Does this allow the doctors to get compensated again for the additional review or does it simply reopen the existing case? Already frustrating enough to have to re-apply... can't imagine the frustration of putting more money in the pockets of the people carelessly rushing your review.
Thanks. Any implications for the initial reviewer(s) if further reviews reverse the initial decision? Doesn't seem like doctors should be compensated if their decision is found to be incorrect.
Only 5-10% in step two get reversed, but 50% of those who pursue to step three (the judge) get approved. I suspect it's intentionally like this as a weeding out sort of thing.
Step three is best done with a lawyer, but they'll eat up $6k or so of the back-pay you get if it's approved.
Anybody else find it ironic that there's such a barrier for people to get approval in the name of protecting taxpayer dollars, meanwhile huge amounts of taxpayer dollars are spent on paying these contract doctors?
That's the basic argument against all kinds of welfare gatekeeping, it costs more than it saves. People who insist on requiring drug tests to receive unemployment benefits, requiring seven life histories to receive SNAP, etc, often try and justify it as lowered spending, but it is mostly about making sure that Bad People don't get anything.
Per case, the contract doctors are paid ~$100 once (from both per-case and per-hour pay) rather than $800 every month to the applicants. That's still cost-effective. The only reason the numbers seem so large is because there are so few doctors, processing so many applications.
This is similar to the "New York marshals" involved in the debt-collections scheme articles that made the rounds on HN a short time ago. One person makes millions, solely because they have the bureaucratic rubber stamp that makes the grossly unethical business perfectly legal.
If you can put together a good racket, you can usually make a few hundred thousand dollars at it. That's just what sacrificing your own ethics is worth.
But now I wonder how much those docs pay for private security, to protect them from the terminally ill people, denied disability benefits, who may decide to go out with a suicidal attack on someone whom they could see as contributing to their doom.
Does this allow the doctors to get compensated again for the additional review or does it simply reopen the existing case? Already frustrating enough to have to re-apply... can't imagine the frustration of putting more money in the pockets of the people carelessly rushing your review.