Congress orders Colvin to eliminate ODAR production goals.

[southerner]

As for the aspirant numbers or goals or whatever, that has not been a problem for me in our office. Perhaps because we are pilots w/o recons, evidence tends to be fresher. Tends, but not always.

The CDR process from my 6 years + as judge and 25 years w/OHA/ODAR, is abusrd. I agree with an earlier comment that the only ones seen are age 18 Redets. It makes no sense for us to add a CDR paragraph when the agency declines or ignores it. It matters not if money is the reason. If they want not to waste money on benes when there is a good likelihood of medical improvement and not a disability, then the CDR after an MVA or successful surgery in a reasonable period of time would be cost efficient. To answer the comment that there is no money to fund CDR's, then some have suggested judges be given the authority to do prospective CPOD's. Then an individual would have benes till a period certain and would have to reapply for benes to continue.

As for the Medical/Vocational Guidelines and the DOT, they are ridiculously outdated. Do we have the authority to ignore them? No. Raising the age and revising other variables in the Grids would improve the system greatly as would a modernization of the DOT. People work later in life and should not be automatically disabled at age 45 or 50 or 55 any longer. Technology has resulted in so many new jobs and the skill sets are outdated in the Grids. It is absurd that nothing has been done in these matters, either.

[moopigsdad]

You work with the law, rules and regulations you have as an ALJ, not the ones you wish you had to make decisions. Everyone probably has a slightly different opinion of how things could be improved for decision-making, but the ALJ's position is to apply the law, rules and regulations as written, not create them.

[bartleby]

MPD, the problems is, is that the Reg's, Hallex, Rules, and policy are often conflicting. As far as post CE's and this applies to pre CE's also, the Doctor only gets to see 20-25 pages of the MER. Who picks out what to send is a mystery. When I have used a ME, I will ask for the severe impairments and what limitations He/She finds. They have supposedly looked at the entire MER and have heard the testimony at the hearing and have the opportunity to have me ask questions from the Claimant. For these reasons, I will rely heavily on the ME's testimony if it makes sense to me. I use ME's on almost all Children's cases and on unusual impairment cases. I know some areas where they use ME's all the time. I also know some places where they never use VE's. I have no idea as to how they get by with that.. As usual, JMHO.

[prescient]

Jul 14, 2014 7:05:09 GMT -5 southerner said:

As for the aspirant numbers or goals or whatever, that has not been a problem for me in our office. Perhaps because we are pilots w/o recons, evidence tends to be fresher. Tends, but not always.

The CDR process from my 6 years + as judge and 25 years w/OHA/ODAR, is abusrd. I agree with an earlier comment that the only ones seen are age 18 Redets. It makes no sense for us to add a CDR paragraph when the agency declines or ignores it. It matters not if money is the reason. If they want not to waste money on benes when there is a good likelihood of medical improvement and not a disability, then the CDR after an MVA or successful surgery in a reasonable period of time would be cost efficient. To answer the comment that there is no money to fund CDR's, then some have suggested judges be given the authority to do prospective CPOD's. Then an individual would have benes till a period certain and would have to reapply for benes to continue.

As for the Medical/Vocational Guidelines and the DOT, they are ridiculously outdated. Do we have the authority to ignore them? No. Raising the age and revising other variables in the Grids would improve the system greatly as would a modernization of the DOT. People work later in life and should not be automatically disabled at age 45 or 50 or 55 any longer. Technology has resulted in so many new jobs and the skill sets are outdated in the Grids. It is absurd that nothing has been done in these matters, either.

Completely agree with everything you posted in the last paragraph. An update of the laws and regs is massively overdue.