At Least Part Of DSI About To Be Terminated?

On January 19, Social Security solicited proposals from potential contractors to develop a "profiling/screening tool (software) for identifying Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) disability decisions that are likely to be appealed to federal district court and remanded or reversed by the court." This was Request for Proposal SSA-RFP-07-1011.

This would be an essential part of former Commissioner Barnhart's Disability Service Improvement (DSI) plan. DSI had been criticized on the grounds that removing Appeals Council review would swamp the District Courts with Social Security civil actions. To respond to this criticism, Barnhart came up with the idea of the "profiling/screening tool" that would allow cases that would be appealed and reversed to be identified and dealt with by the Decision Review Board.

Social Security posted this late yesterday:

Request for Proposal SSA-RFP-07-1011 is hereby cancelled in its entirety.

Basis: The agency no longer requires the solicited services.

One possibility is that Social Security has decided that it can produce the necessary software in-house. Another possibility is that Social Security thinks it can somehow get by without the "profiling/screening tool" or wants to delay its procurement. The more likely possibility is that the DSI plan to terminate the Appeals Council is being abandoned which means that all of DSI is in serious trouble.