Background

This transmittal amends chapter I-2-1 of the Hearings, Appeals and Litigation Law (HALLEX) manual to update instructions regarding interpreters for hearing- impaired claimants.

Explanation of Content and Changes

HALLEX I-2-1 is amended as follows:

I-2-1-72 A – We moved the information previously in the subsection to subsection C and retitled the subsection “General.” We added a general statement regarding when an administrative law judge must provide a hearing-impaired claimant with means to fully participate in the hearing and the most common ways of doing so.

I-2-1-72 B – We retitled the subsection “Sign Language Interpreter” and incorporated information previously in subsection A. We made editorial and formatting changes to the language and added a helpful reference to the Program Operations Manual System.

I-2-1-72 C – We retitled the subsection “Real-time Reporting” and added a brief description of real-time reporting.

I-2-1-74 – We made editorial changes to the language to improve readability.

Date: October 18, 2019