Social Security Disability

This testimony examines the Social Security Administration's (SSA) efforts to eliminate the backlog of continuing disability reviews in the disability insurance and the supplemental security income programs. For nearly a decade, budget and staff cuts coupled with large increases in initial claims hampered SSA's ability to conduct these reviews. Consequently, more than 4 million beneficiaries were due or overdue for continuing disability reviews by 1996. SSA has developed a plan to conduct 8.2 million continuing disability reviews through 2002, and Congress has authorized $4.1 billion in funding over seven years for this purpose. GAO provides observations on SSA's ability to achieve its current seven-year plan cost effectively and on schedule. GAO discusses the agency's progress so far, its spending rate, and the status of selection formulas needed to meet future goals.

GAO noted that: (1) SSA's experience in CDRs during fiscal year 1997 is encouraging; (2) for 1997, SSA expects to meet or exceed its goal to conduct 603,000 CDRs; (3) for 1998, SSA is planning to increase its goal because it was able to meet its 1997 goal, while also processing at least 235,000 SSI childhood eligibility redeterminations; (4) reviewing more cases sooner than planned, to the extent possible, is clearly desirable because of the high costs--in taxpayer dollars and program integrity--of continuing benefits to those who are no longer eligible; (5) in addition, SSA's spending to date and estimates of future processing costs suggest that it will be able to complete its current 7-year plan with the funds the Congress has authorized, although its revised plan will not be available until November 1997; and (6) key issues, however, such as deciding which beneficiaries should undergo a full medical review--a lengthy and costly process--are still unresolved but will determine how quickly and at what cost SSA can become current on its CDR workload.