Long forms, long lines, and lots of documents – these are the hurdles that can make it difficult and frustrating for individuals and communities to access government programs and services.
Today, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is taking action to cut down on these “administrative burdens” by issuing new guidance for Federal agencies to help them better understand, identify, and reduce the burdens people experience when accessing public benefits programs. The guidance outlines how agencies should apply the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), which governs how Federal agencies collect information, including the forms and paperwork people have to fill out when accessing government programs. ...
The memo directs Federal agencies in two key areas:
- Identifying administrative burdens. The PRA already requires agencies to document, analyze, and justify the information they collect on each form and gather public input on these points. This memo calls on Federal agencies to further engage with the public to fully understand their experience when applying for or submitting information to a benefits program. The memo also directs agencies to consider how other burdens in the process impose time, financial, and psychological costs on people.
- Reducing administrative burdens. The guidance also instructs agencies to consider policy, communication, technological, and design reforms that can make it easier for the public to access services. While there are no one-size-fits-all answers because of the unique purposes and populations served by each program, the memo encourages agencies to follow leading practices to reduce the challenges we already know make it harder for people to access services. ...
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Apr 18, 2022
I Think This Is Mostly Aimed At You, Social Security
From a blog post by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is part of the White House:
This is akin to saying water is wet. This needs to be aimed at Congress as the agency needs to attract competent and bright software developers as well as up updated phone systems as well as adequate FO staffing to "reduce the challenges we already know make it harder for people to access services...".
ReplyDeleteOtherwise...yawn.
The more you reduce the administrative burdens, the more you remove the need for in-person service options.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely another signal that the administration is moving to online only services. The directive for web services is already there. Lowering the admin burden makes online access easier and removes some of the red tape and requirements for face to face access.
ReplyDeleteWhat's not been brought up is the law and reg aspect of data collection. And while SSA has wiggle room in policy to make things "easier", regulation is rougher and law is, well, you've seen congressional gridlock, right? Anything which looks like it is making it easier to get disability will raise the hackles of the GOP. IGs will say that changes eliminate safeguards against fraud. And since the online and real life process must conform, there is only so much one can do "to go online" while avoiding these issues. SSI redets ask questions using words that don't mean what people think they mean because they mean what the law says they mean. Income, assets, households. Artificial creations of law that no revisions of forms or online experience can fully manifest. The only way this OMB memorandum doesn't get killed in a 2nd Trump term is if it can be twisted into something the GOP can love. Because the GOP is all about how terrible the government is while working hard at drowning it in a bathtub.
ReplyDeleteHmmm...the more you move to online, the more you move to outsourcing to third parties, they already did it for setting up a MySSA account.
ReplyDeleteI welcome outsourcing as we are woefully undermanned. All of the online stuff should be outsourced to companies who know how to produce quality software.
ReplyDeleteI can find other work if I need to. Wouldn’t be the first time in my life I’ve had to work 2 or even 3 jobs to make ends meet.
What we have at the agency now is not sustainable…period.
At 8:02 I sure hope you are right. Outsourcing some of our tech development would be fantastic. I also wish they would outsource our entry level training to a professional company who knows how to produce this stuff like at my old jobs. And any outsourcing to reduce the incoming burden in the field would be completely welcomed. We are so understaffed that anything at all to help woold be welcomed.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteSSA regulations and POMS are so complex that it takes years of training and experience to become proficient, in many technical operations positions at SSA. It also takes a high IQ to do jobs such as Claims Specialist well.
This also means that outsourcing will be very limited, and that forms and access for the public can only be marginally improved without increases in funding for overtime.
1:47 best laugh all day!
ReplyDeleteI don't think 1:47 claimed all claims specialists had high IQs. Just helpful to be very proficienct.
DeleteI'd agree about the part that it takes years. Some cases are pretty rare, triple entitlement, Black lung cases out west, etc.
A good example of the Paper reduction act in full swing is the new 1696. It went from a two page document including the 1695 to a 7 page document. Good job SSA!
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThe SSA1696 had to be revised to include the info which was on the SSA1695 such as EIN.
Before the revision, Attorneys were submitting the old SSA1696 without the SSA1695. Much time was wasted because SSA employees then had to call the attorneys office to get the SSA1695 info.
We just received a Notice of Award with a PIA of $2300 plus per month with more than 2 years of back benefits. Everything in the award seems ok with one exception: They stated that the total back benefits were $13,731.00 . There are no deductions noted in the notice. How can this happen? I would think that Social Security's software would prevent simple addition errors. This is the second time in 6 months that a Notice of Award had an obvious and large addition error. No one is perfect but I don't remember seeing these types of errors in the past.
ReplyDelete@10:13
ReplyDeleteThat’s a loaded post - nice work
ReplyDelete10:13
We often have to provide paragraph fill ins for past due benefit amounts. I usually double check my calculations if I have time.
If the claimant received the right PMA payment for back benefits, it doesn't seem to matter much if someone made a mathematical error in calculating past due benefits for the paragraph fill-in.
Except for the fact that generates an unnecessary call to the overburdened FOs.
Delete@12:20 PM
ReplyDeleteIn this case, it does matter as the claimant got lower past due benefits and we got a lower fee. Now we have to waste our time and SSA's time to get it corrected.
I don't really mean to fault anyone. It's just that I do some programming and I am just amazed that the SSA program does not automatically generate these figures so no human should have to double check calculations. I mean, that's the computer's job, right? Why waste the time of a well trained human on that? 10:13