Articles from prior issues of The Advocate

January/February, 1998

President's Message


BY THE TIME YOU RECEIVE this ADVOCATE the holidays will have passed. I hope that all of you enjoyed the holiday season and that 1998 brings you all good health and happiness. NADE is off to a great start in 1998. Since the conference, we have responded to Commissioner Apfel on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding the Administrative Review Process and Evaluating Opinion Evidence. I would like to thank NADE’s Legislative chair, Marty Marshall, for preparing our response. NADE supports the proposed rules on evaluating opinion evidence. We expressed our continued support for Process Unification and the need for consistency in disability decisions. Though these regulations may not be the entire solution to the problem, it is a first step. The childhood disability review remains a major focus. Articles continue to appear in newspapers throughout the country. A childhood IVT workgroup was formed by Associate Commissioner Daniels and this group was scheduled to meet December 1 through December 19 in Baltimore. At the time of this writing, we are expecting Commissioner Apfel’s report on the top-to-bottom review. NADE will respond as necessary. On November 26, the Agency released it’s first report of a redesign test - the Single Decision Maker (SDM) concept. The report included information on the next step in the SDM plans and the plans for national implementation. The next steps are to 1) move forward with SDM implementation planning for the 60% of the workload not governed by statutory requirements for medical consultant involvement. 2) to continue to gather real world experience in Phase 2 SDM testing to prepare for implementation and 3) to proceed with pre-implementation pilots. It was expected that the publishing of the NPRM for SDM would be at the end of the 1997 calendar year. A sixty day comment period followed. Our Mid-Year Board Meeting is scheduled for March 5 - 8 at the Tremont in Baltimore. All NADE members are invited to attend this meeting. If you have any ideas, suggestions or concerns for Board action, please notify your Regional Directors. I believe that 1998 will continue to be a challenging and exciting time for NADE. I look forward to working with you and I would like to encourage each NADE member to become involved in their local chapters. With each members help, NADE will continue to be a strong and influential organization.