Articles from prior issues of The Advocate

March/April, 1999

President's Message

AS I NEAR THE MIDPOINT of my year as NADE President, I would like to share with you some reflections of the first half of my term and what direction I would like to see NADE go in the months ahead. When I accepted the gavel as President last September, I issued a challenge to the membership to become more involved in our Association. The slogan, “Our strength comes from the involvement of our members,” must be seen as more than just words. Every member must live this motto. It is incumbent upon each of us to encourage a level of involvement from our membership that reaches for this plateau, a level of involvement that fosters the belief in every member that NADE IS my professional association. I wanted to direct your attention first and foremost to this spirit of cooperation and teamwork that is the foundation of our Association. By working together as a team, we can set our sights higher with an expectation of achievement of our goals. Never again should we be satisfied with just maintaining the status quo.

Since returning from our national conference in South Dakota, I have been kept very busy working with the NADE Board and with the NADE membership to advance our goals and to represent NADE to the best of my ability. I was privileged to represent our Association at the SSA/DDS Management mini-Forum in Delray Beach, Florida October 5-9, 1998. More and more DDS Administrators have come to view our Association as a positive force, a highly credible professional association that can offer the opportunities for professional growth that is so critical for the staff of the DDSs.

I said in South Dakota and 1 have reiterated many times since, membership is not just the responsibility of one person, or even one committee. It is the responsibility of every NADE member to share the ideals of our Association, to encourage all of our coworkers to become members. NADE’s influence and ability to make an impact comes from the strength of our membership. The impact NADE has in Washington and Baltimore is a direct reflection of our membership base. Without a substantial membership, we lose our credibility and the ability to make an impact on our future as disability professionals. It is increasingly necessary and vital to our future that we, as NADE members, continue to invest our time and for our Association to invest its resources in membership recruitment and retention activities. Membership rebates, provided for in the Association’s budget, were increased this year to $5.00 per member. We have also expanded the number of membership grants from ten to fifteen. I hope that regions and chapters use these funds for activities designed to build their membership base, either by direct expenditures on membership recruitment/retention activities, or by other means that serve as important incentives to our members, such as the individual and chapter awards program, and the opportunities NADE members have for continuing education and certification.

Since the beginning of SSA’s disability redesign effort, NADE has been recognized as a stakeholder in this process. NADE recently issued a position paper (please refer to the January/February issue of the Advocate) that provided a comprehensive analysis of the Full Process Model. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the membership of NADE for their tremendous and quick response in the development of this position paper. I believe that the opinions expressed by NADE in its paper, not only captured majority opinion of the membership, but did so in a very detailed and analytical method that provided SSA with some pause for reflection. Our position paper has received wide readership, including the Office of the Vice President of the United States.

In the weeks prior to my accepting the gavel as NADE President, I co-authored a letter with then NADE President Debi Gardiner that outlined NADE’s concerns that the federal quality assurance process was inconsistent. This letter was sent to Mr. Ken Nibali, SSA’s Associate Commissioner for Disability on August 27, 1998. The letter pointed out that we believed that the current process often resulted in significant differences in reviews of DDS decisions and those decisions rendered by OHA. We also offered the opinion that there were significant differences between the various SSA regions with regards to their review process of DDS decisions. In his response, Mr. Nibali did express agreement with some of our concern and offered to work with NADE to address those concerns. The QA issue will take on more importance in SSA’s redesign efforts this coming year. The GAO also recently issued a report that was critical of SSA’s quality assurance process. I believe that it continues to be in the best interests of our Association that NADE remain at the forefront of this issue and that we take an even more proactive role in proposing changes to the current process.

In October, NADE communicated with Mr. Nibali on another issue dear to the hearts of many of our members--the disability hearing officers. The report of NADE’s ad hoc committee on disability hearing officers, which was incomplete at the time of our Board meeting in South Dakota. was subsequently completed in October. This report, which addressed many issues and concerns of DHOs, was attached to a letter submitted by the NADE President to the Associate Commissioner. Mr. Nibali responded very quickly and gave his assurances that many of the recommendations made by NADE would be adopted and that others would be referred to his staff for additional study and possible future implementation. NADE will continue to bring the concerns of disability hearing officers to the attention of appropriate leadership within SSA and we will continue to work with SSA to resolve these issues.

In December, NADE adopted the position that it favored a proposal outlined in SSA’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to amend the list of acceptable medical sources to include qualified speech and language pathologists. Our position on this issue was outlined in a letter to SSA’s Commissioner on December 1.

NADE’s Board of Directors will meet in Alexandria, Virginia, March 11-13. In addition to handling the Association’s business matters, the Board will have the opportunity to meet with top SSA officials, including Commissioner Ken Apfel and Principle Deputy Commissioner John Dyer. We will also meet with the Associate Commissioner for Disability, Ken Nibali, and with the Chairman of the Social Security Advisory Board. The board will continue to forge its working relationship with Congress and the GAO. NADE has continued to foster a working relationship with the professional staffs of the various committees and subcommittees in Congress that have oversight of the disability program. Our expertise and credibility with Congress continues to bring us opportunities to have a direct impact on legislation, not only through testimony offered at hearings but also by providing assistance with the actual writing of legislation. In February, NADE responded to an inquiry from the professional staff of the U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Human Resources. This committee was attempting to draft legislation that would curb fraud and abuse in the disability program. NADE worked with the staff of this committee to produce specific language in this legislation. We continue to work with Congress and to make available to this body the professionalism and technical expertise of our Association.

As President, I will have the opportunity to represent our Association at the SSA/DDS Management Forum that will be held March 15-19 in Dana Point, California. This will again provide NADE with the opportunity for exposure and to fortify relationships with friendly DDS Administrators and to seek to build relationships with those Administrators that have resisted giving their full cooperation to NADE. The next issue of the Advocate will carry a detailed report of this meeting.

As President, it will be my pleasure to represent the national association at the upcoming regional conferences in the Pacific, Southwest, Southeast, Northeast/Mid-Atlantic and Great Plains regions. I am looking forward to the opportunity to carry forth the message of what NADE is doing on the national level and to encourage greater participation by our members in these activities. Unfortunately, I will be unable to attend the Great Lakes Regional Conference. NADE President-elect Terri Spurgeon will represent the NADE President at this Conference.

It is likely that by the time you read this column, Commissioner Apfel will have made a public announcement of his decisions with regard to most, if not all, aspects of disability redesign, particularly those that have been in the piloting process for an extended period of time. It is not likely that all decisions made by the Commissioner will be favorable to the DDSs and may in fact be the exact opposite of what we have indicated to be our preferences. While we may choose to disagree during the decision making process, I feel it is imperative that NADE unite behind the Commissioner’s decision and try to make them work to the best of our ability. The Commissioner has been very open with NADE and other groups who have a stake in the disability adjudication process. He has asked for our opinion and we have given it. Hopefully, it made a difference and the decisions of the Commissioner will reflect such and we will all be happy. But if not, remember that politics has its place in Washington and Baltimore, but the reality of life is that the DDSs are confronted with the people who are relying on our integrity to render fair and timely decisions that will have a significant impact on their personal lives. We owe it to them, we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to those who have entrusted us and trained us to do our jobs, to give them our best and leave the politics to the politicians. On a personal note, I would like to highlight a few personnel changes in SSA and NADE. NADE would like to wish our best to Ms. Sue Roecker, former Deputy Director of the Disability Redesign Team. Ms. Roecker has been selected to participate in an executive leadership training program and has resigned her position with the DPRT staff. Sue was a great friend to NADE and she has many friends within our Association. NADE would like to wish Ms. Roecker the very best in her new career opportunity.

We also want to offer congratulations to Mr. Richard Fussell, who was appointed to be the new Deputy Director of Disability Redesign. Mr. Fussell has worked with Redesign for several years and is certainly no stranger to those of us in the DDSs.

Marty Blum of New York, NADE’s President from 1978-79, just recently retired and we certainly want to wish him the best. Marty has been with the disability program for 42 years! That, in and of itself, is almost unbelievable. How anyone could have kept their sanity all those years is surprising. Marty presided as President during NADE’s infancy as an independent professional association, accepting the President’s gavel after NADE severed its professional relationship with the National Rehabilitation Association. Marty has remained active in NADE over the years, attending most national conferences and serving as a friend and mentor to those who followed in his shoes. NADE certainly wishes him the very best in his retirement!

In the months ahead, we will continue to work with SSA and with other governmental agencies to address the concerns and issues expressed by our membership. We will also be examining a myriad of issues that will provide benefits for our members including credits for continuing education, expansion of NADE’s certification program, and we will increase our involvement in the legislative process. We will be working with the Congress by offering verbal (Notice I did not say “oral.” I thought it would be best to eliminate that word when referring to any activity this Association pursues while in Washington.) and written testimony when asked to do so and we will work with Congress to draft specific legislation that will impact on the disability program. The Colorado Chapter is busy at work preparing for the 1999 National Training Conference. It will be a great one. I hope you will be able to attend.

I would like to conclude by stating that this has been a wonderful opportunity to meet and work with an enormous group of people who have a common vision to ensure that the disability program continues to provide the best possible service in the most efficient manner possible. This is not always an easy task, especially when we attempt to achieve these goals without sacrificing the professional integrity of our members or diminishing the public’s confidence in the program. I appreciate this opportunity to serve as NADE President and I am looking forward to the continuing opportunities in the months ahead to work with the membership of this Association to further advance these stated goals. Thank you.

Jeff