Administrative law judges at SSA have been pressured to produce decisions on disability applications at a high rate with the perhaps predictable result that they are not giving all cases thorough consideration and are granting benefits to some undeserving applicants, according to a House report.
The report by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee says the agency “developed arbitrary disposition targets and made them the cornerstone of the agency’s disability policy.” It said that while the policy of setting targets goes back decades, the rate expected has increased greatly in recent years—since 2007, the target is to issue between 500 and 700 per year. SSA set those targets without first conducting a study to determine what a reasonable number of decisions per ALJ might be, it said.
At the time, SSA had a backlog of nearly 400,000 cases pending hearing more than 270 days. That figure fell as low as just above 200,000 by 2011 although as of 2014 it had climbed back to virtually the same level.
The targets “increased pressure on ALJs to process cases more quickly” with much of the pressure coming from top management, while line managers “often compared disposition targets to sports contests to motivate hearing offices and ALJs” and ALJs “complained that it was impossible to meet disposition targets while maintaining a high standard of decision quality.”
The report suggested that the agency suspend targets until it conducts a study of how long it takes to handle a case thoroughly and apply greater scrutiny to determine if ALJs are merely rubber-stamping approvals in order to meet their targets.
The report is here: http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2014-12-18-Misplaced-Priorities.-How-SSA-Sacrificed-Quality-for-Quantity.pdf
