and as bad as those backlog statistics that you mentioned i think that certainly in my state of california the backlog may be understated due to several policies in california that are being done i think to hide that backlog and i think we need to take action on that you guys i think of all read the inspector general report and he's going to be here today on march twenty fourth he testified before the subcommittee that since january first of this year california's initial claims pending have increased by nine point seven percent and it's reconsideration claims pending by six point one percent as a result of the increased applications and state furloughs unfortunately since the march twenty fourth subcommittee hearing the situation has continued to deteriorate in california especially now that the california disability determination services workers are furloughed three days a month in a report in fact released yesterday a review by the inspector general shows that the rate of increased applications continued to grow through fiscal year two thousand and totaling about fifteen percent above the previous year the growth in new claims has outpaced the d d s s ability to keep up with the new workload fiscal year two thousand and ten which will result in a significant shortfall of capacity the oh i g expects approximately sixty nine thousand disability cases to be delayed in processing over the next year this weight will result in about one hundred sixty two million dollars in benefits that will not be paid to disable beneficiaries during this period that would have been paid had the furloughs not occurred and of course the states will lose over thirty nine million administration funding from social security because the poise are furloughed and what doesn't show up in the statistics in fact i believe there's a deliberate attempt in california to hide the impact of the furloughs for example prior to the furloughs d d s s signed all initial and re consideration cases to line unit examiners within twenty four to forty eight hours in september two thousand and nine california d d s has began as they call staging and mischel and reconsideration claims what this meant was the assigning of a case a fictional examiner and those cases are in essence a backlog i don't think they're counted in the backlog as those cases are simply set aside with no development initiate until some later point when they can be assigned to a real person california has in just the last two months as a stage case category of fifteen thousand cases the increased backlog and decreasing work hours because of the furlough have also led to california d d s in reinterpreting a federal regulation that allows cases to be closed and denied when the claimant fails to pursue a cooperate with the processing of their claim this is a change in the state d d s policy from the prefer a low situation employees of california d d s have been instructed to close and deny claims for disability benefits if within twenty days of receiving the case if the claim fails to complete and return a long detailed form known as function report this form has a supplement which requires the claimant to find a third party to complete a portion of the form this is a twenty five page form and if it's not in the file case within twenty days the d d s workers are pressured to close and deny the case without any further case development so the sophistic showcase quote this is despite the fact that the very nature of these disabilities they can't complete the task in twenty days these forms are sent to homeless claimants cancer patients illiterate claimants even blind claimants their inability to complete these forms is resulting in denial of benefits without a substantive disability determination this is criminal in my view and kate the workers would go out and help the people develop their claims help them develop this twenty five page form one branch and i've talked to people in branches from all over the state by the way mr chairman i'd be happy to provide documentation to your staff of these of the situation one branch in northern california reported thirty percent of their cases have been closed in this manner another california branch an internal quality review showed that the quality was at sixty percent meaning forty percent of the cases reviewed contain furlough a caseworker that the federal the federal pay is just not made the state doesn't save any money in fact the state loses its administration fee for that we have begged governor schwarzenegger negative schwarzenegger to  do it but he apparently wants all the workers all through the state to be furloughed even though it doesn't save them any money it's costing i think thousands of claimants to lose their beneficiary i have written a bill mr chairman which i will introduce shortly which  tries to deal with the situation current federal law allows a social security minister to federalize d d s employees if a state and i quote substantially fails to live up to its responsibility to process claims my bill that don't delay services act is intended to prevent the state furloughs missing in this situation my bill would deem furloughs of d d s employees a substantial failure triggering the provision of existing federal law that allows s s a to federalize d d s there are some costs and other implications of that but i think it ought to be studied get the cost figures and tell the states that if they don't do this properly they're going to be federalize resources it needs to administer their benefit programs and earn a last two fiscal years receive funding at levels higher than the president's request along with an additional one million money here will see some long overdue good news on the appeals front hearing offices have increased productivity and this is resulted in a lot lower wait times for those who have been waiting well over a year for a decision beyond addressing today's service delivery challenges lasting returns on investment depend on social security modernizing its technology yet for a structure and consistently addressing program waste fraud and abuse including conducting continuing disability reviews in order to save billions in program dollars and build taxpayer progress and so i will be listening for real progress in those areas although clearing disability backlogs important today marks the fourth hearing of this committee and the third hearing on backlogs while we continue to ignore the fiscal challenges it's all security bases in august aggression a budget office reported that s to advance security reform and we know the sooner we act the better it is further we've had no hearings on other key challenges including the own going problem of identity theft and social security number misused by those attempting to or to legally in this country i hope this committee will turn to those issues on a bipartisan basis soon as possible and examine the options for change and thank the witnesses for brief oral statement mr chairman mr johnson members of the subcommittee thank you for this opportunity to discuss our progress in driving down the hearings bought backlog in managing the emerging backlog d s s overall the news is good for my first twenty two months we steadily reduce the rate of increase in pay pending hearing cases we hit the turning point this past january and in every month since then the number of pending cases has dropped the rate of decline is accelerating in the last three months we reduced the hearings backlog by a greater percentage than we did in the previous seven months we have steadily reduced number of cases that await its longest in fiscal year two thousand and seven we started by resolving virtually all sixty five thousand cases pending over a thousand days this siskel year we had a schedule resolving over one hundred thirty five thousand cases pending eight hundred twenty five days or longer mathematically our targeted effort with older cases meant that average processing time remained artificially high for a while but that figures also starting to drop now since june we have kept it below five hundred days and last month it was four hundred forty six days were over the average processing time for  backlogs offices coming down faster than for other offices in february two thousand and seven the processing time for atlanta land was eight hundred fifty two days and we had six offices for processing time between six hundred  fifty and eight hundred twenty days last month our most backlog office was dayton at six hundred fifty one days let me be clear that six hundred fifty one days for a hearing is not acceptable but shortly such performance will be a disturbing piece of history by the middle of next year seven new offices will open in michigan ohio georgia north carolina and indiana our five most contested states with plans for twenty five new hearing offices seven new satellite offices and scores of office modifications and expansions we are adding the capacity for the cases to continue flooding in our hearing offices should also be very proud of their three consecutive years of greatly improved productivity without that achievement we would not have reduced the backlog this past year we have a number of ways to track productivity but an important bottom line measure percentage of administrative law judges reach our expectation for a minimum annual disposition of five hundred cases that number is steadily increasing each year in two thousand and forty six percent of our judges reach that level in fiscal year two thousand and nine seventy one percent reach that level that individual success is also a team success each judge now receive support from a recent high average of four point six support staff judge success has come from hard work better systems better training and better business processes we design nationally hearing centers to quickly help the most beleaguered offices more and more applicants remote locations are asking for video hearings which are not only more efficient but also more professional for judges and applicants than holding hearings in motels or other makeshift places improvements of the d d s has also helped with backlog reduction we are fast tracking more cases for approval in a matter of days about one hundred thousand last year and about one hundred forty thousand we project this year  new system called the improves the quality and consistency of decisions every state in the nation will have this upgrade before we move from fifty four separate cobol based systems to begin testing a common state of the system in april two thousand and eleven unfortunately for the d d s is not all the news is good case filings are rising faster than we can hire and train new employees and the number of pending cases is increasing state furloughs aggravate the problems created by the recession as nonsensical as it is for states to respond to fiscal crisis like furloughing our employees many of them have done so i'm grateful to vice president biden and many members of this subcommittee who have helped me persuade some governors not to take this misguided action ensure we have made solid progress we are applying the same thoughtful planning and best practices from our hearing plan to handle the additional initial disability claims we're expanding our capacity at the initial level by the end of fiscal year two thousand and ten we expect to have nearly twenty eight hundred more d d s employees and we had at the end of fiscal year two thousand and eight and we are increasing the number of federal workers who are reviewing these cases with your support we hope to beat our target date for two thousand and thirteen for elimination of the disability backlog despite all the new cases from this recession we understand too that we have many other service challenges from the work c d r issues to reduce waiting times clearer notices better telephone services and other areas and we're going to do our best to live up to your expectations thank you have to answer any questions may have while the twenty third it's a product of the recession mr tener we're getting hit with last year i believe numbers of the past year about four hundred thousand more cases than the actuaries originally project will take in probably about seven hundred thousand more cases this fiscal year and were projected and we were just not set up to handle an extra million cases because we were struggling a bit with staffing as it was  it does take time to hire and train new employees so we've moved as aggressively as we can we've beefed up the d d s is as much as we can we're moving some federal workers to processing of cases in there are some states that have looked  the states that are for allowing and understand that there's an issue here in new volunteers to set up special units to handle work from other states so we've actually got special units called extended service teams in four states that are going to help us pick up from some of the states that are going to be lagging with the furlough issue and the impact of the recession do you have a comment about it failed situation in  california there's a lot of detail in this situation the situation in california is a source of great concern right now the number of pending cases is building up and that's usually what happens right before average processing time start to deteriorate the average processing times have not significantly deteriorated yet but that's likely to happen the next few months california is a state that has had issues in quality right near the bottom of the states in quality even before what's been going on lately we've been having trouble getting clear information about some of the things happening california believe both the director of the t d s and the number two of both retired recently a little confusing in california we do have concerns we don't have recent as i understand it quality review information that would verify some of the complaints of mr filner making but we're monitoring it as closely as possible and we are we talked before about the agency's outdated technology that includes computer programs that are still cobol that's nine hundred fifty s technology yes or today we've got a lot better stuff we do and can you tell me what you're doing to modernize your system and i'm told it could take as long as seven years for you guys to get it updated can you talk about that yes we are trying to do as much as we can as fast as we can in terms of systems modernization it is a daunting chat task because first hold got thirty eight million lines of cobol code and we have to be very careful as we replace code that we don't disrupt service and a lot of the programs tied in with each other in intricate ways and sometimes it's very difficult when you pull out a piece of it you have to be very careful that you're not  having unintended consequences but we are moving to do that as aggressively as we can the first big step is when we went electronic with the d d s is we kept the cobol that will be replaced we should have when april two thousand and eleven is the target date for when the beta will be ready on that and that will probably be a rollout over another eighteen months why is it taken so long goodness gracious we got technology out there i mean everybody in this audience can go out there and get a new computer and be upgraded today why can't you guys do that well it's not just a question of the hardware the hardware is fairly simple to do it's the software is takes a long time to rewrite and to tie in with all the other software i mean to give you some sense something that may look easy to someone so for instance the effort to come up with a much better online is a long and difficult task and in my senses we may over the next three years be able to replace half of it but i don't think it's realistic particularly what's in the core of the program  the data on everybody in this room that's a big task and asked to take us awhile to to get to that if we had more resources we could do it faster but you know it's tradeoffs there's a lot of pressure does apply for that you're telling me it's true it might take you and software in durham to build up all the agency claims and data processing centers system should there be a catastrophic event at your center in baltimore is that still true and what does early calendar y mean the situation for the backup center now is the building is completed the equipment is is in there they're moving a little bit faster than i think originally planned on getting some of the equipment and so we're now let me just double check will be able to fully back up and recover in just a few months mr chairman so we're ahead of the old schedule on and that's new technology that's yeah that's substantially new technology we try to find a way back to back to use it as primary then we are going to start using it as partial primary probably increasingly over the next two years because we run out of compasses of the national computer center in two thousand twelve and we won't have the replacement for the national computer center completed until then so we are gradually shifting some functions over to the backup center and will be tying together the old national computer center and the new backup center until we have the new national computer center up and running and that should start coming on probably mid two thousand and thirteen just jim and i think we ought largest in fact i think what's more remarkable and a great tribute to the people in the agency is we did about three hundred of those in five and a half months so we were on a hiring freeze because of the continuing resolution until early march of this year and i believe we hired something like three hundred twenty five three hundred fifty employees for the whole agency from october march and the combination of funding in the appropriations bill  y critical component of the backlog question i think i certainly share your sense it was a rocky start mr palmer and you had a lot of company in that regard and i do want to thank the subcommittee as a whole  particular the primary point person for influencing because certainly it wasn't going very well just trying to do it directly and without your help i don't think it would have happened  had a little bit of a replay of some of those issues recently but we have an ally in john barry the new head of o p m who is very attuned on these issues and i think is in sympathy with where the subcommittee and i are on this and so it's it's a shame that we have had to take some of these issues up to mr berry to get them resolved but we've  had some great progress they've opened up the register again they won't tell us how many people were on the register that we have heard that there were nine hundred people as of cock of the night they cut it off and th probably twelve to fourteen hundred we're guessing that are on the road but we don't know but that should be more than ample for our needs we have hired already well actually no not yet tomorrow you'll help us where and forty  it needs to do between now and roughly the end of feb it's not on the critical path because the truth is right now we don't have space to put them we've literally with this class so we're swearing in tomorrow we're putting judges into pretty much every office that we have available so the hiring for the summer is predicated on an awful lot of office space being open it looks like g s a is going to hit the mark on that credit because when we first started opening up offices we were about the only game in town but with the recovery act we've been very busy so we actually have a list of the offices that are supposed to be open when  for what is very complicated and sometimes very time consuming information to get and that is actually information on the medical condition and that is now could you update us on how much of that information is now being transferred  helping in a number of days i think i and most of the senior people in the agency are really excited about this development because this is the one big paradigm changer in disability processing that we see coming forward in the next couple of years because we spend an enormous amount of our ministry of time money and effort chasing down medical records and if that can be efficient and complete even without trying very hard in the couple pilots that we've been able to actually see what would work we've been able to cut our processing times roughly in half and it also is going to improve quality because a major source of error is we often don't realize that the medical record is incomplete the claimant often claim it's attorneys often don't reckon nice that it's incomplete and they're often certain particularly for certain psychiatric and sexually transmitted diseases claimants are often very reluctant to volunteer that that's really a major issue for them so it's huge in terms of timeliness is huge in terms of quality what's frustrating is that we're not there yet it would make my life so much easier in life for the people we serve so much easier if they were ready so what we're trying to do is we're trying to make sure with the money that the systems that are being built are going to be compatible with ours in june boylan's had a leadership role over the say help design the standards we're spending a lot of time with india is they design their standards to make try to make sure that it's a seamless as possible i'm hoping that at the back end of this recession that there are at least a few early adopters in the private sector that would make our life a lot easier i mean for instance you know kaiser permanente seems to be further ahead than another if they were to have even a third of bit more concrete before they're going to do it but i think when that curve starts to excel right it's going to move a lot of our numbers in a positive direction and it's a very exciting prospect and that's why we're spending time and money on it now  chairman good to see you again thank you for the work that you've done that you're able to come back to tell us that you've made some progress in reducing the backlog and we should heed your warnings about what could happen in the future if we don't provide you with the resources that you need i want to focus on california i know you try to get the governor in our state of california to essentially fifteen percent of the work is not being done on any given month and if you take into account the size of the backlogs that already exist throughout the country but certainly in california as well and you reduce the availability of services by fifty percent just across the board not taking into account the else along with the fact that you and others have testified and provided information about the increasing caseload that's coming in the claims that are coming  to lose fifty percent for no reason whatsoever because you're willing to pay the money the federal taxpayers are willing to pay each state the money to provide the services the state of california the governor is not spending one red cent to provide a salary to the people would do these determinations fifteen percent more or less cut right off the top on top of the fact that you see it avalanche of another fifteen percent of claims community does that lead you to conclude that the governor the state of california making a good faith effort to provide effective services to california's disability applicants well i think that you can't take an action like this without at a minimum harming timeliness and potentially hurting quality as well what a number of states are doing are furloughing managers but not staff and that's going to create  they think that's i don't know what they think that does but that's surely going to create quality issues to that effect of way to administer that no i mean again i've caught me off i don't think any previous commissioners had to deal with anything like this before and  the first state was california last december and it was to me so nonsensical that i'll be honest i was caught off guard because i thought it was a one off i said well this is a strange decision what other state is going to do this but then there was a steady pitter pa and i've probably spent ten percent of my time this year trying to get states not to do that and your use of the word nonsensical perhaps the best word i've heard so far about this process that the governor in california is implementing i can't imagine that it helps with any kind of uniform administration of those disability services when you have people who to work simply because the governor said you can't come in even though the federal taxpayers are paying the salaries of those individuals as well it's devastating for morale and we've seen this you know we've had about a dozen states where right so let me ask you this question under the statutes you have the ability to declare that the governor and state of california are not fulfilling their obligations under our federal laws to administer the programs that they have said that they would accept under the social commission ministration and therefore responsible for those thousands of californians who are trying to get their claims process will do we have some statutory nonsensical manner when it comes to the ability of californians who are disabled or at least claim to be disabled to have their claims processed and with backlogs that take hundreds of days to process you have a governor who has said you're not going to go to work and process the claims of disabled californians even though i had governor have nothing to do with paying you for the work that you were going to do on behalf of those californians who worked very hard to have a system in place so they could get their claims h generated a lot of the media coverage it was a split decision the insurance companies lost a few of those cases they won a few of those cases so clearly there is abuse we don't  that take so far as the workload burden from the private insurance companies from these is relatively small and we're not persuaded yet that in certain states that the comparable practice on the public side might not be more of a problem but it has been difficult getting the data to that is taking longer to run those studies so i would say the private insurance companies it's an issue but a very small one we're not sure yet with the state agencies how big a problem is but we issue it's clear more work needs to be done absolutely and i also want to thank you that for the quick response of the agency provided in my request to have video teleconferencing equipment installed lacrosse wisconsin which had a large number of backlogs  that was quickly responded to and it's going to reduce now the travel time and the expense burden for applicants and their representatives and the administrative judge moving around the state in order to deal with the huge backlog in western wisconsin but having said that i also took a chance or a moment before coming over here to take a look at the processing time in madison in milwaukee in particular and i know we are facing some big issues but if you look at the average processing time for the hearing officers around the  both of which have more than doubled the processing time of the fastest and i'm wondering if you have any information to share why this is occurring in wisconsin why the processing time there so that's a very fine question so one of the  things i figured out a few months after i was clear i was walking into a situation with horrible national cogs but when i really had a chance to get deep into the numbers it was clear that we had  distribution issue around the country that essentially the infrastructure of our hearings office hadn't changed in twenty years it was the same number of offices in the same location with the same  number of judges and the demographics of the country have changed enormously in that time period and so in fact as bad as the backlog was in many places in the country what i've said if you actually take your fingers on a map of the united states madison wisconsin on the west and the eastern shore of michigan on the other you slide down and then you start angling to the east and then you end up in florida that's generally where you start  places like new haven connecticut where they're only taking half a case for judge per day so there's a misallocation around the country so one of the things that we've spent a lot of time with the selection of these new offices is looking at the demographics of the country for population growth and also looking at filing incidents because there are some places like michigan that have been in chronic recession since two thousand and one just the following rates are very hard and we're trying to equalize that around the but i want to also just quote from there are some examples of what he's been seeing out there and in one particular example he stated that middle aged claire area woman became disabled when her needs to get to the point where she needed knee replacements  led to back problems causing chronic pain pain which she said to take highly potent narcotic drugs after waiting nearly three years for a hearing the judge finally granted her benefits within just ten minutes while waiting for hearing  family lost its home to foreclosure and had to file for bankruptcy after the hearing he had asked her if they would have lost their home had filed for bankruptcy if she had been getting her social security check all along tearfully she replied absolutely not and added insult injury i just received a telephone message from her just a few days ago even though this client's fully favorable decision was dated august thirty one of two thousand and nine she is still not receive your first check or her back pay she called security district office last week and was told  could take ninety days for the payments and to get her into pay status and the issue of her payment past due benefits you know this is not all that atypical unfortunately and this i think is the human dimension of the backlog urgency that we're facing real people real problems and typically some of the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society so the more we can concentrate on that no we have a dual role here so as your implementation our support and congress to getting this done i think it is important that we continue to see that we do everything we can to alleviate this type of suffering throughout the country in absolute agreement and i do think that when we get through the recession we could help i think that we'll be able to cut the time the state level by more than half  strategic plan that we've laid out the goal is to get to an average processing time of two hundred seventy we still have a way to go that's what we're trying to do and then finally with your indulgence i just received word that one of our outreach rural s  offices had to be shut down because of threats that were being delivered to the staff there and therefore protective services of the been brought in order to investigate make sure that those threats aren't carried out and something bad doesn't happen but i hope this isn't  reading every single one of those when i started i was probably seeing about three of those a week as the economy started to unravel you could see it in these reports and i sometimes get ten a day now so it's been a very serious threat it is remarkable to me we haven't had any actual loss of life yet we've had some very close calls and it is a scary thing and i think a lot of times people don't appreciate the courage of the people on the front line in our offices because they face a lot of very disturbed angry people day in day out and you don't know what people like that are going to of people cutting people out of work like california you just talked about how many states are doing it do you know up to ten right now ten of them  the course the state taxes that are for gone to so they're actually directly hitting their their coffers as well and on top of it and this more important than just the fiscal but the people that don't get cash and health benefits from us are often tapping their other state programs too so it's just i mean it's just a devastatingly nonsensical thing for states to be doing both for me from a both a moral and ethical payments where is that the legislation was written that we were supposed to pay some prisoners and we did sort of did indicate at the time i understand that we didn't have the databases for that and everyone was in iraq or system  well come on normally we're not in the business or tracking prisoners so i would say certainly i would encourage you if if there is a return to another two hundred fifty dollars payment which the administration supports and i support that you reconsider the congress reconsider the approach prisoners because that would eliminate the problem all told but we are embarrassed by this it's not a large amount of money in the context of thirteen billion dollars we've gone through several exercises what are the lessons learned are we ready if we're asked to do this again for the prouty widows there's almost no lost  money that's pretty much been taken care of whittling down on the prisoners it's often difficult to get cooperation from the states and that's kind of i believe i'll confirm this for the record it's fewer than five hundred at this point that we're still working on at this point and it's a work in progress hopefully within the next few months we will have done everything that we need to do and i think we're not quite done yet acting board and i was getting prepared for this hearing and i was really kind of nervous about the whole thing and i studied last night your questions and they were very good sought the perspective of the advisory board on the progress made by using recovery act resources disability claims backlog in the seven months since the hearing we have been watching closely as the agency has carried it is imperative that we have the resources and plans in place to meet the challenge and to be able to continue to provide high quality public service for which they are now and let me let me tell you one of the few regrets i have calling this hearing and give me the opportunity to testify about s s a s effort to reduce the backlog of initial disability claims this is been a challenging time for the american economy and the american people and at such times people turn to the safety net of social security  record numbers in fiscal year two thousand and nine s s a received almost three million applications for disability benefits which was an increase of some fifteen percent over the previous year the state disability determination services or d to process eight percent more claims than the year before however the still created a deficit leaving the backlog at its current level of three quarters of a million claims one significant threat s s a s efforts to decrease this backlog has been the employees and states furloughing all d d s employees this is created a fourteen percent shortfall of capacity for past processing about locations in our report impact the state budget issues on s s i disability programs issued earlier this week we estimate that the furloughs will cause delays and sixty nine thousand claims and delays an issue once of one hundred twenty six million dollars in benefits to those in need also troublesome from an integrity with the resulting increase in the backlog  medical continuing disability reviews these reviews result in program savings of ten dollars for every dollar that's invested and resources that could be used for a c d r as are being reallocated to processing initial claims and program dollars are lost significant efforts have been made to limit the impact of the furloughs the commissioner contacted all the state governors and many state legislators vice president biden wrote to the national governors association and there was even litigation in california that sought to preclude the furloughs as a result of these and other efforts two states exempted there at d d s from the furloughs and three states partially exempted the d d s employees saving another eleven thousand claims and twenty four point four million dollars from being delayed as a say is hired one hundred ninety two new staff or federal units that process initial claims the agency transferred cases facing delays from states to those federal units to ensure timely  processing s s a should be commended for its efforts to minimize the impact of state and other hiring and staffing issues still the state actions of clearly resulted in delays and increased the backlog staffing is another issue critical t reduction of this backlog congress is aware of the increased workload that the economic downturn would engender when it passed the american recovery and reinvestment act the act provides five hundred million dollars to s s a to process retirement disability and survivor insurance workloads and s s a has put that money to good use of the five hundred million dollars s s a invested two hundred fifty one million dollars and the office of operation which is now hired fifteen hundred thirty one additional staff today for example the furloughs and despite the commissioner's efforts to exempt all federal employees d d s employees from those furloughs all of his attempts have not been successful what a furlough costs is not just problems and processing time or problems and working claims but it also cost dollars from the state and you heard that today for example a one day for oil in the state of ohio cost the state three hundred forty five thousand dollars in the ministry of funding one hundred forty nine thousand nine hundred dollars in delayed monthly benefits to claimants and impacts seven hundred thirty one claims so you can see that the impact of even one day of furlough is significant while s s a is authorized hiring in the d d s says the hiring has not always been optimized because some other states have freezes and delays in hiring other states have been able to hire but with hiring you don't get immediate results for increased capacity or productivity security disability problem program is complex and requires significant training to bring an examiner to the point where they are independent and productive the initial learning curve coupled with the problems with attrition that the d d s is currently encounter are impacting the d d s his ability to process  was it's been interesting as the d d s is moved forward they've always even with limited resources process cases stepped up to the plate provided good public service the days of increase applications currently and as you move in the future provide significant challenges to the d d s is certainly will require some additional funding security administration has requested congress has provided additional funding for technology technology forms a very important basis for proving claims processing and it's critical that that funding continue to provide the capacity and the capability to provide good public service through efficient and quality case processing system you've heard from the commissioner today about a couple of the initiatives that the d c p s to the common case processing system  is and also those initiatives are important they combine both technology and policy and then see triple the supports the continuation of those initiatives and will work with s s a for the further development and rollout of all those initiatives in the d the security is working right now as you heard from the commissioner on workload planning issues and you've heard from him how they're creating some e s p s are extended service teams will provide national resources to some of the d d s is needing assistance it's very critical the community be involved in every part of this process state d d s as are used to doing workload sharing and helping out with additional workloads in fact we help with the road our reduction by taking some informal remand cases but transferring cases from state to state can be both politically sensitive and technologically challenging so this move must move forward with much caution and much surgery is needed but can't be done until disability approved individuals who are not taking their diabetes medication hypertension medication because of lack of funds while they're waiting on approval their disability these people don't just suffer at that time but their disabilities which might sometimes be temporary become permanent disability while they're waiting adjudication that's a devastating blow to those individuals there's also a blow to the american taxpayers who are funding disability for these individuals on health care for the rest of their lives i also see individuals who've lost their homes lost their cars while the terminations without cars people don't have also not have access to medical care without homes they lose safety stability for themselves and their families and sadly we find too often we can't even find the individuals to notify them that day in court is finally come the human face of this is tragic it has been noted by everyone here improved dramatically when i started just three and a half years ago as a judge or so security the average claimant that i saw had applied for benefits about four years before the date of this hearing today i'm seeing claimants who applied but two years before the date of the hearing that's still a really long time and tragically too long the progress has been made because the support from congress to support from this of claims being bound now with the state the resources now will not accommodate that way what will happen is that the backlog will increase the wait time will increase and the tragic effects on human beings will increase unless there's just decisive action in the written testimony there are a number of specific recommendations the d d s has and i know they're we specific bill but we would support some action to prevent state employees from being furloughed we also think there is a need for improved adjudication and d d s to mitigate the problems in the downstream flow comes to the hearing offices  believe it was congressman who talked about consistency there really isn't consistent and state d d s s if a claim of it from your home state of tennessee or my home state of mississippi were to take the bridge right across the mississippi river to arkansas their chance of initial approval would go about fifty percent that's really an unacceptable result justice simple justice demands that there be more consistency in the program and we would urge that congress ensure that so secured ministration have seth already has the mandate from congress to remedy that that needs to be done by closer oversight the resources for the oversight and in forstmann action training whatever's necessary we fully support the improved increase technology the so security has implemented it's been a tremendous benefit to having electronic files i can conduct hearings in three states in one week without ever leaving atlanta that's a great benefit but we have to remember that every case is a human being who needs day in court needs due process and who needs to be able to tell an impartial judge his story technology can't do everything only people can do it people who have t ability in the willingness to stop and listen and understand the details of that individual's case their medical history i believe inspector general covered most of what i want to say about the reviews but i would like to point out that besides being a tremendous benefit t taxpayer ten dollars for every dollar spent there also in a way are benefit claimants claimants who know that they will face a continuing disability view or provide an added incentive to take advantage of medical care vocational services know the things to get themselves back into the workforce sometimes they need that extra push but part of that process is that claimants who disagree with the findings have a right to due process hearing before a judge so we have to understand that when we find c d r we also have to find the judges and the ranking member johnson talked about it the technology and social security is behind the times and when you're talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands of cases that we're not doing anything about the