This is from the Social Security Advisory Board's Aspects of Disability: Decision Making: Data and Materials. CDRs are Continuing Disability Reviews, reviews to determine whether a Social Security disability recipient is still disabled. These are required by statute. Most reviews are supposed to happen every three years. Even the most severely disabled are supposed to be reviewed every seven years (which is a waste of resources). A review by "mailer" is simply sending the disability benefits recipient a form to complete. Assuming the recipient completes the form and does not report that he or she has improved, which few do, it is almost certain that nothing will happen. Medical CDRs involve the collection of medical records to look to see how the recipient is actually doing. Note the dramatic decline in medical CDRs after George W. Bush was elected President. This was because of Social Security's severely restricted operating budget. After Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Social Security's operating budget went up, the medical CDRs started going up and the nearly meaningless mailers went down, although not nearly enough to cross paths.
This chart tells the story clearly. If you want real reviews to determine whether Social Security disability recipients remain disabled, you have to appropriate sufficient operating funds. This matters greatly since CDRs save about $10.50 for every dollar spent on them.
CDRs spiked considerably in the late 1990s, which corresponded to the change in the law regarding benefits for being an addict. It is natural to expect a drop-off once those paid for drug or alcohol addiction have been reviewed. Moreover, the drop in CDRs was a decision made by SSA leadership; money was appropriated for CDRs (albeit not enough), but SSA was using it for other purposes.
ReplyDeletethe previous commenter doesn't no what they're talking about.
ReplyDeleteRepublicans are a joke. They bash the integrity of the program and love to tout the ineffectiveness of federal workers. Yet, they refuse to provide the funds to conduct the appropriate reviews. Moral of the story: You get what you pay for, or in this case, don't pay for.
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 3:52 - SSA misused money appropriated for CDRs? Are you saying that the dollar amount specified for CDRs in an appropriation bill was misused? If so, wouldn't that be something, if it actually happened, that you should report to OIG instead of a blog comment?
ReplyDeleteThe dollar savings from CDRS is largely a myth. The few that are ceased are reinstated during the appeals process or refile new claims shortly after termination. I have never seen a long term evaluation of the CDR process to determine actual savings.
ReplyDelete30 + years of Field experience tells me that CDRS merely churn the rolls and keep bureaucrats fully employed.
Low birth weight and age 18 CDRS are the only true cost savers.
anon 9:27 is essentially correct. Age 18 cdr's are the biggest money-savers, which leads one to believe that childhood disability is a joke in the first place. the biggest money-saver would be to sunset the SSI program and let the states have block-grant money to pay the disabled who are not insured for t2.
ReplyDeleteDisabled children on Title XVI have always been a joke and the number of children claiming "autism" and "learning disbility" to stay on Title II seems to be going up as well. That could be because of better screening and diagnosis, or it could be people claiming there must be a larger disability issue causing it and not poor parenting.
ReplyDelete--On a separate note, I thought the dollar saved amount was always analogus to how OIG reported it's savings, i.e., not the overpayment amount but the amount prevented from being paid out for the next XX years if they had been left on the rolls, correct?
The most growth and improvement in the SSA system was under Bush, a Republican. He appointed Astrue, the best thing that has ever happened to SSA. What have the Dems done lately? Oh yeah, I forgot, the froze the cola of SSA employees.. and the hiring..
ReplyDeleteunless you are an SSI recipient. Then you get what other people paid for.
ReplyDelete