Florida Social Security Disability Lawyer Blog

The House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee held the third in a series of hearings on "securing the future of the Social Security Disability Insurance Program, " focusing on how disability is decided, including the definition of disability and the Federal-State relationship with the Disability Determination Services.

In his opening statement for the hearing, which was held on March 20, 2012, Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson, noted that determining whether someone is disabled is "far from easy." The next hearing will focus on the appeals process.

Attorney and Lawyer Randy Zeldin, Esq. represents individuals seeking Social Security Disability benefits in West Palm Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach.

In 2008, the Social Security Administration started the Compassionate Allowance Program. The idea was to specify certain conditions and diseases which were significantly disabling and merited prompt attention. Under the program, applicants with the specified conditions are able to receive benefits within days, rather than weeks, months or years.

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, recently announced the expansion of the list, to include 52 additional disorders. Primary, these are cancers, neurological diseases and other rare disease conditions. Since the program began, over 173,000 individuals receive benefits from prompt adjudications. In the past fiscal year alone, 63,000 persons with severe disabilities received prompt and favorable dispensation of Social Security Benefits.

Social Security Attorney and Lawyer, Randy Zeldin, applauds Commissioner Michael J. Astrue for the expansion of the Compassionate Allowance Program, which now includes 165 conditions, with promises of additional expansion. Randy Zeldin, Esq. represents individuals seeking Social Security Disability in Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and throughout Palm Beach and Broward Counties.

Social Security Administration Commissioner Astrue has made reduction of the Social Security Disability backlog one of his top priorities, as his six-year term end on January 2012. His plan is that the average hearing level processing time will be 270 days by September 30, 2012. As part of his initiative, ODAR has announced new "Electronic Federal Informal Remand Special Project 2012."

While similar to previous informal remand projects, this one is bigger in scope, involving hundreds of federal disability examiners around the country. Deputy Commissioner Sklar noted that there has been more work coming into ODAR office "than we'd like." The goal is to complete the Remand Project review within 45 days of the case transfer.

Continue reading " Social Security Remand Project Seeks to Reduce Backlog " »

A new report by the RAND Corporation, submitted to the U.S. House Subcommittee on Social Security, confirms what Social Security lawyers already knew: there is random luck or bad luck in the process. Specifically, the RAND report found that there is great variation in the decisions of Social Security examiners, as to whether an application for Social Security Disability will be approved or denied. This is true at the initial application stage, where RAND found that some examiners are "liberal" and approve many claims, while others are "conservative" and will deny the same claim.

The second stage of the Social Security Disability process is equally problematic. Once a claim is initially denied by an examiner, it can be sent for "Reconsideration" at the level called Disability Determination Services (DDS). Again, the RAND report found that DDS examiners appear to apply random and arbitrary judgement in how claims are processed.

At the end of the day, the Social Security Disability application process is fraught with uneven decision making. Randy Zeldin, Esq., a Social Security attorney in Boca Raton, Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach, Delray Beach and Boynton Beach, represents Social Security applicants in South Florida.