Social Security Administration Attacks Disability Backlog

SSA, Oct 17, 2007

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, today announced that the Social Security Administration had made progress in the 2007 fiscal year (FY) toward making faster decisions on disability claims.  

“Better systems and business processes were essential to the progress we made in 2007,” Commissioner Astrue said, “but we cannot overlook the tens of thousands of overtime hours put in by the hardworking men and women of the Social Security Administration.”

Commissioner Astrue highlighted the progress made in a number of significant areas:

Social Security issued a final rule on September 5, 2007 extending nationwide its Quick Disability Determination (QDD) process.  Under QDD, a predictive model analyzes specific elements of data within the electronic claims file to identify claims where there is a high potential that the claimant is disabled and where evidence of the person’s allegations can be quickly and easily obtained.  In New England, where the process was being tested, about 3 percent of all new cases were identified as QDD cases and processed in an average of 11 days.  Today, Arizona, New Jersey and North Dakota have started using QDD as part of a staged national roll-out that will be completed early next year.

The Social Security Administration also virtually eliminated its backlog of FY 2007 “aged” disability hearings cases.  “Aged” cases, defined as cases pending 1,000 days or more, were reduced from 63,770 cases at the beginning of FY 2007 to 108 cases at the end of September.

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