From a
recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):
In September 2017, we reported that SSA [Social Security Administration]
planned to deliver
functionality [of the Disability Case Processing System or DCPS] to support all workloads — including continuing
disability reviews and DDS [Disability Determination Services] disability hearings
— by April 2018.
Since then, SSA has discontinued rolling out DCPS to additional
DDSs and re-prioritized its resources to focus on development. The
Agency’s new strategy concentrates on increasing the number of
DCPS users at participating DDSs and the number of cases the
system
processes.
On January 27, 2018, SSA deployed another major release into
production. The Agency reported this release added functionality
to support most adult and child initial and reconsideration claims.
As of
February
28, 2018, 10 DDSs had processed 6,477 disability
cases using DCPS.
Based on SSA’s cost estimates, as of
February
2018, cumulative costs for the new DCPS project were
about $80 million. This does not include SSA’s costs to develop
the prior version of DCPS.
As of February 2018, the Agency expected development would
continue beyond October 2018. In addition, SSA had not
determined
when it would resume deploying DCPS to additional
DDSs.
As of February 2018, SSA estimated its DCPS costs through Fiscal
Year 2022 would be about $140 million. However, given the
uncertainty of when SSA will finish developing DCPS and rolling it
out to all DDSs,
we could not determine whether the Agency’s cost
estimate was reasonable. Furthermore, until SSA completes DCPS
development and implementation, DDSs will continue incurring
costs to operate and maintain their existing systems
In my 40+ years of working for the disability program, I have never seen a boondoggle as big, as misguided, or as destructive as DCPS. The justification for it was a lie. The cost benefit analysis was a fantasy. The cost figures that SSA has provided for it have not included much of SSA's labor, which is, of course, the main cost in any software development project. There have been literally hundreds of SSA employees working on this system for the past 8 years, and this does not include the thousands of work hours contributed by the states. By my reckoning, SSA has now spent more on DCPS than on all the State disability systems since their inception about 35 years ago.
ReplyDeleteDCPS is only SSA's most current attempt to replace the state disability systems. They have made at least 4 other such attempts over the past 25 years, all of which have failed.
All of the states except for 4 are using systems built by the same vendor. (The other 4 use a system built by SSAS.) These systems are largely identical from state to state, with only minor customizations. These are excellent systems which have been continuously worked on and improved since their inception. In fact, DCPS's goal is merely to duplicate the functionality of these systems. Their only deficiency is that they have a very old "mainframe" type interface. However, SSA is the reason for this. The software vendor has attempted to modernize the interface, starting in 1990, but SSA has always vetoed their desire to do so. The last time these systems migrated to a new platform SSA insisted that the vendor migrate to the IBM AS400, a mainframe-like system. The reason for this is that SSA uses the age of the state systems' user interface as a main justification for why they need to replace the state systems. However, the cost of modernizing the interface and migrating to a modern platform is minor compared to the cost of ripping and replacing the existing system, which is generally not recommended as the desirable approach to modernizing legacy systems such as these.
Hey, Rob Klopp! What happened?
ReplyDeleteIn my many years of working on the disability systems, I have seen: SSA take many states from paper-based processes to automated processes; work with each state to install a LAN; move the states to an IBM platform when the majority were on Wang systems that were no longer going to be supported by Wang; provide all of the states with a much better infrastructure maintenance plan than they had (as some had none), develop and implement the necessary software to enable all states to participate in electronic disability with a world-class document management system; and I could go on. But to say that the state's systems are largely identical? The degree of customization in the states is mind-boggling -- not to mention their correspondence. Most of the delay is in getting the states to agree -- not technology!
ReplyDelete@ 2:24PM
ReplyDeletehttps://federalnewsradio.com/ask-the-cio/2017/01/ssa-turns-case-processing-system-dud-stud-14-months/
hah! talk about deluded...
He sure talked a good game!
ReplyDeleteI work close to the team that is working on DCPS. That article is deluded at all.
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ReplyDeleteI want to see this brought to a head. Having led large system implementations and changes successfully, I see no reason why this should be problematic. However, in viewing former demos I see that the look and feel of those resemble the clunky, vision straining Archer system (used by U.S. Bank) which is designed to hoist loose narratives to an online repository quickly. A clue to the desperate nature of the effort to look busy. Messy and difficult to search.
It isn't rocket science, which is why Lockheed Martin made a giant mess of its bloated efforts. The wish by the existing teams to make the new system look the same points to the need to replace existing management teams who have no conception of modern systems with a brash, visionary gang who can competitively make conceptual leaps necessary to make a single system with a universal vision, allowing mergers of state offices and interoperability between the states. Your tweeting friend. Make SSA great again!
It is now July 2019. A subset of claim types deployed - but not the full range of claim types that are necessary. The result will be the old and new systems running together as a matter of necessity ad infinitum. Oops. What a conflation!
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