At an April 15, 2010 hearing before the House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Social Security, Congressman Xavier Becerra asked the Office of the Inspector General to review the iClaim application to ensure individuals filing for benefits using the iClaim application were receiving an appropriate level of service from SSA [Social Security Administration]. ...
During our review of DIB [Disability Insurance Benefits] iClaim applications, there were no indications that individuals filing for DIB using the iClaim application did not receive an appropriate level of service from SSA. In fact, SSA employees re-contacted 70 percent of the individuals in our sample to obtain additional information or clarification. While employees raised concerns regarding re-contacting individuals about the Form SSA-827 and the Adult Disability Report, they also recognized that iClaim applications were typically faster to process than in-person or telephone applications. In addition, we found that the information individuals provide on their iClaim applications corresponded with the information in SSA’s system used to determine benefit eligibility and amount.
In my experience, nearly all claimants require re-contact. This means that up to 30 percent of probably-necessary recontacts are skipped, for whatever reason, including shoratge of staff. and they may be faster to process because yeou avoid getting bogged down in psky discrepancies that pop up in a person-to-person interviews.
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