Articles from prior issues of The Advocate

January/February 2001

What’s New in Disability?
Presentation by Ken Nibali, Associate Commissioner for Disability, SSA and Sue Roecker, Executive Assistant to SSA Deputy Commissioner William Halter on September 21, 2000 at NADE National Training Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Sue Roecker reported on the DCM and Prototype projects. The DCM project is going well with potential to strengthen the Federal-State relationship. Although productivity is about the same as the regular process, cost is an issue. At this point it is unclear where the process is going but the evaluation process will begin in November, 2000. NCDDD, and, hopefully, DDS staff, will be involved in the evaluation along with an outside consultant. Results may be available by Spring or early Summer, 2001. Roecker indicated we have to look at customer expectations and realize our current system is not user friendly. We have to be as good as the private sector. The pilot of taking claims over the Internet is scheduled to start in October, 2000. The issue of varying pay scales throughout the country is being evaluated before SSA addresses it.

Per Roecker the use of the claimant conference was very disappointing in the Full Process Model but better in the Prototype pilot. Currently there is very little data from Prototype but SSA is working with OHA to obtain more data. Office of Management and Budget is interested in the results of the pilot. SSA is looking at what information from FPM can be used in the Prototype.

Ken Nibali reviewed DDS workload performance with four goals listed for FY 2000. Goal #1 shows national initial pendings at 536,000 claims. Goal #2, DDS completed 875,000 CDR claims with a total of 1.8 million completed including other SSA components. Goal #3 involved initial processing time. In FY 99, the target was 100 days and actual time was 105 days. In FY 2000, the target was 1.5 days with actual time at 102 days. Goal #4 addressed quality. The accuracy goal for both FY99 and 2000 was 97 percent with actual rate of 96.7 percent for 1999 and 96.3 percent for 2000. Nibali noted that denial accuracy was down somewhat but stated that this is probably due to the changes experienced during the year.

Nibali stated 28 percent of the budget is spent on medical evidence. We experienced a decrease in the Consultative Examination rate in 2000.

As for Prototype, pendings are well above the national average. Sixty three percent of claimants request the conference while 14 percent outright refuse it. In 23 percent of the claims the adjudicator only makes the decision while 38 percent require doctor involvement. Accuracy through July 2000 was 93 percent. Allowance rate is 40 percent but Nibali notes the objective is accuracy, not a higher allowance rate. Rollout will be in phases with the first group in mid 2002 and then at six-month intervals.

Process Unification tracking measures include DDS accuracy, ALJ support rates, appeal rates to OHA and OHA on-the-record allowances. DDS allowance rates have leveled off but OHA allowances are on the rise. Medical consultant training is needed. At this point in his presentation, Nibali announced our own Anne Graham has been selected as the Training Coordinator. The Social Security Advisory Board is concerned about equitable, consistent data on Process Unification and SSA has a list of variations to explain.

Finally, Nibali addressed the feasibility of DE Certification. A contract was awarded in September for a consultant to describe a process to establish certification, including criteria, considering the feasibility within the Federal-State relationship. The results will be shared with NCDDD and NADE.

Nibali, Roecker and Sue Davis, 2010 Vision Team Director, SSA hosted a game of "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire," with NADE members as contestants and "friends". While most of the questions involved SSA topics, attendees will be well prepared if they ever have to answer a trivia question involving the capacity of a ten gallon hat.