In today’s Federal Register, SSA requests emergency clearance by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) of a new 1699 form to register appointed representatives of disability claimants. The notice explains:
By registering these individuals, SSA: (1) Authenticates and authorizes them to do business with us; (2) allows them access to our records for the claimants they represent; (3) facilitates direct payment of authorized fees to appointed representatives; and (4) collects the information we will need to meet Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requirements to issue specific IRS forms if we pay these representatives in excess of a specific amount ($600).
Although SSA currently uses a lengthier OMB-approved version of this form, we are requesting emergency clearance for an abbreviated version due to extensive comments from respondents indicating they need a simpler version immediately.
Commissioner of Social Security Michael Astrue announced yesterday that the Social Security Administration has awarded over 17 million dollars (funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) in contracts to 15 health care providers and networks to provide electronic medical records to SSA during the disability review process:
“Using health information technology will improve our disability programs and provide better service to the public,” Commissioner Astrue said. “We’ve seen a significant increase in disability applications. To process them, the agency sends more than 15 million requests annually for medical records to healthcare providers. This largely paper-bound workload is generally the most time-consuming part of the disability decision process. The use of health IT will dramatically improve the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of this process, reducing the cost of making a disability decision for both the medical community and the American taxpayer.”
Commissioner Michael Astrue wrote a short article discussing fast tracking cases involving schizophrenia and other diseases:
Our Compassionate Allowances and Quick Disability Determinations processes are making a real difference by ensuring that Americans with devastating disabilities quickly receive the benefits they need. This fiscal year, we expect to fast-track about 150,000 cases and we plan to add more diseases and impairments to these expedited processes in the coming months.
For claimants with certain kinds of impairments, fast tracking will mean favorable decisions in very short time frames.
Commissioner Astrue announced today that new data about disability beneficiaries and the hearing process in disability cases will be made available to the public:
Here are a few examples of the value of the Social Security datasets available today:
- Researchers can find out about the work-related experiences of our beneficiaries receiving Social Security disability benefits and give us policy guidance for our disability programs.
- The public can see information about hearings workloads and a breakdown of the types of decisions made by Administrative Law Judges.
- Researchers can study the effects of current and proposed legislative and program provisions.
- People who have requested a hearing on their disability claim can estimate the amount of time they may have to wait for the hearing to be held and for a decision.
- The public can see general information requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Commissioner goes on to say: “These new datasets are just the beginning of our efforts. In February we will launch our Open Government webpage that will include improved access to our data in a variety of formats. In April we will publish our Open Government plan. . . . Let me also reassure all Americans that while our goal is to become more open and transparent, we will continue to vigilantly protect the personal information the public entrusts to us. We will ensure that transparency does not put that information at risk.”
