Well, color me surprised! The Social Security Administration ("SSA") acknowledged deficiencies in mail processing during the pandemic in an Office of the Inspector General ("OIG") report dated June 30, 2022. Mailing paperwork to your local SSA office often feels akin to throwing it in the trash. While we make an effort to utilize all of SSA's online services, there are certain items that SSA requires us to mail and/or fax in. For instance, while we can upload forms and evidence as PDFs for appeals, SSA doesn't allow us to attach forms or evidence to the initial application that we file online. If SSA expanded online service to allow us to add attachments when filing initial applications, this simple step alone would drastically reduce the amount of mail that SSA has to open every day, which in turn, would likely improve SSA's ability to handle their incoming mail.
SSA has never been known for their "lean" strategies, however. They will add 3 steps to eliminate 1 step. No joke, in 2020, SSA changed the appointment of representation form from 1 page to 6 pages! That's efficiency at its best!
SSA could improve their services and (drastically) reduce their costs by spending the money to hire six sigma black belts to come in and teach them how to work smarter, not harder. I have practiced disability law before SSA for 18 years. I doubt I will ever see SSA take a proactive and research-oriented approach to improving service. We didn't need a formal report to be issued acknowledging that SSA is horrible at processing its mail. Every red-blooded SSA employee, claimant and attorney could tell you this. Rather than write a 25 page report about it, why not invest the energy into fixing the problem with real-time solutions.
If you need help falling to sleep tonight, please feel free to peruse this 25 page report: https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/a-08-21-51115.pdf
Got a question about SSDI or SSI that you need
us to answer? Please check out our website at www.westcoastdisability.com . We try to provide you with helpful
information on our website that will allow you to successfully navigate the
Social Security Disability process. Also, feel free to email me your questions
at megan@westcoastdisability.com or
call me at (800) 459-3017 x 101.
