Recommendations from the report of the Re-Imagining Social Security Subcommittee of Social Security's Future Systems Technology Advisory Panel:
Move to an electronic customer self-service model with the goal of moving transactions to the Internet each year until 90% of the business with SSA takes place online.~Complex transactions that are not suited to online execution
- Provide other channels for:
~Those who cannot or will not use technology~Consider contracting-out providing the services by third parties vs. each agency.
- Develop a series of incentives to encourage and direct the public to utilize the electronic self-service model. ...
- Implement a program to automate the initial disability claim decision that would only require human review for denied claims. ...
- Lead a government-wide study group to discuss options with other agencies to pilot a single government service center in each region for individuals who need face-to-face service across from different agencies. (For example, IRS, SSA, INS, State Social Services, etc.)
~Look at the model in some state DMVs. ...
~Consider outsourcing some activities to third parties, e.g. libraries.[Scenarios demonstrating the Subcommittee's vision for the future]Disability determination~90% of cases are determined automatically
- SSA examiner uses [information provided by claimant] along with database of prior determinations
- Decision support tools provide recommendation
~Statistical analysis and AI [Artificial Intelligence] programs gather information on similar cases and their outcomes and report to examiner
- Positive decisions are not reviewed
In case of an appeal
- SSA staff reviews rejected claims
- The first hearing is with an AU[?], the claimant and an attorney using Google Wave
- Face-to-face hearings occur depending on the case backlog and the outcome of the Wave conference
- A scheduling system assigns cases in backlogged areas to areas that are more lightly loaded for video hearings
~Statistical and Al programs search the database of appeals to report on similar cases and their outcomes
- Decision support for the administrative law judge
9 comments:
I www fraud on a massive scale, once a claim is paid based on the online app that will be duplicated by the millions from Eastern Europe and SSA will be bk. Have to have face to face.
Well, I personally am shocked and amazed to see that no consideration is being given to developing a model for the perfect invisible, inaudible, colorless, odorless claimant.
Wait a minute THIS IS IT! My fondest hopes have been realized! No more claimants, no more DDS examiners and all will be well!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell it to your mama, smart guy. Just try it out on a focus group of blue-haired LOL's ("little ole ladies", not kewt kittehs)from Hallandale, FL. Not going to fly. Fraud is the least of it. What about, ya know, public service? Do these people realize you can't smoke in SSA facilities? But, I'd sure like to get ahold of some of that stuff. Good for what ails LOL's with access to the Intertubes. NancyO.
So, SSA plans to build Skynet. Of course, they sort of forgot that it killed us in the movie.
Simply stated, this plan is a pipe dream and will never occur.
For instance, take SSA's claims processing systems as an example.
In development for the last 30 years, the current systems (MCS and MSSICS) have just about hit the walls on what can be automated. At present, there are still around 25-30% of SSA's workloads that can't be handled by MCS or MSSICS. The last couple of releases haven't offered much in the way of improvement in these areas.
Automation requires logic. Unfortunately, the Social Security Act isn't much for logic.
The only way automation can improve is to clean up the law. Take out all the special loopholes that Congress has installed over the years that benefit some classes of beneficiaries over others. In short, something that will never happen. And that doesn't even touch on the turf issues - all those useless management people fighting to protect their little fiefdoms they've carved out within the different areas of the agency - the TSCs, field operations, the payment centers and Office of Central Operations.
This drivel simply demonstrates - once again - that the members of the advisory board need to leave La-La land and live in the real world with the rest of us.
It sound's more like they are planning the privatizing of social security.
The fact is that what they are considering is so far in the future that we may be long gone before it comes to fruition.
Most of our clientele already refer to SSA as the SSI office. What they are considering would do just that. People that worked and paid their taxes would be denied personal service. It would be reserved only for the people who just arrived to the USA in search of their 'pensions.'
I say NO to privatizing Social Security! I say NO to taking away our right to equal representation. I say NO to their idea that third parties can do it better. What they are considering would be the death of SSA.
Let's concentrate on educating the people of the purpose of SSA and the importance of having their own personal retirement accounts as well.
So my fellow Americans, I strongly urge you to stand up and shout loud so that our government can hear you, " leave our SSA alone." "We love the idea of personal service from people that really care about our needs and wants." we do not want to be just another number in a cyber-world."
Do not let 'big business' ruin our only lifeline when they have stolen everything else from us.
OK, while I think this whole future vision thing is a waste of time (many reasons already stated)I don't see an answer to something so fundamental that this is all built on sand.
How do you know that the person at the other end of that internet connection is really who they say they are? Without a way to authenticate identity reliably at a level secure enough for this kind of government activity (I believe claims taking is an authentication level 3) none of the above is possible.
Funny how people can think of all the fun Jetson style stuff but completely assume that something as fundamental as authentication is tossed off as some problem that is somehow magically solved.
In short, this is a waste of time unless and until this problem is solved.
And if SSA spends trust fund dollars to address this problem, I hope some congressional committee asks them to justify that expenditure@
As far as that service center concept, the Bush administration's eGov Quicksilver project USA.gov had SSA spend a lot of money to try and come up with a government wide change of address function that ended up spending time and staff resources while going nowhere because of the administrative and mission differences between agencies and what constitutes an address. Yes, agencies missions color things like address with mission related functionality; (mailing, home, residence, rep payee are some of SSA's distinctions and if you think the IRS and SSA define home address the same way you guess wrong) often such functionality is at odds with another agency's take and such a simple thing turns out to be really complicated.
So do you really think one stop shopping is going to work any better?
This should work well, seeing as how google has already discontinued Wave. Time for another subcommittee
For once I agree with that guy who always complains about the folks making over $100K at SSA. This is a waste of time and resources. "Pipe dream" is right.
Just my two cents - as a representative who has access to the electronic claims folder, after seeing how difficult it is for me to sign up and log in to that system, I can't even begin to imagine how difficult SSA would make it to implement this technology. Knowing the way they do their busisness, which is slow, clumsy, and often backwards, I have little hope of this pipe dream ever seeing running water.
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