The current backlog of claims at the Office of Disability Adjuration and Review has recently been in the news. These reports have been critical about the time between filing a Request for Hearing and the time a claimant must wait until his claim is finally heard by an Administrative Law Judge. There is a significant backlog of claims pending at the local Hearing offices around the nation. The caseloads carried by each Administrative Law Judge are tremendous. The Administrative Law Judges are under increasing pressure to quickly adjudicate as many cases as possible. I found these reports disturbing and, in many ways, misleading.
No one asked the question:
Why is there such a large backlog of pending claims?
In my opinion, the fault lies not with the hearing offices but, rather with the state agencies that are charged with making determinations of disability on initial application and upon Reconsideration. Notwithstanding the increase to applications, let's examine the statistics in our region consisting of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.
The Disability Determination Services (the state agencies) for each state is charged with reviewing initial applications for Social Security and Supplemental Security Income claims to determine if the claimant meets the medical definition of disability.
The following statistics are good through Fiscal year 2009:
OHIO: 71.4% of all initial applications are DENIED
89.6% of all Reconsideration appeals are DENIED
KENTUCKY: 67.7% of all initial applications are DENIED
91.2% of all Reconsideration appeals are DENIED
INDIANA: 64.9% of all initial applications are DENIED
93.4% of all Reconsideration appeals are DENIED
Source: Produced by SSA/ORDP/ODPMI
Date produced: December 22, 2009
Data Source: SSA State Agency Operations Report
These claims eventually wind up at the hearing office. In otherwords, if the Disability Determination Services (the state agencies) did a better job at reviewing applications, perhaps the backlog of claims at the hearing offices would be less.
Last year, in an article I published in July, 2009, I provided to you a list of the various local hearing offices and the waiting time between the request for hearing and the hearing before administrative law judge. I wanted to revisit those statistics to see what progress, if any has occurred over the past year. The following represents a comparison:
MARCH 2009: JUNE 2010:
Hearing Office Processing Time Processing Time
Cincinnati, Ohio 637 days 454 days
Cleveland, Ohio 555 days 543 days
Columbus, Ohio 640 days 634 days
Dayton, Ohio 666 days 563 days
Lexington, Kentucky 453 days 397 days
Louisville, Kentucky 526 days 485 days
Indianapolis, Indiana 734 days 501 days
The national average processing time is 424 days. What these statistics show is that while Cincinnati and Indianapolis have made significant progress in reducing the time between a request for hearing and a notice of hearing, the results for other local Hearing Offices remains mixed. Additionally, the number of daily receipts is 3,046 compared this to 2,510 last year.
This article, as are all of my articles, is not intended to serve as legal advice. Every claimant's case is unique. You are advised to consult with an attorney. You are invited to visit my website where some of my articles have been archived. My website address is www.davidkapor.com.
