THE WAIT FOR DISABILITY BENEFITS
The average times Ohioans wait on appeals for Social Security disability benefits at the state’s six hearing offices. The Ohio average wait was 120 and the US average 345 days in fiscal 2011.
2012* 2011 2010
Dayton 399 491 596
Akron 360 351 n/a
Cincinnati 391 411 506
Cleveland 265 479 548
Columbus 350 491 623
Toledo 369 463 n/a
SOURCE: Social Security Administration
*Data for 2012 only through June 29; years are fiscal years
Need to include the local info
As more Americans and Ohioans apply to receive disability benefits, the Dayton hearing office of the Social Security Administration has been one of the nation’s worst when completing applicants’ appeals for the benefits.
For the past two fiscal years, the Dayton office was the second slowest nationally, trailing only Buffalo, N.Y., to process appeals. Most initial applications for Social Security disability benefits are denied, and claimants who appealed last year to administrative law judges in Dayton had to wait an average 491 days to receive a ruling for benefits. Last year, the average wait time was 345 days at the 157 Social Security offices nationwide.
A Dec. 28 investigation by The Wall Street Journal found that more than 15,000 applicants have died since 2005 while waiting for their disability benefit appeals to be decided. Ohio numbers were not available.
So far this year, the Dayton hearing office has improved its appeals process, is no longer ranked among the 20 slowest in country, and the average wait is about 200 days shorter than it was just two years ago. But the office still ranks as the slowest in Ohio. The delays have been attributed to budget cuts and insufficient staffing levels.
Long waits for decisions can cause serious hardship to people seeking benefits, many of whom desperately need income for rent, utility bills, groceries and other necessities, experts said. They added it is crucial to improve processing timeliness to prevent disabled Ohioans from falling into deep poverty and having their medical conditions worsen.
“The Social Security Administration has worked very hard to make improvements, especially in Ohio,” said allsupRebecca Ray, spokeswoman for Allsup, a Belleville, Ill.-based company that provides Social Security disability representation. “They definitely have seen some gains in helping people in Ohio get their benefits more quickly, but it is still a challenge.”
The Social Security Disability Insurance program provides monthly income to people when they are no longer able to work because of a severe and long-term disability. Eligibility requirements include having worked at a job covered by Social Security and having a medical condition that meets the administration’s definition of disability.
Initial disability claims have soared across the country because members of the massive baby boomer population have reached disability-prone ages, and the poor economy and high unemployment have persuaded more disabled workers against attempting to return to the workplace when they are laid off, officials said. The job market remains very tight, and workers with disabilities usually have a hard time competing for open jobs.
1 in 5 Americans are disabled
In fiscal 2011, the Social Security Administration received about 3.2 million initial disability claims, up about 23 percent from about 2.6 million three years earlier, according to administration data. About 407,280 Ohioans received disability benefits in December 2011, including about 51,415 in Butler, Champaign, Clark, Greene, Miami, Montgomery and Warren counties. About one in five Americans — or 56.7 million people — have a disability, according to census data released on Wednesday.
The process that determines eligibility is complicated and takes time, and in last fiscal year, the average wait for a decision on initial disability applications was about 120 days in Ohio.
About two-thirds of initial applications for benefits are denied, and most applicants end their pursuit of disability income at that point. But some people appeal the administration’s decision. About 21,511 Ohioans filed for appeals in the last fiscal year, including 2,188 at the Dayton office.
In first stage of the appeals process, the administration takes a second look at the application to determine if any processing errors were made while rendering a verdict. If the application is denied again — and the vast majority are — the applicant can file for a hearing with an administrative law judge, which usually have a better success rate. Almost 60 percent of people who receive an appeals hearing are approved for disability benefits, said Ray, with Allsup.
But appellants can expect a lengthy wait for an outcome. In May 2011, the average processing time was about 354 days nationwide. The delays have been even worse locally.
In fiscal year 2010, it took on average about 596 days for an administrative law judge in Dayton to rule on a disability claim, the slowest office in the country except for the one in Columbus. In 2011, the average wait time fell to about 491 days, still the slowest nationwide except for the office in Buffalo, N.Y. In 2011, there were 157 offices nationwide, and today there are about 165. The Dayton office covers the greater Miami Valley region.
Contributing factors to processing delays included the rising number of initial claims, an inadequate supply of administrative law judges and budget cuts that led to furloughs of Disability Determination Services employees in Ohio, experts said.
The upshot is that disabled people in need of benefits are put in very difficult and stressful financial situations, because they have no source of income for long stretches, said Stanley Hirtle, attorney with Advocates for Basic Legal Equality in Dayton.
“It’s a very serious problem for them,” he said. “They’ve been out of the workforce for some time, due to their health, so they don’t have anything to live on a lot of times, and they are often without adequate access to health care.”
Delays have dire consequences
The health of many disabled people worsens while they wait for benefits to be approved, because they are unable to obtain necessary medical treatment, Hirtle said. People who cannot work often must move in with relatives, because they have no income for rent, and some become homelessness. Some people fall into deep poverty, and a few succumb to their medical issues. “People become destitute, and some people die while waiting for these hearings,” Hirtle said. “And this is just part of the total delay in receiving benefits, because there is an administrative process before you reach the hearing level, and that takes a long time.”
John Schaeffer, 59, of Germantown, filed his initial claim for disability benefits in April 2009, but it was rejected. He appealed the decision several months later, and his request was finally approved this past March.
Schaeffer said a back injury prevented him from continuing to work as a field technician for IBM, and he received disability compensation through the company until an administrative law judge approved his request. But if not for the income he received in the intervening period, Schaeffer said he would have been forced to rely on safety-net social programs, such as food stamps and cash assistance.
“Because Social Security is so slow, it forces a lot of people into debt,” he said. “People can lose everything they own waiting on it.”
The good news is that processing delays are decreasing. Although the Dayton office still remains the slowest in Ohio this year, it is now only the 25th slowest in the nation. Through June, the average wait time for a decision at the local office has been reduced to about 399 days.
To help reduce the backlog, the Social Security Administration opened new hearing offices in Toledo and Akron in 2010, which immediately added about 22 new administrative law judges, said Doug Nguyen, the Social Security Administration’s deputy regional communications director for six states that include Ohio. The administration has increased the use of video hearings, which can be scheduled faster than in-person appearances. An electronic filing option for disability appeals has also helped cut down on delays. The administration this year added 52 new conditions to its Compassionate Allowances program, which speeds up the appeals review process for people with the most serious disabilities.
“We have worked hard to reduce processing times at both the initial and hearings levels,” Nguyen said.
The administration’s goal is to reduce the average wait time nationwide to about 270 days by the end of 2013.
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