The tortoise-like pace the Social Security Administration is known for in processing, developing and scheduling Social Security disability hearings also applies to the processing of claims at lower levels of the system, but the Disability Case Processing System (DCPS), developed in 2016, was supposed to change that.
Unfortunately, the DCPS, which is a common system developed to make disability determinations at the initial application and first appeal levels to improve the speed and quality of decisions, is so rarely used that Social Security doesn’t know how well it works according to a new report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for Social Security.
According to the report, the new DCPS system is only used by 10 Disability Determination Services offices, the agency that is in charge of issuing disability decisions at the lower levels of the process. This accounted for a total of 1,543 decisions (4 percent) issued by the DCPS system in May of 2018.
The report indicated that DDS examiners may not be fully sold on DCPS, which is why it is still so rarely used after 18 months of existence.
“SSA recognized that its inability to convince DDS users of the value and advantage of DCPS may negatively affect DDS adoption rates,” the report said. “To address this, the agency planned to continue working with users to develop and demonstrate working software.”
Social Security has slowed its plan to rollout DCPS at more DDS offices and instead is trying to put more resources into development of DCPS in an effort to increase the number of users at DDS offices that already have the system. In a survey done with 120 DCPS users, the system received generally high remarks. The report indicated that 58 percent of users either agreed, or strongly agreed that they were overall satisfied with DCPS.
