With a backlog of nearly 1.1 million claimants awaiting Administrative Law Judge hearings at the end of 2015, and an average processing time of 512 days, SSA’s Office of Disability Adjudication and Review has created a plan to speed up the hearings process. The plan, known as Compassionate And REsponsive Service (CARES), was announced via a post at SSA’s newsletter. If the plan is successful, average processing times will decrease to 270 days by Fiscal Year 2020. However, the success of the plan depends on many factors, especially how much administrative funding Congress allows for SSA. And even if the plan is eventually fully implemented, backlogs and average processing times are expected to rise during the current Fiscal Year.
