The objective of this evaluation was to determine the financial impact to the Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs as a result of conducting fewer full medical continuing disability reviews (CDR). ...
SSA employs a profiling system that uses data from SSA’s records to determine the likelihood of medical improvement for disabled beneficiaries. SSA selects beneficiaries’ records profiled as having a high likelihood of medical improvement for a full medical review by disability determination services (DDS). Beneficiaries profiled as having a medium or low likelihood of medical improvement are sent a mailer questionnaire. If the completed mailer questionnaire indicates medical improvement, SSA will send the case to the DDS for a full medical review. ...According to SSA, resource limitations and increases in its core workloads prevented it from conducting full medical CDRs when they became due. As a result, SSA estimates a backlog of over 1.5 million full medical CDRs will exist at the end of Fiscal Year (FY) 2010.
SSA has made, and will continue to make, benefit payments to individuals who would no longer be eligible if the backlog of 1.5 million full medical CDRs had been conducted when they became due.
• From Calendar Year (CY) 2005 through CY 2010, we estimate SSA will have made benefit payments of between $1.3 and $2.6 billion that could have potentially been avoided if the full medical CDRs in the backlog had been conducted when they became due (see Appendix C).• Although SSA plans to conduct an increased number of full medical CDRs in FY 2011, the 1.5-million full medical CDR backlog will most likely remain. Therefore, we estimate SSA will pay between $556 million and $1.1 billion during CY 2011 that could have potentially been avoided if the full medical CDRs in the backlog had been conducted when they became due (see Appendix C). ...
We estimate SSA could potentially identify lifetime Federal benefit savings of almost $15.8 billion if it had the resources to conduct all 1.5 million full medical CDRs in FY 2010.
Why was it that OIG was not producing reports like this while George W. Bush was President? What we saw then was reports that implied that incompetent bureaucrats were allowing crooks to rip off Social Security.
SSA=Blackhole
ReplyDeleteIf social security trimmed salaries and was more accurately dedicated to claim processing,they would have the needed resources.
I'm a democrat but i have to say it. Big government can be cheaper,but at the employees expense.
Reports like this were produced, and have always been produced, on a regular basis. They simply restate what is ongoing knowledge. Enough with the Bush-bashing.
ReplyDeleteHow does pulling resources to claims processing help review medical improvement.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Anon #2, and I'm about as anti-Bush as they come.
ReplyDeleteCare to back up the bare assertion that OIG reports released during the Bush administration "implied" something entirely different about CDR's?
#3
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't help review medical improvement,but the article is at it root about"federal savings".
SSA overlook the obvious source of savings...it's employees.
The entire cost of administrating Social Security programs is less than 1% of revenues (and less than 1% of benefits paid out).
ReplyDeleteIs there any private company that administers retirement, disability or life insurance policies at a lower cost?
It has been well known for decades that both medical and work CDRs save much more than they cost but there is no lobbyist or special interest demanding that they be done so limited funding is always diverted to other administrative costs.
no matter how you look at this issue, it's about solvency and trust (as in trust funds) and social equity (when it comes to the general revenues that fund the SSI program). anytime you have a cash benefit program, especially one like ssi, which is means based, or di, which involves complicated disability determinations, there will be technical errors (by claimants and employees), misunderstanding (by claimants and employees), changing circumstances, and, yes, fraud. The errors, misunderstaning, changing circumstances, and fraud that can plague these programs obviously make them susceptible to payment errors. cdrs and redeterminations are a prudent way to minimize payment errors, whatever their cause. omb, oig, gao, indeed all overseers and stakeholders have understood this for a very long time. in fact, the bush administration understood the issue so well, that is sought to fund these workloads outside the discretionary budget caps. sorry, Mr. Hall, your bush bashing is way off base in this case.
ReplyDeleteThese studies have been done forever by OIG and are usually ignored, Bush administration or not (and I'm no Bush fan at all). And the idiot who complains about "overpaid" SSA employees ought to try to actually do the job.
ReplyDeleteMedical CDRs were built into the disability program since its inception in the 1950s. Trouble is that SSA gets sidetracked on issues that have nothing to do with program integrity--see useless PR stuff, SSI outreach, Patty Duke and the like.
Bottom line: The American people come to us when they want to retire or become disabled. Our job is (or for me, was) to provide them with efficient and courteous service, as well as to administer these programs so as to serve the taxpayers, as in terminating beneficiaries whose disabilities have improved to the extent that they no longer qualify.
This agency balances the need for compassion and efficiency--or at least we try to. It's a difficult thing to do.
It's interesting to note,for some people,the only way to create federal savings is to eliminate benefits(ie,perhaps change existing regulations).
ReplyDeleteIt's clear to me,government employment and accompanying salaries is the biggest entitlement program. If government truly want to find savings,they would trim the current salaries being paid.
You could go to an all volunteer force with no salaries at all. You just sliced a massive 1% of the SSA budget.
ReplyDeleteAnyone can bleat like a sheep about over-paid government employees (who make 28% less than their private sector counter-parts) and can talk about bloated administrative costs (which are a 10th of comporable private programs) until the end of time, but it won't make the assertion correct.