With more than 99% of all claims resolved, the Independent Assessment Process (IAP) is winding down. The IAP Oversight Committee has determined that December 1, 2018 is the last day for first claimant hearings to be held.
About one quarter of the remaining unresolved claims are estate claims. All estate claims have a pre-hearing teleconference before a witness hearing is scheduled. The primary purpose of the teleconference is to assess whether there is sufficient evidence for the claim to proceed to a hearing.
In order to move the remaining estate claims to completion, adjudicators will schedule all necessary estate pre-hearing teleconferences within the next few months.
I have instructed all adjudicators to produce their decisions on whether each estate claim will proceed to hearing by no later than September 30, 2018. In this way, hearings can be scheduled to occur on or before December 1, 2018 for any estate cases that are found to qualify for a hearing.