The number of disability cases waiting for a decision has swelled to more than 750,000, causing applicants to wait, on average, 499 days. Despite efforts to control the backlog, delays have increased rather than decreased.
Most Americans seeking disability benefits have been turned down once or twice in their states and file federal appeals with Social Security. The agency's administrative law judges, or ALJs, award benefits in 62 percent of the cases that they hear.
The approval rate reflects the nature of the federal hearing process. ALJs usually work from a more complete medical record and hear directly from the claimants, who are often accompanied by lawyers. Although the ALJs work for Social Security, Congress has awarded them a large degree of independence in how they reach decisions.
Astrue said most ALJs do a good job, but he made it clear he has no power to discipline bad apples in their ranks. He said he is frustrated by his inability to deal with "gross misconduct" by judges, especially those accused of fraud, domestic violence and soliciting prostitution.
Astrue also said that one ALJ has not completed a disability benefit case in seven years, and another completed only 40 cases last year -- far below the 400 to 500 cases that the agency expects judges to finish each year.
Patrick P. O'Carroll Jr., inspector general at Social Security, said it is that kind of performance that is having "a negative effect" on bringing down the disability backlog. In fiscal 2006, he said, the cases handled by ALJs ranged from a low of 40 to a high of 1,805. About 30 percent of the judges processed fewer than 400 cases per year, he said.
* * *
One reason for the backlog is that people like me -- who have doctors and VocRehab experts saying unequivocally that I cannot work -- are forced to go back time and again because the judge decides that his medical knowledge exceeds that of the doctors and ignores all the expert testimony in order to repeatedly rule that there is nothing wrong with me (despite all the medical evidence saying there is) and that I could work if I tried harder (despite my testimony that a couple days of part-time work sent me back to bed).
As this article points out, there's not a damn thing they can do about judges like mine who overstep their discretion to turn down every applicant regardless of the evidence.
The disability system is the only court in the United States where you're not "innocent until proven guilty", but rather, assumed to be guilty of trying to defraud the system until you can prove that you're innocent (i.e., truly disabled).
All I can do is keep appealing and appealing (and tying up the system further) until someone, somewhere, honestly considers all the evidence: the seriously out of whack blood tests, the orthopedic problems, the number of doctors and VocRehab people who have stated that I cannot work, and reaches the correct conclusion, that someone who has that many expert opinions saying she can't work is legally entitled to disability benefits.
No comments:
Post a Comment