Aug 8, 2023

This Might Make Sense If Social Security's Service Delivery Problems Were Subtle, But They're Not, So It's Wasted Resources


    From Federal News Network:

Among tens of millions of beneficiaries, the Social Security Administration is trying to change its approach to customer experience by thinking about the process in reverse order.

The agency starts by considering the beneficiary’s perspective, then works outward to change interactions and services to better fit customers’ needs, said Betsy Beaumon, SSA’s chief transformation officer. ...

It’s the path that the Social Security Administration’s new Office of Transformation is taking, with one of the new office’s components targeting improvements to customer experience. After launching the office in May, the agency set a goal of driving ideas that are both good for customers and good for SSA employees, said Beaumon, the office’s leader. ...

By asking customers for feedback from the start, Beaumon said SSA can continually gather data. The idea is to connect with customers who interact with SSA across various platforms, and proactively identify pain points and areas for improvement.

“We are tapping real-time into what customer satisfaction is across different channels,” Beaumon said. ...

“It’s like gold to be able to hear from our customers directly in that focused manner,” Beaumon said. “It’ll let us make sure that our services are going to align with their expectations better, and make it easier for them to understand the application process and reduce redundancies in the process.” ...

Offering e-signatures and other digital documents, for instance, is one area that SSA employees themselves have specifically recommended a change, Beaumon said, to help ease their workloads and let them focus on other concerns from customers. ...

21 comments:

Tim said...

How about this... Don't make people who have no realistic ability to work wait 2, 4, 5, or 6 years in order to get approved. Approve more "obvious" cases sooner... will reduce the amount of work you have to do, in the long run. Set the standard at "the Preponderance of the evidence" and require ALJs to follow it. Don't back them up with some ridiculous "substantial" evidence, which really means, in practice, almost none. Start with that.

Anonymous said...

The office of transformation was established to move hanger ons and friends of mgmt to high paid positions and produce nothing. In two years the office will cease to exist once the managers have something to put on the resume to move on to ses. Ssa is a place where failure is rewarded.

Anonymous said...

Most of the blog owner’s complaints about service consist of doing things in a way that makes things harder and more error prone for attorneys and their clients. If you could fix everyone of those issues how much better would “service” be. If the answer is not much then why mention them.

Anonymous said...

You all look to closely at SSA. You have to take a longer view, think of it more like a glacier or turning an aircraft carrier. Everything takes a long time, you do little inputs and in the next few decades you see some changes.

Anonymous said...

"Offering e-signatures and other digital documents, for instance, is one area that SSA employees themselves have specifically recommended a change, Beaumon said, to help ease their workloads and let them focus on other concerns from customers"

This is not true. The FO instructions to verify esignatures on initial applications and 1696s are a nightmare. It does not help ease the workload. It makes it more burdensome.

Anonymous said...

They did years ago. It’s called QDD and CAL

Anonymous said...

It sounds like they are trying to improve customer interaction. I appreciate it.

Anonymous said...

That reminds me of a compassionate allowance case I had where the benefits were provisionally approved. Then denied because SSA didn’t take any action on the application within a certain amount of time. The fact that person had to hire counsel on a compassionate allowance case that was approved then denied due to SSA’s failures is insane.

Anonymous said...

What an absurd waste of resources. This is coming from the same people who thought allowing employees to name a newsletter nobody reads would have an effect on employee morale.

Anonymous said...

Medical decisions are good for 12 months so how long did it take. Never heard of that happening before without someone denying the claim manually.

Anonymous said...

As FO employees, we want to allow e signatures without having to verify them.

But hey, they don’t listen to us anyway.

Anonymous said...

Mayne, when the claimant completes the 3367, 3368...go ahead and complete the 3373 and actually complete the 3369 as well rather than send a blank one. Then, that would drastically reduce the amount of failure to cooperate cases. And speed up the cases by 30-60 days. Examiners don't love aged cases. And if HIT Mer is involved we could get these closed in 1-10 days. But that makes too much since

Anonymous said...

Maybe it was a third party app and the signed application was never submitted within the protective filing period.

Anonymous said...

SSA doing ANYTHING to make its employees more efficient is laughable. They are the same ones who constantly throw more and more speed bumps in front of employees with every systems "update."

Anonymous said...

Yes. Complete the 3369 and resolve discrepancies between it and the DEQY. Even in CAL cases it is often needed for possible earlier onset issues

Anonymous said...

If it was third party and there was no signature page or contact made, then there isn’t a valid application…you delete the claim. So there would be no medical decision.

Anonymous said...

Not that hard, just don't accept a claim without them, however we deny a lot for failure to cooperate, and that would hurt the #'s. So status quo we go.

Anonymous said...

11:59 AM... You have compassionate allowances and QDDCthat take 6 Yeats to be approved? Obviously, or so I thought, I wasn't referring to those cases.

Anonymous said...

The Office of Transformation was created by the current ACOSS who will soon be out. The Agency loves big ideas, but has a terrible track record with actual implementation unless it's renaming things. We're really good at renaming stuff.

Anonymous said...

Let's start by understanding that the SSI population includes a lot of people who have less than a high school diploma and more than a few who have a diploma who weren't held to the standards their state set for graduating. The forms and instructions aren't ideal for them.

Many are older and have limited tech skills even for today's far easier to use operating systems.

People in poverty typically rely on mobile devices to access the internet and forms being truly mobile friendly are rare. I have a doctor who has very mobile friendly forms but his reports are not.

Being mobile friendly is still a struggle despite the widespread usage.

Anonymous said...

Wasted resources? It is August and the travel is on through the end of Sept. to burn up every dollar so even though you could save by using TEAMs - no, spend on airline tickets and hotel rooms and per diem. Burn that money up, if we don't we may not get as much next FY.