I‘m pleased to report that I recently passed the specialization exam for Social Security Disability Law. This means I am certified as a specialist in Social Security Disability Law by the North Carolina State Bar. Which is a good thing!

Here’s a press release:

Winston-Salem attorney J. Kevin Morton was recently certified by the North Carolina State Bar as a specialist in Social Security Disability Law. He is one of 41 lawyers state-wide to achieve this distinction. Mr. Morton concentrates his legal practice in representing claimants for Social Security disability benefits; he also litigates appeals of these claims in the U.S. District Courts in North Carolina and in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. He received his BA degree in religion from Davidson College and his JD degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a member of the Disability Advocacy Section of the NC Advocates for Justice. He is also a sustaining member of the National Organization for Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR).

The North Carolina State Bar certifies lawyers as specialists in designated practice areas as a service to the public. The program assists members of the public in the selection of legal counsel by identifying lawyers who have demonstrated special knowledge, skill, and proficiency in certain areas of law. The program also gives lawyers a credible way of making their expertise known to the public and other lawyers.

To be certified as a specialist in a practice area, a lawyer must have been in practice for at least five years, devote a significant part of his or her practice to the specialty area, attend continuing legal education (CLE) seminars in the specialty, be favorably evaluated by other lawyers and judges (peer review), and pass a written examination in the specialty practice area.

In today’s Federal Register, SSA requests emergency clearance by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) of a new 1699 form to register appointed representatives of disability claimants. The notice explains:

By registering these individuals, SSA: (1) Authenticates and authorizes them to do business with us; (2) allows them access to our records for the claimants they represent; (3) facilitates direct payment of authorized fees to appointed representatives; and (4) collects the information we will need to meet Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requirements to issue specific IRS forms if we pay these representatives in excess of a specific amount ($600).

Although SSA currently uses a lengthier OMB-approved version of this form, we are requesting emergency clearance for an abbreviated version due to extensive comments from respondents indicating they need a simpler version immediately.

Commissioner of Social Security Michael Astrue announced yesterday that the Social Security Administration has awarded over 17 million dollars (funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) in contracts to 15 health care providers and networks to provide electronic medical records to SSA during the disability review process:

“Using health information technology will improve our disability programs and provide better service to the public,” Commissioner Astrue said. “We’ve seen a significant increase in disability applications. To process them, the agency sends more than 15 million requests annually for medical records to healthcare providers. This largely paper-bound workload is generally the most time-consuming part of the disability decision process. The use of health IT will dramatically improve the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of this process, reducing the cost of making a disability decision for both the medical community and the American taxpayer.”

Commissioner Michael Astrue wrote a short article discussing fast tracking cases involving schizophrenia and other diseases:

Our Compassionate Allowances and Quick Disability Determinations processes are making a real difference by ensuring that Americans with devastating disabilities quickly receive the benefits they need. This fiscal year, we expect to fast-track about 150,000 cases and we plan to add more diseases and impairments to these expedited processes in the coming months.

For claimants with certain kinds of impairments, fast tracking will mean favorable decisions in very short time frames.

Commissioner Astrue announced today that new data about disability beneficiaries and the hearing process in disability cases will be made available to the public:

Here are a few examples of the value of the Social Security datasets available today:

• Researchers can find out about the work-related experiences of our beneficiaries receiving Social Security disability benefits and give us policy guidance for our disability programs.
• The public can see information about hearings workloads and a breakdown of the types of decisions made by Administrative Law Judges.
• Researchers can study the effects of current and proposed legislative and program provisions.
• People who have requested a hearing on their disability claim can estimate the amount of time they may have to wait for the hearing to be held and for a decision.
• The public can see general information requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Commissioner goes on to say: “These new datasets are just the beginning of our efforts. In February we will launch our Open Government webpage that will include improved access to our data in a variety of formats. In April we will publish our Open Government plan. . . . Let me also reassure all Americans that while our goal is to become more open and transparent, we will continue to vigilantly protect the personal information the public entrusts to us. We will ensure that transparency does not put that information at risk.”

As a Mac aficionado who switched my office to Macs in 2008, I’m kinda sorta interested in what appears to be the unveiling of Apple’s new tablet on January 27th (the same day, incidentally, the President delivers the State of the Union address). I’m still trying to figure out what real-world advantages this tablet will have over a standard issue MacBook Pro or an iPhone. It may end up having the same kind of impact as the Macbook Air which is to say, very little. Lots of folks bought the Air as much for its novelty as anything else, but the honeymoon was short-lived. It was underpowered and in need of a few extra ports.

Still, I’m looking forward to tablet-mania. Even if it’s a dud, Apple makes beautifully-designed products so we’re likely in for some really nice eye candy.

From the great state of Wisconsin, what goes around comes around:

Lisa M. Miller, 32, received her sentence Friday (1/15) in federal court in Madison.

In October, 2008, Miller was accused of applying for disability benefits, stating in her application she had breast cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, and post-traumatic stress disorder. She later provided the federal agency medical documents she made herself related to those diseases. She also told an agency administrator she was told by doctors she had 8-12 months to live. Miller was found out before any benefits were paid.

In her sentencing, Judge Barbara Crabb noted Miller’s prior fraud activities, which include two convictions for check fraud. Crabb said it was time for a wake-up call and imposed the time behind bars.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal of an unpublished Fourth Circuit decision involving the payment of attorney’s fees in an ERISA long term disability case. The case is Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance. The issues:

(1) Whether ERISA § 502(g)(1) provides a district court with discretion to award reasonable attorney’s fees only to a prevailing party; and (2) whether a party is entitled to attorney’s fees pursuant to § 502(g)(1) when she persuades a district court that a violation of ERISA has occurred, successfully secures a judicially ordered remand requiring a redetermination of entitlement to benefits, and subsequently receives the benefits sought on remand.

The prevailing party issue is similar to the issue now before the Court in Astrue v. Ratliff, a Social Security disability case involving payment of attorney’s fees pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (28 U.S.C. 2412(d)). The Court will hear oral argument in Ratliff on February 22, 2010. The issue in Ratliff: Whether an “award of fees and other expenses” under the EAJA is payable to the “prevailing party” rather than to the prevailing party’s attorney, and therefore is subject to an offset for a pre-existing debt owed by the prevailing party to the United States.

The Government Accountability Office has issued a report regarding the recent hire of new ALJs and the methods of determining performance. The report notes that more than 50% of all ALJs are eligible to retire. That creates a potential brain drain of institutional knowledge and technical skills. From the summary (link to the full report in the summary):

. . . agency officials raised several issues regarding ALJ hiring and offered suggestions to improve the process, including (1) opening the OPM registry to accept new candidates more frequently, (2) giving greater consideration to agency-specific knowledge and experience, and (3) providing additional agency flexibility in meeting the procedural requirements associated with selecting from the three best qualified candidates and awarding veterans’ preference.

I was interested to read that President Obama wants the government to enter the 21st century by adopting 21st century technologies. And he had Social Security on his mind. The President

brought dozens of top business executives — including Craigslist’s Craig Newmark, Facebook’s Chris Hughes, and PG&E’s Peter Darbee — to the White House to solicit advice on how to make the federal government more responsive and customer-friendly through technology.

Making government bureaucracies more tech-savvy is a problem that has bedeviled past administrations — remember Vice President Al Gore’s “Reinventing Government” project? — but Obama, who created new positions of chief technology officer and chief information officer to underscore his commitment to technological innovation in government, insists he’s serious.

“Washington lags a generation behind in how we do business,” Obama said. “If you can book dinner on OpenTable or a flight on Southwest online” — two companies represented at the forum — “then why shouldn’t you be able to make an appointment at your local Social Security office the same way?”

The Social Security Administration is likely doing better than most government agencies when it comes to the adoption of newer technologies. Within the disability program, all applications for disability are electronic (i.e. there are no paper files), and it’s anticipated that representatives of disability claimants will have secure internet access to their client’s files later this year.

Other agencies have fared less well. For example, the “U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has a three-year backlog of patent applications, largely because each of the more than 400,000 applications annually must be printed out, scanned and then entered into the agency’s antiquated case management system.”