Black
Hole within the
Social Security Disability Process!
The real reason Social
Security disability claims take so long to complete!
The SSA disability process is complex and requires a
massive effort on the part of the Social Security Administration to make it happen.
The acquisition and review of individual client information takes time. Social
Security should be commended for its efforts despite the fact that many of its
operational practices
have proven to make things worse.
The SSA disability program suffers
from a number of critical bottlenecks in its case processing procedures. These bottlenecks
have defied all internal efforts by SSA to find solutions. The worst of the
bottlenecks is seen during an internal process called case development. Case
development is simply defined as the act of acquiring the documentation needed to make a
decision in a disability case.
For at least the past fifteen years,
Social Security has used the same antiquated methods of acquiring medical and vocational
documentation on a disability claim. Social Security still uses postal request with
follow up letters sent at fourteen and twenty one day intervals. A disability
examiner can spend half his work day just trying to acquire a single piece of
medical documentation. Case development as currently practiced is a slow and
laborious process that does not serve well the interests of SSA or the disability
applicant.
Sadly for all concerned, Social
Security has yet to wake up to the obvious solution to their worst case processing
bottleneck. That solution is the Disability Advocate! A Disability Advocate by
virtue of being in the private sector is free to use modern techniques to acquire
information. SSA staff must work within the confines of an outdated infrastructure
that can no longer support the needs of the program. Modernization of the disability
process is limited by budgetary constraints and timing of implementation. For
example, by the time SSA updates its computer system, the system is already
obsolete. For a more detailed discussion of this issue, see our "Future
Technologies" report in the CD-ROM version of our training program.
A properly trained Disability
Advocate can develop and structure a case prior to or during the application process,
saving an incredible amount of time. Private sector development of disability cases
would free up valuable time for SSA employees, making the process more efficient.
The additional staff time created by this simple procedural change could then be used by
SSA staff to process case decisions. A pre-developed case allows SSA to move more
quickly to the decision phase of the disability process, saving both time and tax payer
dollars. If SSA were to use the private sector for case development as we have
proposed in our training program, the average time it takes to complete a case could be
cut by fifty percent or more. This result would significantly improve the overall
disability process and deliver a more efficient service to the general public.
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