"It's absolutely huge," said Eileen S. Goodin, who put the Columbus office's backlog at 10,411 cases as of Jan. 29. She said the waiting time for a hearing has grown from eight months in the 1980s.

There are backlogs across the country.

"It's just a mess," said Cleveland disability lawyer Marcia W. Margolius, a board member of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants' Representatives. "It's a broken system."

The Social Security Administration blames the waits on more people applying. It has promised to make improvements.

"Disability cases are on the rise everywhere we go," said spokeswoman Carmen Moreno. "Obviously we're dealing with the baby boomer population."

Margolius' group, consisting of lawyers and paralegals who help those filing for disability benefits, found that Columbus and Cleveland had two of the longest waits in the country.

People who file for disability benefits get a "yes" or "no" answer within six to eight months, Goodin said. The backlog, she said, applies to people who were denied benefits and request appeal hearings.

The legal group said 12,600 people were waiting for hearings in Cleveland as of January.

William Fullerton, a Columbus lawyer who handles workers' compensation and Social Security disability cases, said the wait can create crises for clients who are unable to work and have no other sources of income.

"I've had some who've pretty much lost everything they've had," Fullerton said.

Local lawyers agreed that Columbus' backlog is not the fault of workers here.

"Their staff is at a no-replacement level," Goodin said. "If someone leaves or retires, they don't replace them."

The Social Security office in Columbus has been affected by retirements of key staff members and the shifting of cases from Mansfield to the Columbus office, Margolius said. Those cases previously had been handled in Cleveland.

The Columbus office has moved relatively quickly in trying to address its backlog by sending files to out-of-town judges, who then come to Columbus to hold hearings, and by holding hearings via video conferencing, she said.

A spokeswoman for the Columbus office said officials there would be unable to respond until today.

Backlogs nationally have attracted the attention of Congress, which held a hearing on the issue last week.

"I'm tired of it," Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Cleveland, told the new Social Security commissioner. "It's something we must fix."

Michael J. Astrue, who was sworn in at the beginning of last week, promised to make it better.

Others have tried.

In 2004, the Social Security Administration under then-Commissioner Jo Anne B. Barnhart added judges and other employees and sent about 5,000 Cleveland cases to hearing offices in other parts of the country, where they were heard by teleconference.

The wait time for a hearing dropped slightly, from 20.6 months in fiscal 2004 to 19.2 months in fiscal 2006, the Social Security Administration said. But the waiting list actually grew longer.

"Right now, notwithstanding all the good things Jo Anne Barnhart did, we're still having to say 'no' to these poor folks: 'We'll get to your hearing as soon as we can -- it'll be 18 months from now,' " said Edmund Round, one of Cleveland's disability judges. "And we don't like that."

Critics say the initial application process needs to be made simpler so that more truly needy people get benefits right away instead of being turned down because they made a paperwork error.

In Ohio, 27 percent of initial disability claims filed in 2006 were approved, according to Social Security officials. That's lower than in all but four states in the country -- Colorado, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee.