Office of Medicare Hearings Just Called Me

[Pixie]

The certificate should have included only those who specified at least one city where there is an opening. That is the normal way certificates are sent over.

This whole discussion about someone receiving a call for an interview in a city she did not list is most confusing to me. Absent an error, it shouldn't work that way. Pix.

[counselor95]

I don't remember an option to merely check "all" cities -- I had to check every block (for every city I chose). So, it should not matter how many cities were checked -- anyone who said he/she was available for a particular city should have been on the certificate, assuming his/her score was in the top 3. Or at least that is what I thought . . .

[advancedage]

aljhunter said:

And, advancedage, are you going to interview? Or, did OMHA say something like "Call in the next 10 minutes or the offer for the interview expires."

aljhunter, a colleague fielded the call for me and scheduled the interview for next week, via telephone. I don't wish to deflate hopes, but I was advised that all the interviews had been scheduled. No other info or rumors re: OMHA, However, I heard from a reliable agency source-- who should know -- that SSA has not yet started interviews -- the posts on the other board notwithstanding.

[Pixie]

counselor95 said:

I don't remember an option to merely check "all" cities -- I had to check every block (for every city I chose). So, it should not matter how many cities were checked -- anyone who said he/she was available for a particular city should have been on the certificate, assuming his/her score was in the top 3. Or at least that is what I thought . . .

And you thought right. That's the way it should work. Pix.

[kingfisher]

patriotsfan said:

I also heard that SSA has not yet scheduled interviews and will not until the budget situation is resolved.

That is correct. No budget, no authorization for additional hiring. The legislature is on break until Dec 4th so there will be no further consideration of the appropriations until then. If you want to monitor for yourself, go to www.congress.gov

[calalj]

nothingventured said:

I think Judge Liberty is coming from HUD and will be in Cleveland within the month.

It's true. He is a friend of mine. We teach a fair housing litigation skills course every year at a law school in Chicago. He is a good guy.

[odarite]

Re: Judge Liberty. Here is his bio, look quick as I don't know how long it will stay up with his move to Medicare: www.hud.gov/offices/oalj/judges/libertybio.cfm

[lee]

I just heard from a friend with Medicare that they have lost several judges to SSA during the past year. Due to these departures, and the fact that they have the budget to do so, they are going forward with interviews now. He indicated that the Miami office is down from 17 ALJs to 12.
Good luck to those of you who will be interviewing soon. Happy Thanksgiving.

[watchfulwaiting]

I just got a call about 10 minutes ago from OMHA in Cleveland to interview by phone next week for Irvine or Miami.

[emphyrio]

justfoundthisboard said:

I hate to say this, but is it possible that the certificate only included those who specified at least one city where there was an opening? If that is true, it is totally unfair (even though I would benefit from such a rule). I'm so sorry.

The process by which OMHA is scheduling interviews is a total mystery, but the fact that it is scheduling interviews at all is a pleasant surprise. This is good news for everyone.

So I say good luck, and I see no reason to apologize. The more openings there are, the higher the chances that anyone on the register gets an offer. If the highest people on the register get hired by OMHA, then when ODAR starts interviews it will have to dig even deeper into the register than it would have otherwise.

[jagghagg]

patriotsfan said:

I also heard that SSA has not yet scheduled interviews and will not until the budget situation is resolved.

For what it is worth: my SSA source tells me March.

[Pixie]

At this point no one really knows because the budget is still unresolved. Once the budget passes, things will move quickly (quickly for the government). If SSA gets a budget the first week of December, there may still be time to get the interviews started the end January. That would mean the March 17 start date for the new class would still be viable.

Although, based on the way things look now, I would say that the March class will be more like an April or May class. We will have to wait and see how the budget shakes out. Pix.

[workdrone]

Glad to hear it's resolved in your favor and good luck to you! ;D

[Pixie]

Thank goodness it was human error. That's what I suspected all along. Just wasn't right the way things were unfolding. So, back to business as we all understand it. Pix.

[jagghagg]

justfoundthisboard said:

I am having that interview tomorrow morning.

Wow - a resolution appropriate to the error - congrats, JustFound !! That is great and I am happy to hear it is working out for you!

[watchfulwaiting]

Justfoundthisboard, that's fantastic! Good luck on your interview.

[tricia]

Congratulations Justfound. I guess your interview is this morning. Hope you let us know about it.

[okeydokey]

Rumor (which I consider reliable) has it that OMHA scheduled 36 interviews for Irvine and Miami (combined) and that the lowest score on the list was slightly under 76.

[podar]

Hi everyone. I hesitate to involve math in live posting because I'll probably make an error -- but I'll try it anyway.

Listed availability is the big confounding variable that would prevent useful extrapolation. We know 4 people of 41 scores above 76 listed on this board (on-board scorers) were invited to interview. Each of the 4 listed availability for at least one of three cities on the certificate(s): Miami, Irvine, and Cleveland. Because Watchfulwaiting eventually got his call, we know of no one on this board who did not get a call from OMHA among those who claim a score of 76.71 or above and listed availability for any of these cities. We do not have a good sampling regarding the range of availability listed by the other higher scorers on this board or all scorers on-board for that matter. Even if we did have availability lists for all higher scores on this board, we still don’t know how that would compare with availability lists submitted by the other three quarters of the register (off-board scorers).

Assuming everyone with a score listed on-board has faithfully reported contacts with OMHA (and ignoring the big confounding variables discussed above), we can make comparisons between the number of on-board and off-board scorers invited to interview. We can calculate the percentage of on-board higher scorers (76 or above for this comparison) invited and the percentage of the total on-board scorers invited. The four on-board invitees probably represent 12.5 percent of those invited to interview (an eighth or 4/32). They represent about 10 percent of our reported higher scorers (4 of 41), but only 2.56 percent of all scores reported on-board (4 of 156). The 28 other people invited probably represent about 6.2 percent of the off-board scores (28 of 450). I think the only extrapolation I can draw from this is more than twice as many people by percentage off-board have scores higher than 76 and listed as least one of the three cities: Miami, Irvine, and Cleveland. I would not like to think (and I don’t) that only 10 percent of off-board higher scorers above were invited (as was the case with on-board higher scorers). That would mean there are 280 off-board scores of 76 or above. Combined with 41 on-board scores, that would be 321 scores above 76, skewing the medium and mean well above the 69 and change calculated by Semipa. I prefer to think a higher percentage of off-board higher scorers listed availability for Miami, Irvine, or Cleveland.

[amporci]

I am no mathematician, so I have taken the much simpler road of noting that what is said to be a register of only 36 (granted with quite limited geographic availability) managed to get to at least one score of less than 76...gives those of us in the lower 70s hope!