The Social Security Administration has only partially
implemented its “process unification” initiative, started in
1994 in response to concerns about the consistency of
disability benefit claim decisions and it needs to make a
greater effort to assess and improve its claims processing,
the Government Accountability Office has said.
It said every year 2.5 million people file claims and that
half of those appealed to the hearings level after being
denied are allowed, which has raised concern about the
consistency of the decisions being made at each level.
SSA has not continued to actively pursue these efforts and
its earlier review of hearings level decisions did not
lead to any new improvements, said GAO.
It said the agency tested two process changes, one that is
ongoing but will not provide conclusive results, and another
that was abandoned because of difficulties implementing it.
Nor have SSA’s assessments provided a clear understanding
of the extent and causes of possible inconsistencies in
decisions, said GAO.
It said two measures SSA uses to monitor inconsistency do
not account for the many factors that can affect decision
outcomes, and therefore do not provide a true picture of
the changes in consistency. GAO-04-656
