The Social Security Administration Is a Bureaucracy
The biggest issue in dealing with the Social Security Administration is its expansive nature. With over 57,000 employees and a separate SSA Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) with its own 8,000 employees, including 1,300 administrative law judges and 34 administrative appeals judges, it is a very large government administration. In addition, the SSA contracts with state agencies for the initial determinations, adding about 14,000 employees who make disability determinations below the level of a hearing before an administrative law judge. Your Ocala disability lawyer will be able to relate the latest information on the Social Security Administration to you.
In addition to its large size, the Social Security Administration is made more problematic due to the sheer complicated nature of its programs. The most complex of the programs are the ones concerning disability: Social Security disability (SSD) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Changes in these complex programs take a while to reach every employee in the system, even though all of them ought to know of them as soon as they are implemented.
As with any large bureaucracy, the Social Security Administration has tried to create systems for making complicated decisions. Concerning state agencies, however, this simply does not work well. These agencies are not equipped to properly deal with the medical-vocational issues at hand when making a disability determination. Because of this, determinations before the hearing level are often not adequate, a fact of which many Social Security Administration employees are unaware.
To demonstrate the problems created by the complex nature of the Social Security Administration, a test was conducted of the Social Security Administration’s nationwide toll-free telephone number. It showed that a quarter of the time, a wrong answer on questions concerning SSI was received. Therefore, while the number is a reliable source of some information, such as inquiries into the Social Security Administration’s retirement program, it is not necessarily a reliable source of information concerning disability benefit entitlement.
Compounding all of the bureaucratic problems is an issue with the bureaucrats themselves, who can tend to follow rules without consideration as to whether or not the rule makes any sense given a situation. This can cause a great deal of frustration for both claimants and Ocala disability lawyers. In the case of the latter, however, knowledge and expertise on disability law can help them to navigate the bureaucracy. For the help you need to increase your odds of a favorable decision after a Social Security hearing, fill out the form on this page for a free consultation with Ocala disability lawyer CJ Henry.