Social Security to finalize rules making expanded phone and video hearings permanent

The Social Security Administration is set to finalize new rules codifying the agency’s expanded use of audio and video technology to conduct disability determination hearings after the formats retained their popularity following the end of the COVID-19 lockdowns.

If an American who has applied for Social Security disability benefits receives an initial determination rejecting their claim, they may appeal that decision and opt for a hearing before an administrative law judge. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, SSA offered a mix of in-person and “agency video” hearings, a term referred to when the applicant attends the hearing virtually from an SSA field office, along with a limited number of hearings via telephone.

The advent of the pandemic, with its resulting lockdowns shuttering most public places, required the agency to massively expand all of its virtual hearing options, including by allowing disability applicants to attend hearings using their own video equipment, like smartphones or webcams, at home.

But in the years since the advent of vaccines to combat the virus, virtual hearings have remained popular among SSA employees and applicants alike. In a final rule set for publication in the Federal Register Monday, the agency will formalize its current hearing options in its regulations.

“In March 2020, we began offering claimants the option to appear at hearings by telephone and later offered claimants the additional option to appear by online video in response to the COVID-19 national public health emergency,” the agency wrote. “Based on our positive experiences with these manners of appearance during the COVID-19 national health emergency and beyond, and in an effort to incorporate greater flexibility into our rules for claimants, we are adopting audio and online video as standard manners of appearance in our hearing process.”

Under the new rules, the agency may default to scheduling hearings for disability claimants via phone or agency video, though applicants have a right to object to those options in favor of another, or in favor of an in-person hearing. If a claimant objects to virtual hearings, they may not object to an in-person one.

Things work slightly differently for online video—the category under which claimants use their own video equipment for a virtual hearing. In order for the agency to schedule an online video hearing, the claimant must actively opt into the service.

“Claimants may object to appearing by audio or agency video, and a claimant must agree to appear by online video before we will schedule that manner of appearance,” SSA wrote. “If a claimant objects to audio and agency video and does not agree to online video, we will schedule that claimant to appear at a hearing in person. However, in certain limited circumstances, we will mandate an audio appearance notwithstanding the claimant’s objection to appearing in that manner.”

The new rule will take effect Nov. 23.