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Case files travel lighter, faster

GCN Agency Award | SSA’s eDib app hastens benefits to disabled, and reduces case backlog

By Mary Mosquera, GCN Staff

People applying for disability benefits used to have to wait at least several months for the Social Security Administration to complete the paper-based process.

SSA also moved files by postal mail among federal and state agencies, and physicians who provided evidence of disability.

An individual’s case folder could be several inches thick, said Bill Gray, SSA deputy commission for systems. “And only one person at a time could work on the case.”

If a claim was denied, the appeals process could take another several years because of the tremendous backlog.

Now, SSA has nearly completed the rollout of the Electronic Disability System for online case processing.

Streamlined processes

Operating without paper, eDib streamlines SSA disability processes to such an extent that the agency projects a reduction of 100 days in the average time to process a claim, thereby expediting benefit payments to those most in need, said Michael Leff, enterprise and application solutions program director at Lockheed Martin Information Technology, the system’s integrator.

SSA hired Lockheed in 2004 under an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity agencywide support services contract that was worth $525 million. SSA included the electronic disability system in the umbrella contract.

With an aging population, applications for disability benefits are escalating. SSA needed to automate the disability claims process in an accelerated fashion and reduce service backlogs, Gray said.

“We have a tsunami coming at us,” he said.

Since 2000, the number of people who file each year is up by 500,000 a year, a 25 percent increase.

The electronic folder, a secure, centralized online repository of medical and other disability data, is a key component of eDib. The electronic folder uses IBM Corp.’s content manager and DB2 database management system. And because the folder is electronic, multiple people can work on a case simultaneously.

For example, Gray said: A state disability worker in Nebraska electronically processed cases for a state agency in Montana using Montana’s e-folders. When the worker needs advice from a particular medical specialist Montana doesn’t have, Nebraska gets the information from a medical consultant in Louisiana.

More news on related topics: Business Process Management, E-Government, Management, IT Management, Web Strategies



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