SSA Disability Redesign

To better manage increasing workloads with fewer resources, the Social Security Administration (SSA) in 1993 embarked on a seven-year effort to redesign its disability claims process to make it more customer focused and efficient. Currently, disability claimants often wait nearly a year for a final disability decision. Further, disability claimants are unhappy with the lack of face-to-face contact with the SSA staff who make disability decisions. A key initiative in SSA's redesign plan is the establishment of the disability claim manager position, which would have total responsibility for adjudicating disability claims and authorizing benefit payments. The idea is to give the claimant access to the person who makes the determination and allow for a dialogue between them. This report discusses (1) SSA's efforts to test and implement the disability claim manager position, (2) the major concerns about the position, and (3) SSA's efforts to staff the position.

GAO found that: (1) as envisioned by SSA, DCMs would be solely responsible for processing and approving initial disability claims, assume functions currently performed by at least three federal and state workers, and serve as a single, personal point of contact for claimants; (2) SSA has several initiatives under way to team claims representatives and disability examiners so that they can coordinate claims processing functions and prepare for transition to the DCM position; (3) although it has not yet implemented other initiatives and support features that are critical to the DCM position, SSA has decided to proceed with plans to test the DCM position; (4) a three-phase testing plan proposed by an SSA work group of management representatives, claims representatives, disability examiners, and federal and state union members may leave some important DCM features untested and does not have the support of all work group members; (5) concerns raised about the DCM position include the complexity of DCM responsibilities, compromises to safety and controls, salary differential between federal and state workers, and impact on field operations; and (6) SSA expects to recruit DCMs from its current staff of federal claims examiners and state disability examiners, but some staff may be unwilling or lack the necessary skills, and SSA has not developed a plan for providing technical and clerical support for DCMs.

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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