Annual Performance Plan - 2014, Revised Final Performance Plan - 2013 Page 11
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89STRATEGIC GOAL 1:
Deliver Quality Disability
Decisions and Services
Ø Reduce the Wait Time for Hearing Decisions and Eliminate
the Hearings Backlog
TO ACHIEVE THIS GOAL WE WILL
Ø Improve Our Disability Policies, Procedures, and Tools
Ø Expedite Cases for the Most Severely Disabled Individuals
For over 50 years, we have helped disabled workers and their families replace income lost due to a
severe disability. Over the last five years, our disability workloads have grown significantly, due in part
to baby boomers reaching their disability-prone years and an economic downturn coupled with high
unemployment.
Since fiscal year (FY) 2007, initial disability claim receipts have increased by 25 percent. In FY 2012, we
received nearly 3.2 million initial disability applications. We anticipate receiving about 3 million initial
disability applications in both FY 2013 and FY 2014.
In FY 2012, we received nearly 50 percent more hearing receipts than in FY 2007. Decreased funding
forced us to cancel our plans to open eight new hearing offices in Alabama, California, Indiana,
Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New York, and Texas. We are doing what we can to compensate;
however, we are concerned that despite our employees’ hard work, our progress in reducing the wait
time for hearing decisions and eliminating the hearings backlog has stalled.
We plan to hire additional ALJs in FY 2014. In the meantime, we are using our reemployed annuitant
authority to bring back experienced judges who have recently retired. We are maintaining an adequate
support staff-to-ALJ ratio to ensure cases are ready for hearings. We will also allow hearing office
employees to work overtime, as resources permit, to try to keep up with the surge in hearings.
The most important time consideration for claimants is how long they will have to wait for a hearing
decision. Consequently, our primary goal is reducing average wait time, which is the average number of
days it takes to get a hearing decision (from the date of the hearing request). In August 2008, claimants
waited an average of 532 days. Since that time, we have steadily reduced the wait. In FY 2012, the
average wait was 362 days. As of February 2013, the average wait time had increased to 382 days.
Annual Performance Plan for FY 2014 and Revised Final Performance Plan for FY 2013
Social Security Administration |
| 1-800-772-1213
11
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