With more people applying for Social Security disability claims, the process slows to a crawl when applicants seek a hearing to consider their case more closely. The Government Accountability Office evaluated the claims process as of the end of fiscal 2006 to determine where the Social Security Administration should focus its activities.
Claims for Social Security disability benefits continue to backlog in various stages of the process, reaching 576,000 at the end of fiscal 2006. Most of the backlog — or 72 percent — occurs at the hearing level, GAO said in a report released Jan. 7.
SSA said last month that disability hearing backlogs now stand at 750,000.
Disability benefits provide cash for living expenses when people with severe physical or mental impairments can no longer work. After an individual applies for disability benefits, the claim may go through an initial determination. If the claim is denied, the claimant can proceed to a different group for reconsideration, and if dissatisfied with that decision, request a hearing and go from there to an appeals council.
Rising numbers of disability claims, staff losses and turnovers, and management weaknesses have contributed to the backlog and claimants' longer waits for resolution, GAO said. An overall loss of experienced staff combined with increasing workloads and resource constraints can reduce the success of any initiative aimed at reducing backlogs, GAO said.
“Unfortunately, SSA also has a history of implementing initiatives to improve claims processing that have been poorly executed and therefore compounded its problems,” said Daniel Bertoni, director of GAO’s education, workforce and income security issues.
SSA introduced reforms in 2006 under the Disability Service Improvement initiative, but suspended the national rollout to concentrate on reducing the backlog of pending hearing requests and bringing SSA’s electronic case processing system into full operation, which should smooth the processing of disability claims.
SSA has used an electronic folder system, a component of the electronic disability process, but did not implement the e-pulling function at hearing offices. That function automatically eliminates duplicate documents and organizes the remaining documents.
Although SSA has planned a test to implement e-pulling in April, technicians must still perform this time-consuming activity manually. SSA also expects to have the electronic folder system implemented for the appeals council.
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