We are approaching the one-year mark since Social Security closed its field offices and hearing offices to the public in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We now have three effective vaccines to combat the virus and the number of new cases and hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are dropping, but things are not likely to go back to normal at Social Security in the near future.
As more of the population gets vaccinated it will provide an opportunity for Social Security to at least open up its offices for some kind of in-person service, but the practices Social Security has put in place over the last year might not go away entirely ever again. Let’s take a look at how Social Security used to operate and how it now operates under the pandemic and how it might operate once the pandemic has subsided and things get back to “normal.”
Field Offices
These offices are crucial to the public. This is where someone can apply for benefits, but also to get service for problems with benefits and get answers to many different questions. Prior to the pandemic someone could show-up to a Social Security office and wait for service. Since the pandemic all Social Security offices closed to the public and only recently has Social Security began to offer limited scheduled appointments. The days of allowing people to show-up without an appointment for service at a Social Security office may be over or at least drastically reduced. It is likely that the agency may decide to require scheduled appointments for service, this would be done either online or by phone. Undoubtedly this will limit office service, but it is hard to believe Social Security will go back to business as usually at field offices.
Hearing Offices
Since March of 2020 Social Security began conducting phone hearings on disability cases rather than in-person hearings and recently began to offer video hearings. This allows a claimant to appear before their hearing from home as well as allow the judge, attorney and any experts to do the same. This might be something Social Security may continue. Although in-person hearings may be preferable to a positive outcome in a disability case there are some advantages to video or phone hearings. Many people who apply for disability have difficulties travelling and this would take away one obstacle for them doing this. Attorneys who represent claimants in other jurisdictions also have to travel to a hearing, which is not ideal for the attorney or the claimants they represent.
It will be interesting to see the choices Social Security makes once it is determined to be appropriate to have in-person hearings again. Social Security has allowed for video hearings even prior to the pandemic, but this still requires a claimant to appear at a different hearing office for the hearing even though the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) was in a different location, so it might allow all claimants to choose how they want their hearings to be conducted in the future, but time will tell.
