A Request For A Contractor -- Or For a Magican

The Social Security Administration has posted this request for information from possible contractors:

SSA is interested in developing a prototype of a fully automated system that would allow SSA electronic access to information contained in claimants’ personal health records [PHR] once SSA provides authorizations to release that information it receives from claimants. The PHR prototype would require prior authorization from claimant to release information to SSA electronically in Continuity of Care Format. This system would use the standards that the Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) approved for other purposes, and apply those standards to the process of obtaining data from the PHR. The prototype will also need to provide the technical process for electronically transmitting authorizations to release medical information between a PHR and third party entities, such as SSA, based on the approach demonstrated in the Nationwide Health Information Network effort and the medical evidence gathering and analysis prototype with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

This will be workable by about 2020, I would guess.

Martin Gerry Working For Ticket To Work Contractor

Martin Gerry was former Commissioner Jo Anne Barnhart's right hand man at Social Security. Gerry tried to hang on after Barnhart left, but was abruptly fired by Barnhart's replacement, Michael Astrue, at about the same time Astrue decided to drop Disability Service Improvement, Barnart's and Gerry's ill-fated grand plan to rescue the Social Security disability programs. Gerry's firing included being marched out of the building by security guards.

From the Washington Times:

About 70 percent of the estimated 14 million Americans with severe disabilities are unemployed. Martin Gerry's job is to find ways to reduce this unemployment rate.

Mr. Gerry is executive managing director of a newly created institute within the national nonprofit agency NISH — Creating Employment for People with Severe Disabilities. A severe disability is classified as a physical or mental impairment that seriously limits one or more functional capacities. ...

Established in 1974, NISH provides job opportunities through federal contracts for people with severe disabilities.

The NISH Institute on Economic Empowerment will conduct research to see how job opportunities can be expanded and improved for people with severe disabilities. As director, Mr. Gerry will lead a team of six in establishing the institute and developing research priorities.

He said one of the main challenges of his job will be determining those priorities.

NISH is a major subcontractor in the Ticket to Work program, which aims to put Social Security disability recipients back to work, but which is mostly wasting money.

Robert Nickerson Added To Obama Transition Team For Social Security

President-elect Barack Obama's transition website now lists Robert Nickerson as part of the transition team for Social Security. Nickerson was a Special Assistant to the Commissioner of Social Security in 1996 and a Confidential Assistant to the Commissioner (what a title!) in 2000. I can find no sign of what he has been up to since 2000.

Barnhart Now Teaching At Harvard

I am starting a "where are they now?" series on former high Social Security officials. I am not suggesting any of these folks for new jobs at Social Security.

Jo Anne Barnhart, who was Commissioner of Social Security from 2001 to 2007, is now an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She has an office and a Harvard e-mail address, so this must not be just an occasional thing.

NCSSMA Meets With DCO And Commissioner

The Annual Meeting of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management personnel, included some high level meetings. Here are some excerpts from the minutes of a meeting with Linda McMahon, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner, Operations (DCO) in late October:

Although there were very high hopes that we would get $50 million above the President’s budget, Linda believes we will be extremely lucky to get the President’s budget, and we could be in a yearlong Continuing Resolution (CR). [It sounds like she had trouble believing that Barack Obama would be elected President. Notice below that Commissioner Astrue was quite a bit more optimistic.] Any new President will walk into a budget deficit, but the Agency will continue to make its case. Overtime has already been allocated for the first quarter of this fiscal year, split evenly between FOs [Field Offices] and the PCs [Program Centers].

Linda reiterated that during the CR, Operations would only be allowed to hire 1 individual for every 3 losses. They are waiting until December to see where losses occur. The first priority is the 800 number. There will be limited field hires for critical situations. We were able to do some advance hiring for 2009 in 2008.

The Commissioner ... is interested in providing resources to ODAR [Office of Disability Adjudication and Review] who in the past received less attention in terms of hiring, systems, etc. Congress is focused on the challenges faced by ODAR and is sensitive to decreasing the backlogs. If the problems ODAR faces are not fixed, then credibility for the entire Agency is lost. Another challenge is a shifting of workloads as hearings are moved from ODAR to Operations to effectuate them.

Commissioner Astrue also met with the group. Here are some excerpts from that meeting:

In FY 2008, due to attrition and experienced ALJs being used to train the new judges, the Agency actually had about 46 fewer Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). The best ALJs were taken offline to help not only with training the new ALJs but also with the hiring process. ...

Despite all the distractions of hiring and training, we were able to improve productivity because of the commitment of employees. We have locked ourselves into ODAR facility decisions that were more suitable years ago. There are parts of the country that have lighter workloads and parts that are heavier. In particular, in the Atlanta and Chicago regions, the number of facilities is less than adequate.

Under the Continuing Resolution, there is a 1 for 3 replacement hiring rate in the field offices, and 1 for 2 in the DDSs because turnover rates are higher and salaries are lower. The replacement hiring rate in ODAR will be 1 for 1. The new Agency Strategic Plan sets some extremely tough goals for them. ODAR gets the lion’s share of the credit for reducing disability workloads. ...

He feels there is a reasonable chance of exceeding the President’s budget in FY 2009. In the past when Congress has not fully funded the Agency, performance has deteriorated. ...

The Commissioner indicated it took him 11 months to realize there was no focal point to improve notices, to ensure they were up to date, and to prevent them from adding to the workload burdens. He looked at some ODAR notices which were terrible, so he personally made recommendations for rewriting these.

Newspaper Article Helps Another Claimant

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is reporting that David Hintz, whose case was featured in a story in August on Social Security backlogs, has been approved for Social Security disability benefits. He had a hearing scheduled within a month after the article in the paper.

Hearing On Compassionate Allowances For Brain Damage

Commissioner Astrue held a public hearing today on his compassionate allowance scheme. This hearing concerned traumatic brain injuries and strokes and featured speakers from the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health.

Traditionally, Social Security has been anything but compassionate or quick in making disability determinations in brain damage cases. Social Security's standard practice is to delay decisions in these cases for months and months in hope of improvement and then to be oblivious to anything other than the most obvious effects of brain damage. Frontal lobe damage, which has its effects primarily upon personality, is completely ignored in most cases. State of the art neuropsychological testing is treated as unimportant.

Peter Orszag To Head OMB

Alexis Simendinger at the National Journal's Lost in Transition Blog is reporting that President-elect Obama has chosen Peter Orszag to be his Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB has considerable power over the Social Security Administration, and not just through its power over the budget. No regulations get published the Federal Register without OMB approval. Orszag was once an economic adviser in the Clinton White House and has more recently been the director of the Congressional Budget Office.

Orszag co-authored a book calling for raising the retirement age for Social Security benefits, increasing the Social Security wagebase and reducing Social Security benefits for high wage earners.