Agencies use the goals in agency strategic plans and annual performance plans to inform annual budget decisions, longer-term investment planning, and human resource planning. The agency’s strategic goals and objectives are listed below. Click here for more information on stakeholder engagement during goal development.
Strategic Goal: Deliver Quality Disability Decisions and Services.
Objective: Reduce the Wait Time for Hearing Decisions and Eliminate the Hearings Backlog.
Description: In the last few years, we have made remarkable progress in eliminating the hearing decision backlog. We cut the average time individuals wait for a hearing decision by over six months. In FY 2007, almost half of all claimants who requested hearings had waited more than 270 days for a hearing decision, and some had waited up to 1,400 days. At the end of FY 2011, fewer than 30 percent of hearing requests were over 270 days old, and virtually no cases were over 775 days old. To achieve our goal of eliminating the hearings backlog, we will continue to enhance our proven strategies:
1) Eliminate our oldest cases first
2) Expedite cases that do not require a hearing
3) Enhance electronic tools that improve productivity and quality
4) Target our national resources to meet workload demands.
Objective: Improve Our Disability Policies, Procedures, and Tools
Description: A complex set of laws and regulations govern our disability determination process and work incentive policies. As such, beneficiaries can find our programs difficult to understand and navigate, and employees, who handle multiple unique workloads, can experience technical challenges with program administration. With the implementation of our automated decision-support tools, such as e-CAT, we will improve the consistency and accuracy of disability decisions. In addition to being complex, our disability policies and procedures have not kept pace with advances in medicine and technology. While we are working to update the medical and vocational information we use to make determinations of disability, we must continually balance our knowledge of emerging trends with our statutory obligations and guidelines. Currently, each State disability determination service site has its own unique case processing system, which makes it difficult and time-consuming to implement policy changes. We are developing our common Disability Case Processing System (DCPS) that will provide additional functionality, lay the foundation for a state-of-the-art disability process, and make it easier to implement other important technology changes. To increase opportunities for beneficiaries to return to work, we must also create clear and consistent employment incentives. Our FY 2013 budget includes a disability program innovation, the Work Incentive Simplification Pilot, to test whether simplifying our work rules will encourage beneficiaries to work and reduce our administrative costs.
Objective: Expedite Cases for the Most Severely Disabled Individuals
Description: We consider it particularly urgent to expedite approval of cases that, given the nature or severity of the claimants diagnosis or conditions, are likely approvals. Our two initiatives, Quick Disability Determinations (QDD) and Compassionate Allowances (CAL), use technology to identify claimants with the most severe disabilities and allow us to expedite our decisions on those cases. These fast-track initiatives have been two of our greatest successes in recent years. The QDD process uses a computer-based predictive model to identify cases where a favorable disability decision is highly likely. The CAL process helps us quickly identify medical conditions that invariably qualify under the listings of impairments based on minimal objective medical information. Additionally, we are working closely with the Department of Defense (DOD) to expedite decisions for wounded warriors. We are also working with DOD and the Veterans Administration to improve the transfer of medical records between our agencies. The initial results of our recent small pilot with the DOD and five State disability determination services show promise in improving the timeliness of receiving medical records.
Priority Goal: Faster hearing decisions.
Goal Statement: Faster hearing decisions.
By the end of FY 2013, we will reduce the average time for a hearing decision from 345 days at the end of FY 2011 to 270 days.
Description: We pay disability benefits through two programs: the Social Security Disability Insurance program and the Supplemental Security Income program. Social Security pays benefits to people who cannot work because they have a medical condition expected to last at least one year or result in death. We carefully consider all the information concerning a case before we make any eligibility decisions. When we make a decision, we send a letter explaining our decision. If you do not agree with our decision, you can appeal-that is, ask us to look at your case again. The reconsideration is the first level of our appeals process and involves a complete review of the claim by someone who did not take part in the original decision. If you disagree with the reconsideration decision, you may ask for a hearing. An administrative law judge (ALJ) who had no part in the original decision or the reconsideration of the case conducts a hearing.
Over the last few years, our disability workloads have grown significantly, due in part to baby boomers reaching their disability-prone years and an economic downturn with high unemployment. Since FY 2007, initial disability claim receipts have increased by over 25 percent; consequently, the number of appeals have grown. In FY 2007, we began implementing our Plan to Eliminate the Hearings Backlog and Prevent its Recurrence, (visit www.socialsecurity.gov/appeals for more information). This plan outlined measures for improving hearing office procedures and business processes, increasing our ability to hear and decide cases, increasing efficiency through automation, and accelerating the review of cases that are likely to result in a favorable decision.
Today, eliminating our hearings backlog remains our top priority. We started with the most urgent part of the backlog-the oldest, most complex cases. In 2007, some claimants waited for a hearing decision for as long as 1,400 days. Since 2007, we have decided nearly three quarters of a million of the oldest cases. Each year we lower the age threshold, having targeted 725-day-old cases in FY 2012. We began the fiscal year with 113,593 cases that would be 725 or more days old by the end of FY 2012. By the end of the fiscal year, we decided all but 169 of these cases. In FY 2013, we are focusing on cases that are 700 days or older.
The most important metric for claimants is how long they will have to wait for a hearing decision; consequently, our primary goal is now reducing average wait time, which is the average number of days it takes to get a hearing decision (from the date of the hearing request). We decreased the average time it takes to complete hearings from a peak of 532 days in August 2008 to 362 days as of September 2012. We have improved timeliness while maintaining a high standard of quality. We expect that once we complete our hearings backlog reduction plan, we will issue hearing decisions in an average of 270 days. We have encountered significant challenges affecting our ability to achieve our goal. The economic downturn and high unemployment rates have drastically increased the number of people who turn to us for help. Since we implemented our plan in FY 2007, hearing requests have skyrocketed as more people filed for disability and even more people pursued appeals. We received nearly 850,000 hearing requests in FY 2012 compared to about 579,000 in FY 2007. By the end of FY 2013, we estimate we will have received nearly three quarters of a million more hearing requests than we estimated when we established the hearings backlog reduction plan in 2007.
Unprecedented ALJ attrition rates reduce our capacity to issue decisions. Since only an ALJ can conduct a hearing, they are a vital component of the hearings process. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is responsible for recruiting qualified ALJ candidates. Obtaining a refreshed ALJ register from OPM with agency-specific selection criteria is critical to our future ALJ hiring.
Finally, the fiscal environment affects the level of funding we receive each year. As our work continues to increase, adequate and timely funding is critical to our ability to maintain a strong level of performance and provide the quality of service the public expects and deserves.
Amid huge economic and budgetary unpredictability, we have stayed focused on issuing faster hearing decisions. The increased productivity of our ALJs and several critical initiatives-including enhanced systems for management information, uniform business processes, more effective use of support staff, improved training, more efficient allocation of resources, and development of decisional templates-have brought us closer to our goal of an average of 270 days to decide a case.
Strategic Goal: Provide Quality Service to the Public.
Objective: Increase the Use of Our Online Services.
Description: As the public expects to complete more business online, we must increase the number and type of Internet service options. The public has responded positively to our current Internet services. In 2007, before we introduced our new, improved online application (iClaim), approximately 10 percent of applicants filed for retirement online. In FY 2011, over 40 percent of retirement applicants and one third of disability applicants filed online. We have the three highest rated electronic services in the Federal government as measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index: iClaim, the Retirement Estimator, and Extra Help with Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Costs. Use of our online services continues to increase with these easy-to-use tools.
Objective: Increase Public Satisfaction with Our Telephone Services
Description: Our telephone services are the public’s primary service option. Callers to our National 800 Number have expressed frustration with navigating our menu and using our automated services. Since FY 2008, we cut our busy rate by over 70 percent. We are replacing our national 800 Number telecommunications infrastructure with a new state-of-the-art system. This system will eliminate lengthy navigation menus that frustrate the public and, will provide additional lines for callers. We expect the new system to be fully functional in FY 2013. We are also replacing the obsolete telephone system used in our field offices. The new system includes a forward-on-busy feature, which offers callers, who would otherwise get a busy signal the option, to transfer to our 800 Number.
Objective: Expand the Use of Video Services
Description: We will use video technology to help us balance workloads across the country, reduce travel for the public and our employees, and better serve remote areas. This is an important part of our efforts to reduce the hearings backlog and prevent its recurrence. Our National Hearing Centers hear cases from the most-backlogged offices around the country, which is helping to reduce wait times nationwide. Our video technology reduces the need for our staff to travel between offices and to remote sites to hold hearings, which saves travel costs and frees up more time for our judges to decide cases. The Administrative Conference of the United States has designated our video hearings efforts as a best practice in the federal government. Looking to the future, video hearings will be a crucial part of our service to the public and will help to dramatically minimize the time claimants have to wait for a hearing. Video service can also provide an efficient and innovative way to provide service to segments of the public with unique service needs, such as connecting our offices to American Indian Tribal Centers or Veterans Administration hospitals for service provision in those locations.
Objective: Improve the Clarity of Our Notices
Description: We send hundreds of millions notices to individuals explaining the programs that we administer. Our notices communicate decisions, payment, and other important information. Therefore, it is essential that we communicate in clear, easy to understand language to eliminate confusion and unnecessary calls and visits to our offices.
Priority Goal: Increase use of our online services.
Goal Statement: Increase use of our online services.
By the end of FY 2013, we will increase our online filing rates from 36 percent at the end of FY 2011 to 48 percent.
Description: Online services are vital to good public service. The Internet provides the public with the ability to conduct business at their convenience and at their own pace, without the need to take leave from work, travel to a field office, and wait to meet with one of our representatives. In addition to being convenient for the public, increased use of online services reduces the average time our employees spend completing claims, freeing them to handle workloads that are more complicated. However, we review every online benefit application for retirement, disability, Medicare, and spousal benefits, and contact applicants with any questions.
Over the last few years, we have developed several new, easy-to-use online services, which have allowed us to better handle the surge of benefit applications. Our ultimate goal is to provide applicants and their representatives with a wide-variety of online services, including the ability to apply for a range of benefits and update their records. We are committed to making our online services easy to find and use. During FY 2012, more than 2.2 million retirement and disability applications were submitted online, an increase of 55% over FY 2009, when 1.4 million were submitted online.
We recently implemented a new, more secure procedure to authenticate the identity of people who are interested in conducting business with us online through a new website called My Social Security. People who successfully authenticate can obtain an online version of the Social Security Statement. The online Statement meets our commitment to provide Americans with an easy, efficient process to obtain an estimate of their potential Social Security benefits. In addition to helping with financial planning, the online Statement also provides workers a convenient way to determine whether their earnings are accurately posted to their Social Security records.
Developing online services for a population with a variety of experiences and comfort with electronic services presents a unique challenge. We solicit stakeholder input using a variety of methods prior to developing our services. Usability testing, focus groups, advocacy discussions, and the public insight process are tools we use to engage our external stakeholders. We also consult with our internal stakeholders when developing our online services. Once we implement our online services, we continue to engage our stakeholders by soliciting their feedback using the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). ACSI surveys are widely used in both the Federal and private sectors to measure public satisfaction with features of websites. The surveys provide agencies with standard, statistical measurements of public satisfaction. We also have annual internal survey mechanisms in place. We use feedback received from both ACSI and our own surveys to improve our online services.
Current projections indicate our workloads will continue to increase in the upcoming years. While operating in an environment of constrained resources, delivering high quality online services that provide the customer with the information and services they expect is an important aspect of our service delivery strategy. Public response to our online services has been positive. Our online applications consistently rank at or near the top of all public and private sector web sites surveyed by ACSI. However, the mode of contact with our agency is a personal choice. We remain committed to maintaining personal interaction with the public no matter which service method they choose.
Strategic Goal: Preserve the Public’s Trust in Our Programs.
Objective: Increase Efforts to Accurately Pay Benefits.
Description: The American public expects us to be outstanding stewards of the Social Security Trust Funds. We are committed to protecting program dollars from waste, fraud, and abuse. Notwithstanding the complexity of our program, we have many tools to help us minimize improper payments. Our most important program integrity tools are Continuing Disability Reviews (CDRs), which are periodic reevaluations to determine if beneficiaries are still disabled, and SSI redeterminations, which are periodic reviews of non-medical factors of SSI eligibility, such as income and resources. We estimate that every dollar spent on CDRs yields at least $10 in lifetime program savings, including savings accruing to Medicare and Medicaid. Every dollar spent on SSI redeterminations yields more than $7 in program savings over 10 years, including savings accruing to Medicaid. Earlier this decade, we encountered several years where the Congress appropriated less than the President’s Budget, and our administrative infrastructure contracted to a point where we could not fulfill all of our responsibilities. During this time period, hearing backlogs rose dramatically and program integrity work declined dramatically. Since 2007, we have made significant progress toward reversing these trends, but we still lack the resources to perform all of our program integrity work on a timely basis. Despite rising workloads, we have been steadily increasing our program integrity efforts. Beneficiaries are responsible for reporting changes that may affect their payment amount. Unfortunately, not all beneficiaries report changes as required; in turn, we rely on our scheduled reviews and computer matches to detect changes and prevent payment errors. However, our computer matches are not always timely. To continue our critical program integrity work, we will work closely with Congress to secure funding.
Priority Goal: Reduce Supplemental Security Income (SSI) overpayments.
Goal Statement: Reduce Supplemental Security Income (SSI) overpayments.
By the end of FY 2013*, we will increase our SSI overpayment accuracy rate from 93.3 percent at the end of FY 2010 to 95 percent. * FY 2013 data will not be available until April 2014.
Description: SSI is a means-tested program designed to provide a monthly payment to aged, blind, or disabled people with limited income and resources. Adults, as well as children, can receive payments based on disability or blindness.
Due to the complexities of the program, SSI payments can change from month to month often resulting in an overpayment. Much of the program’s complexities stem from the way SSI payments are calculated, which is defined by statute. Two factors used to determine an individual’s monthly benefit are income and living arrangements. Income can be in cash or in kind, and is usually anything that a person receives that can be used to obtain food or shelter. It includes cash income such as wages, Social Security and other pensions, and unemployment compensation. In-kind income is food and shelter or something someone can use to obtain those items.
Individuals’ SSI benefit amounts also may change if they move into a different “living arrangement”-whether a person lives alone or with others, or resides in a medical facility or other institution. For instance, when an individual moves into a nursing home, the person’s monthly payment may be reduced to as little as $30 per month. If the person moves from his or her own household into the household of another person, and that person provides food or shelter, the payment also may be reduced.
The value of an individual’s resources also affects eligibility for the program. An individual is not eligible for benefits if his or her countable resources exceed $2,000, and couples are not eligible if their countable resources exceed $3,000. In general, we count as resources items individuals can convert to cash and use for their support and maintenance, such as bank accounts, stocks, and bonds.
The design of the SSI program requires that we adjust benefit payments to account for these factors. We explain to SSI recipients that they must report these changes to us when they occur. Absent their timely reporting, it is difficult to obtain information about these changes in a prompt fashion, resulting in some erroneous payments. Additionally, even if individuals report in a timely manner, we are required to first provide written notification of how the change affects their benefit amounts and provide due process protections. This process delays adjusting payments to the correct amount. Furthermore, we generally make SSI payments on the first day of the month for eligibility in that month. Even if the payment is correct when paid, any changes that may occur during the month can affect the payment due, which can result in an overpayment or underpayment. Thus, the program requirements themselves sometimes cause erroneous payments.
Our overpayment accuracy rate reflects the complex nature of the SSI program. We are always working on improving our administration of the SSI program, focusing on how technology can make us more efficient. In the future, we are looking to offer mobile and online applications for reporting wages, online change of address and direct deposit, expanded use of Lexis-Nexis to verify real property, and numerous other projects designed to improve our service and ensure the integrity of our payments. Of course, these improvements depend on sustained and adequate funding to support them.
Objective: Recover Improper Payments
Description: Although we strive to pay benefits accurately and timely, the complexity of our disability programs can lead to improper payments, including overpayments. We use internal and external collection tools to recover what we are owed. The technique we use most widely is benefit withholding from our current beneficiaries. When we cannot recover a debt on our own, we turn to authorized external debt collection methods. In providing us with these debt collection options, Congress recognized that maximum debt collection is not the only consideration and should be balanced with compassionate recognition of our beneficiaries individual situations. As system resources permit, we will enhance our efforts to detect and recover overpayments.
Objective: Maintain Accurate Earnings Records
Description: Each year, we post nearly 216 million earning reports to individuals records. We base an individual’s Social Security benefit amount on his or her lifetime earnings; therefore, our records must be accurate. We receive the majority of these earning reports electronically; however, nearly 15 percent are still paper reports, which make them more error prone, labor intensive and expensive to process. In addition, the automated systems we use to process this workload are aging.
Objective: Make Our Administrative Operations Even More Efficient
Description: We must ensure that we use every taxpayer dollar invested in our administrative operations effectively and efficiently. We are committed to sound management practices; we conduct rigorous reviews of our business practices to ensure that the taxpayer receives a high return. Our commitment to a strong internal control environment is unwavering, and FY 2011 marked the 18th consecutive year we received an unqualified opinion on our financial statements. As responsible stewards, we use technology to reduce costs across the agency. For example, video hearings allow us to handle more hearings, transfer workloads between locations, and reduce travel costs. In FY 2011, video technology helped us reduce our travel expenses by over 35 percent and our agency-sponsored conferences by over 80 percent. We spend about $1 billion annually to obtain mission essential goods and services. By focusing on reducing high-risk acquisitions and aggressively seeking vendor discounts, we saved over $273 million in FY 2011 in acquisition costs. We will continue to seek more efficiencies in these and other internal business functions.
Strategic Goal: Strengthen Our Workforce and Infrastructure.
Objective: Strengthen Our Workforce – Recruit, Train, Develop, and Retain Superior Employees.
Description: As the public we serve continues to increase and becomes significantly more diverse, we need to ensure that our employees have the tools to work effectively with people of all age groups, educational levels, and cultural backgrounds. We will employ a number of human capital strategies to ensure our provision of reliable, quality service to an increasingly diverse public. Our strategies align with the President’s commitment to promote diversity and inclusion in the federal workforce.
Objective: Maintain Secure and Reliable Information Technology Services
Description: With over six decades of computing experience, we are a pioneer organization in terms of extremely large, centralized, and cost-effective IT service delivery. Technology is essential to everything we do. If our systems are down, we grind to a virtual halt. Moreover, even if our systems are functioning, but not optimally, then the formidable productivity of our workforce immediately declines. Some of our most important IT new development projects, such as the Disability Case Processing System, are highlighted in previous sections of our Strategic Plan. This objective focuses solely on IT infrastructure. IT infrastructure refers to the computer hardware, computer software, telecommunications, data, and technology-governance components that underlie our entire enterprise. In order to maintain strong IT performance, we must contend with a constrained budget, increasing growth in IT demand and cyber-security risk, and obsolescence when faced with an aging infrastructure and constant change in the technology industry. Security of our information and systems is critical; therefore, we must continue to enhance our cyber security protections, including continual monitoring. We must also remain focused on the extensive IT challenges associated with the design, construction, and transition to a new national data center in 2015.
Objective: Increase Efficiency of Our Physical Infrastructure
Description: We must provide a professional, safe, and secure environment for our workforce and the public. The security of our employees and the people we serve is one of our top priorities. In light of heightened threats and violence, we will continue to improve security in our facilities. We are also reviewing our real estate presence to identify opportunities to consolidate offices and reduce our footprint. Strategic cancellation of leases has resulted in cost savings of nearly $15 million through FY 2012. We are working toward achieving even greater savings during the next five years. By December 2012, we will complete our Environmental Management System plan, which sets forth ambitious energy and water conservation goals consistent with Executive Orders 13423 and 13514.
