Social Security to Speed Disability Claims Process

The Social Security Administration is moving to end long waits for disability benefits that have cost some Americans their health or their savings.

The agency will announce plans this week to speed up and overhaul the process. By redesigning the way it decides applications for benefits for the first time since the 1950s, Social Security promises to eliminate the “excessive delays, endless paper shuffling and bewildering procedures” that now confront millions of disabled people who seek the agency’s help.

Commissioner Shirley Chater was expected to announce the reforms today. Some changes can be implemented immediately, but others will require congressional action, revisions in federal regulations and extensive research.

The agency said the $148-million blueprint will not change the definition of disability, something advocates had warned that Social Security was attempting under the rubric of reform when it first proposed the overhaul in March.

Chater said the plan, completed after several months of public comment, merely begins the research needed to determine how to simplify the decades-old standard used to decide who is disabled.

The streamlining comes as Social Security, its work force cut by one-fifth, wrestles with a record number of requests for disability benefits. Nearly 1.2 million Americans have claims pending and another 2.9 million are expected to file applications next year.

The agency acknowledges it is failing sick and injured Americans at a time when they most need a monthly income and the federal health insurance that comes with a Social Security check. Long delays for benefits have left some applicants homeless, others have died, attempted suicide or seen their health deteriorate while waiting for a decision.

Yet Social Security says it cannot count on additional federal dollars to solve those service problems, in this era of tight budgets and competing social priorities.

“What we need is radical change--to rebuild the procedures from the ground up--in order to produce dramatic improvement in customer service,” Chater said.

It reduces the number of employees required to handle a disability claim from 25 to eight, while trimming the time it takes to process a claim from 155 days to no more than 60 days.

Claims that are rejected and appealed now require 45 employees and can take as long as two years to decide.