The Social Security Administration recently set a final version of proposed rules that it says will ensure uniformity at the hearing and Appeals Council levels during the Social Security disability process, but opponents feel these new regulations will only hurt disability claimants who seemingly are already facing a stacked deck due to high denial rates and stringent disability classifications.
These new regulations have been submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Social Security has to provide 30 days notice before any new rules or regulations go into effect. Considering a new administration will be taking over in less than two months, which could result in significant staffing changes at Social Security, it seems like a strange time to try and get new rules in place.
The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, an advocacy group that fights for federal policy on behalf of children and adults with disabilities is extremely critical of these new proposed rules.
Basically these new rules will do nothing to help disability claimants and their representatives as the rules set strict deadlines for submitting evidence on disability cases and allows Social Security to exclude evidence if it is supplied after the deadline prior to a disability hearing. The problem with these types of cases is that, as the CCD indicated, “the proposed rule ignores the reality that testimony, and sometimes new evidence, is routinely introduced at or after Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) hearings, and claimants and representatives need the opportunity to respond.”
Currently Social Security has used a rule that requires the agency to notify a claimant and representative of a hearing date 75 days in advance. The new rule would allow Social Security to reduce that timeframe to 60 days and would required evidence be submitted at least five days prior to the hearing. Currently Social Security will accept evidence up until the date of the hearing and sometimes even post hearing. At the very least Social Security’s new proposed rule would reduce a claimant and their representative’s ability to submit evidence by 20 days. To check out the CCD’s response to these proposals click here.
