Background

This transmittal amends chapter I-2-1 of the Hearings, Appeals and Litigation Law (HALLEX) manual to reorganize instructions on how an administrative law judge (ALJ) can request clarification of Appeals Council (AC) remand orders. We also added a section on the AC feedback initiative. As part of the reorganization, we moved the processing instructions for formal and expedited clarification requests into two new HALLEX sections.

Explanation of Content and Changes

We made the following changes to chapter I-2-1:

I-2-1-85 – We changed the title to “Requesting Clarification of Appeals Council Remand Orders - Policy.” We added information about the AC feedback initiative in subsection A and clarified when hearing office staff and an ALJ can communicate with the AC in a new subsection B. We moved the information previously in subsection B to subsection C titled “When Clarification May Be Appropriate.” We moved the information previously in subsection C to new section HALLEX I-2-1-86. We moved the information previously in subsections D and E to new section HALLEX I-2-1-87.

I-2-1-86 – We titled the new section “Formal Requests for Clarification - Procedures” and incorporated information formerly in HALLEX I-2-1-85 C. We included information about communicating with the AC, and made formatting and editorial changes to the information.

I-2-1-87 – We titled the new section “Expedited Requests for Clarification - Procedures.” We incorporated information formerly in HALLEX I-2-1-85 D and E. We included information about communicating with the AC, and made formatting and editorial changes.

I-2-1-88 – We added a new section titled “Appeals Council Feedback Initiative.” Subsection A sets forth a general explanation of the initiative and how it differs from the request for clarification process. Subsection B explains the type of cases that an ALJ may refer to the AC. Subsection C explains how an ALJ can send a case to the AC for consideration under the AC feedback initiative.

Date: March 2, 2015