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Post by redsox1 on Jan 24, 2015 19:17:37 GMT -5
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Post by christina on Jan 24, 2015 21:39:05 GMT -5
good article. i am not too keen on reform proposals and must admit i have no great ideas myself. article noted Sweden has restricted eligibility to those who can’t do any job. well, for the most part, that's our rule too so that would not be a reform. but that aside, this was one of better articles i have read on this SS disability.
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Post by christina on Jan 25, 2015 9:46:21 GMT -5
you know i did think of a reform that is already in the works, i think. CDR the cases. if there is a way to start with the favorable decisons previously decided by those who have been determined to be "outliers", let's look at them first. and then let's go through the rest of the cases that need a CDR. it would be a headache, in fact a huge headache, but it is the best system i can think of to remove people who should not be getting benefits from the rolls. to do so, the agency would need to add, at least on a temporary basis, lots of new staff, not just at ODAR but at the initial, recon, and AC levels. and we've added temporary people for years(outside of the ALJ's). so when hiring people, have the agency reiterate, it is not a permanent hire. We are adding people to deal with a certain backlog and once it's done, the assignments will end. Yes, keep a mechanism in place to make some of the folks permanent but stress this may not happen and is far less likely to be made permanent if hired for this project. and by temporary, i mean 5 to 7 years, as it may take that long to go through all of these cases, once you add in appeal levels, at the AC and Courts. i think temporary assignments can be extended so this is doable. with current staff level, we can't do this. Even with the new claims, we are backlogged. so if Congress is serious about reforming, well, they need to send us more money. and the temporary folks might not actually work on the CDRS. i know that sounds backwards since that is why they are getting hired but we may need more seasoned folks to actually work on the CDR's. however, by having more staff on hand, there will be(in theory) a way to have some staff on hand to mainly work through the backlog. what we could do is solicit volunteers from the current employees who will mostly work on CDR's. and then use the temps to fill in the spots for those working on the CDRs. Second, and i think we have started this process too, knock out the grid rules. they are outdated. might as well change how we use DOT too and catch up with the times. get a committee together comprised of people out in the field to see what else should be changed. and the committee can not all be management handpicked (some can be but not all) as SSA can get a broader prosective by getting people who are not management oriented. not to mention keep the groups apart. DDS will present a very different view of how things should be done than ODAR people. so get a group of DDS folks for input and other groups from different components. let some folks in SSA Central sift through the ideas from the various groups and see what overriding themes come up for reform. get some outside perspective too. and also allow anonymous ideas from anyone in the field as some may be leery of having their name associated with might be a great but unpopular reform due to backlash from others up the chain of command. maybe these are all in the works already. I'm not at Central so i don't know what goes on behind closed doors there. oh and one more thing that i alluded to above. Central really needs field input if they want good ideas for reform. i have seen too many times where this does not happen and the proposals are incomplete or lacking as Central did not go far enough in soliciting ideas from the field. if i were to transfer to Central, i would have NO idea how to run a District Office better. for those outside of SSA, a district office is the starting point to file a claim, get a new SS card, and a wide range of other things. nor would i be of much help in offering proposals to make the call centers better. so there is no way someone in Central can be an expert on all the SAA compoenents which is why field input is so crucial. all of these ideas would take forever to implement but if the agency is serious about improving things, they need to start somewhere.
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