Articles from prior issues of The Advocate

July/August, 1996

SSA Update Presented to SWADE Conference
by Scott Rader, Oklahoma DDS

BILL ANDERSON OF THE OFFICE of Disability and head of the Process Unification Team spoke at the recent SWADE Conference in Little Rock. Anderson has a back ground in the Illinois DDS and Dallas DQB. He touched on several topics, including the DA&A legislation, the studies concerning the changes in methodology in the redesign process, OHA remands and other process unification issues.

SSA has contracted with one of the universities in Virginia (I think it was Virginia Tech) to identify functional evaluation instruments being used in various disciplines and industries. They have come up with some 650 instruments, of which SSA feels 45 may have applications to the disability process.

They will conduct studies using these instruments as well as other disability programs in use in, for example, commercial insurance, to attempt to arrive at a redesigned methodology in the application of vocational factors in the adjudication of disability claims. They expect some of these studies to be conducted with samples for the general public, current claimants and current beneficiaries. Anderson said a report on the progress along these lines should come out within 4-6 weeks. He also noted that the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) will be replaced with O-Net, which will be online, but it wasn’t clear whether this will be similar to the DOT or not. He did say the DOT will cease to be used at some point.

Anderson also commented briefly on the new DA&A legislation and its impact on DDSs. He said Oklahoma should expect approximately 850-950 cases to adjudicate before the January 1997 benefit cutoff. Anderson reiterated that all cases in which DA&A was found to be material to the decision still needed to be developed in the usual way, to completion, lest there be another impairment which would end up making the case an allowance. There has also been a study group consisting of representatives from OHA, DDS, OPIR, et.al., meeting behind closed doors, hashing out some of the process unification issues such as RFCs, including the “less than sedentary” RFC, pain and symptomatology and treating physician statements. He was unable to reveal any findings since Commissioner Chater has not yet been briefed on their recommendation, but this was expected by the end of April. He did say a couple of issues which should be dealt with at this time involve the reasoning and thought processes behind the DDS decisions as well as OHA allowance reviews.

Concerning OHA remands, Anderson said the initial parameters for cases to be remanded back to DDSs included cases which were 270 days old and were not scheduled for hearing within 90 days. He said some OHA offices were already running out of cases fitting those parameters and that they would be adjusted downward gradually until they reached a point where the cases were sufficiently current in OHA and the backlog was at a more acceptable level. He speculated this level would involve cases which were in the neighborhood of 100 days old, but nothing was set at this time. Anderson reported that currently, CDRs were resulting in 10-15% cessation rate after all appeals. He said funds have been made available for the CDRs to continue, with certain priority in being pulled for review although many types are being reviewed. He expected this volume of CDR activity to continue and to even increase.