During the last several weeks Social Security has closed all of its field offices and hearing offices to the public due to the Coronavirus outbreak. This has required customers to access Social Security’s website or to reach out to the agency by phone to get assistance, but what happened to all the people who had disability hearings before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ)?
During the office closure Social Security has provided to options to people who had hearings scheduled. The first option was for all parties, the claimant, the ALJ, the claimant’s representative and all scheduled experts to appear by phone. This was not a mandate by Social Security, as anyone who objected to a phone hearing could have their hearing postponed and rescheduled for sometime in the future, but this choice may soon be taken out of claimants’ hands.
Barbara Silverstone, the executive director for the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives (NOSSCR), an association of representatives that assist the public with Social Security disability claims, sent a letter to the deputy Social Security commissioner and Chief ALJ Patrick Nagle opposing any move to make telephone hearings mandatory. Below is a portion of the April 2, 2020 letter from Silverstone that was sent.
“Some of our members have been told that SSA plans to change its policy of making telephone hearings voluntary, perhaps as soon as April 27. This is not acceptable to NOSSCR and we urge you to clarify as soon as possible that telephone hearings remain optional. Claimants who want to wait for in-person hearings (or video hearings, if they have not submitted an HA-55 opt-out form) should be permitted to do so.
NOSSCR strongly opposed mandatory video hearings (see our comments at https://nosscr.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/NOSSCR-Comments-VTC-FINAL.pdf) and we were pleased when SSA decided not to finalize that part of its proposed rule. We feel equally strongly that while telephone hearings are an appropriate stop-gap for claimants who want them during this national crisis, they have serious drawbacks compared to in-person or even video hearings and no claimant should be forced to have their claim heard over the telephone.
Some claimants do not have private spaces to conduct telephone hearings. They may have limited minutes on their phones, poor reception, or no phone at all. They may have intellectual disabilities, dementia, psychotic disorders, or other conditions that make it difficult for them to understand a telephone hearing. They may have difficulty hearing; in fact, that could be one of the bases for their disability claims. Telephone hearings do not allow for sign-language interpretation. Not permitting people to wait for the reasonable modification of an in-person or a video hearing violates Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
Furthermore, technological problems, such as participants in the hearing being inaudible or cut off with no way of signaling this to the ALJ or dialing back in, have already occurred during some telephone hearings. Even when a telephone hearing works perfectly, it does not allow the ALJ to see a claimant’s expression; ability to sit, stand, and walk; burns or other skin conditions; amputations; or other visual signals of impairments and functional limitations.”
