Dear Colleagues:

On behalf of NADE, I sent a letter to Mr. Ken Apfel, Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, informing him that we supported his decision to move forward with implementation of a number of redesign efforts. I hope each of you have seen the report from Mr. Apfel regarding the Disability Management Plan. Copies of this report can be obtained through your DDS Administrator or NADE Regional Director. It is clear from the decisions, that NADE was listened to and many of our recommendations were adopted. Even the decision to develop a prototype of the elimination of reconsideration rather than rolling-out to the nation is a reflection of our strong arguments.

We met with John Dyer, SSA’s Principal Deputy Commissioner; Ken Nibali, Associate Commissioner for Disability; Sue Davis, Disability Process Redesign Team Director; and Stanford Ross, Chairman of the SSA Advisory Board, during our mid-year board meeting and had an opportunity to explore some of the thinking behind the decisions and to discuss SSA’s implementation plans. There will be reports about these mid-year board meeting speakers in upcoming issues of the Advocate and excerpts on our new web site: WWW.NADE.ORG.

Our letter to Mr. Apfel explained that we stand ready and request the opportunity to serve on planning committees put together by SSA for the purpose of examining data and developing the implementation process. And, as always, we promised to provide feedback on the progress of the implementation and the indicators of either success or failure.

Our position papers have made clear our opposition to the elimination of the reconsideration step. However, now that a decision is made, we support the decision to use prototype sites where reconsiderations will be eliminated. We agree that this is the wisest approach to implementation given the decision to do away with this step in the process.

We were impressed by the commitment expressed by Mr. Dyer and the others to provide DDSs with the resources needed to assure that Disability Adjudicators will be given training to improve their skill and ability to perform the Pre-Decision Interview and to act as Single-Decision-Makers. Since NADE provides professional development training of all types for Disability Examiners, we told him we stand ready to provide or to assist in training in these areas.

We agree with the decision to eliminate the Adjudication Officer and to take what they learned from the pilots to improve the current Hearings process. We think this will improve productivity as well as consistency and quality.

NADE is not yet convinced that the Disability Claims Manager is a viable alternative in this increasingly complex field. We did tell him that we are pleased with the attitude of the participants. There seems to be a much greater appreciation of the work done by other components. We told Mr. Apfel that we will wait and see what develops from this and from the disability work units in processing centers.

Mr. Dyer offered his personal thanks to NADE, "for your support and even-handed professional input." He pointed out that we have been asking for more responsibility and accountability in claim decision-making. Well, we got it and he said he will work with the states to see that we get paid for it.

As we continue to see changes in the disability program, it is ever more important to have a strong and effective organization to represent our interests to SSA and Congress. We believe the positions taken in our letter to Mr. Apfel represent our interests and that the decisions themselves reflect the fact that he has paid attention to our input. Please keep providing us with your input so we can continue to represent your interest in having the best possible disability program.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey H. Price

NADE President