On April 6, 2023, the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) issued a report entitled, Social Security and State Disability Determination Services Agencies: A Partnership in Need of Attention, which:

“outlines the SSA/DDS partnership’s history, evolution, and management. It also articulates that the relationship structure has remained static for decades even as technology, program integrity, and other requirements have changed.  Lastly, it offers examples of how SSA’s management approach helps and hinders the relationship and the disability determination process more broadly and highlights three areas warranting further review: DDS personnel, information technology, and performance and productivity.”

Notably, the report documents the considerable variation in DDS organizational approaches and decisional outcomes across the state agencies, which is concerning and conflicts with SSA’s focus on “program uniformity.”  The report also notes the ongoing workload processing delays at the DDSs, which began before the pandemic in FY 2019, and have only worsened. SSAB surmises that the following factors may be influencing the increases in the number of claims pending and the average processing time:

• Difficulty in obtaining needed medical evidence during the pandemic
• An unplanned transition to telework and longer-term closure of some DDSs offices and not others
• Insufficient technology to communicate with claimants and for workload processing
• Limitation on administrative expenses (LAE) (and DDS allocations) that sometimes lag behind workload volume increases, eventually leading to backlog. In other words, there are instances when demand exceeds DDS capacity
• Fluctuating staffing levels
• The length of time needed for new DDS staff to gain proficiency
• Higher DDS attrition rates

The report also highlights the need for better communication and support structures between DDS and SSA. Specifically, the report outlines how different components of SSA are responsible for overseeing DDS communications, operations, budget and hiring, productivity and performance, and policy priorities and notes how SSA’s diffuse organizational structure affects the relationship between SSA and the DDSs.

SSAB concludes that, based on key performance metrics, the state agencies “are struggling to keep up in the current environment” and notes the following “important features of the disability determination process” that SSAB will continue to assess:

• Personnel challenges at the DDS level
• The effect of Disability Case Processing System (DCPS), HIT (Health Information Technology), machine learning, and other IT applications (or lack thereof) on workload processing
• Productivity trends and the effectiveness of SSA’s quality review mechanisms.