U.S. to Resume Checking Up on Disability Benefits

Still smarting from the bruising it took in its first attempt, the government said today that it will resume culling Social Security disability rolls for people who have become physically able to hold jobs.

But it said it will use a scalpel, not a meat cleaver, in its new approach to the review, which will evaluate the medical condition of the 2.6 million people now classified as physically disabled and unable to work. The program begins in January.

New federal regulations will require proof of medical improvement before disability benefit checks can be cut off. And Social Security says more thorough reviews coupled with a personal approach including face-to-face interviews should ease the trauma for disabled people.

Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret M. Heckler said the new procedures were developed after months of review and consultation with affected groups who were sharply critical of the first attempt at reviewing the disability rolls.

“We have worked diligently with all segments of the public in developing regulations that ensure a consistent disability program nationwide,” Heckler said.

“This Administration has long recognized the need for making this program more humane and compassionate.”

Congress first ordered the review in 1980 after the General Accounting Office estimated that more than 500,000 people receiving disability checks were physically capable of holding jobs.

The HHS began the job in 1981 but it was soon engulfed by protests that truly disabled people were being chopped from the rolls unfairly.

Of the first 1.2 million people reviewed, 491,000 were ordered cut off from benefits. Appeals restored benefits to about 291,000 of those people. Lawsuits involving about 69,000 cases are pending.

Lobbying groups for beneficiaries, and their congressional supporters, said people were being dropped from the rolls after only a cursory review of medical records, often without an opportunity to argue their case and in some cases without being allowed to present additional medical documents.

In April, 1984, after trying unsuccessfully to quell the uproar through internal reforms, Heckler suspended the reviews and sought new standards from Congress.

Legislators responded with a new law that requires, with a few exceptions, that medical improvement be documented before any person is taken off the disability rolls.

The exceptions include people whose medical conditions have not improved but whose ability to work is established, such as through completion of vocational training or through actually holding jobs. They also include cases of fraud or where a person refuses to follow prescribed treatment that would restore his or her ability to work.

Social Security Administration spokesman James M. Brown said officials want to prevent past errors from recurring.

“Some mistakes were made,” he acknowledged. “People were taken off the rolls who should not have been taken off. We do not deny that.” But he said the new process is “going to be fair. It’s going to be compassionate.”