SSA Disability

Between 1985 and 1994, the number of working-age people in the Social Security Administration's (SSA) disability insurance and supplemental security income programs rose 59 percent, from 4 million to 6.3 million. Concern about such growth has been compounded by the fact that less than half of one percent of disability insurance beneficiaries ever leave the disability rolls and return to work. A recent GAO report (GAO/HEHS-96-62) urged SSA to place more emphasis on return-to-work efforts. If an additional one percent of the 6.3 million beneficiaries were to leave SSA's disability rolls and return to work, lifetime cash benefits would be reduced by nearly $3 billion. The magnitude of disability costs in the workplace has spurred companies to develop strategies to return disabled employees to the workplace--an effort that can help businesses reduce costs, such as disability benefit payments and disability insurance premiums. This report discusses (1) key practices used in the U.S. private sector to return disabled employees to the workplace and (2) examples of how other countries implement return-to-work strategies for disabled persons.

GAO found that: (1) U.S. private-sector and foreign return-to-work programs emphasize early intervention to increase workers' motivation to work, setting work goals soon after the disabling event, providing timely rehabilitation services, and having the employer communicate early and often with disabled employees to encourage them to return to work; (2) for individuals who might return to work, disability managers identify and provide specific return-to-work assistance, use case management techniques where appropriate, and ensure that medical personnel are aware of the disabled worker's job functions and the employer's work accommodations; (3) limiting cash benefits and linking retention of medical benefits to employment provides an incentive for disabled persons to return to work; (4) disability managers believe that these return-to-work strategies work most effectively when integrated into a comprehensive program; (5) in contrast, the Social Security Administration (SSA) emphasizes establishing applicants' eligibility for benefits rather than their potential for returning to work and structures cash and medical benefits as disincentives to returning to work; (6) the return-to-work strategies reviewed can be applied to a broad and diverse population with widely varying work histories, job skills, and disabilities; and (7) return-to-work successes could generate significant program savings.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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