On receipt of a request for remand from an ALJ, the Executive
Director's Office (EDO) will forward the email to the branch chief with
jurisdiction over the claim. The branch chief will immediately assign
the case to an analyst for review.
If the claimant submitted a request for
review but the claim has not yet been established in the case processing
system, the EDO will either establish the case before forwarding the
information to the branch chief, or will instruct the branch chief to
establish the case in the case processing system.
If remanding the case to the ALJ is more administratively efficient
and advantageous to the claimant, the analyst will recommend that the
Appeals Council remand the case to the ALJ as follows:
•
If remanding an ALJ dismissal at the ALJ's request, the
analyst will enter the remand reason Failure to Appear Dismissal- ALJ
Request Jurisdiction in the case processing system. The analyst will then
prepare a remand order, briefly summarizing the facts and specifically
stating that the ALJ requested the remand in order to proceed with a
hearing (or issue a favorable decision, if applicable).
•
If remanding an unfavorable decision at the ALJ's
request, the analyst will enter the remand reason New Evidence Presented
Upon Administrative Appeal/Review into the case processing system. The
analyst will then prepare a remand order, briefly summarizing the facts
and specifically stating that the ALJ requested the remand in order to
issue a favorable decision.
The reasons for remand entered in the
case processing system propagate into the ALJ How MI Doing system to,
in part, provide the ALJ with information about the number of his
or her cases remanded by the Appeals Council. In these situations,
adding the correct reason for remand in the case processing system is
critical to avoid assigning an error to the ALJ in the How MI Doing
system.
If the Appeals Council agrees with the remand recommendation,
it will issue a remand order returning jurisdiction to the ALJ. However,
if the Appeals Council does not agree that a remand is appropriate or does
not otherwise find it appropriate to return jurisdiction to the ALJ (e.g.,
the Appeals Council can act more expeditiously in the claimant's favor),
it will take any other appropriate action to resolve the claim.