Social Security disability was never meant to be a permanent disability program, even though many people who medically qualify for the program never end up being able to work at a full-time level, so as part of the program, Social Security setup the Continuing Disability Review (CDR) process. This process puts disabled beneficiaries in categories of how likely a person’s impairments will improve to allow them to go back to work and now Social Security is looking to add a new category, Medical Improvement Likely (MIL).
The MIL category is intended to fit between two other Social Security CDR categories, Medical Improvement Expected (MIE) and Medical Improvement Possible (MIP). Social Security published the proposed regulations in the Federal Register. This new MIL category would review beneficiaries every two years to determine if they are still disabled. Among the other changes are the people who fall into the MIE category who would be reviewed every six years as compared to every seven years. If these proposed changes are adopted it would increase the overall number of CDRs by more than 1 million annually. Below is a summary of the proposal as found in the Federal Register.
Summary
We propose to revise our regulations regarding when and how often we conduct continuing disability reviews (CDR), which are periodic reviews of eligibility required for benefit continuation. The proposed rules would add a category to the existing medical diary categories that we use to schedule CDRs and revise the criteria for assigning each of the medical diary categories to cases. The proposed rules would also change the frequency with which we perform a CDR for claims with the medical diary category for permanent impairments. The revised changes would ensure that we continue to maintain appropriate stewardship of the disability program and identify medical improvement (MI) at its earliest point.
Social Security will accept comments on the proposed regulations through January 17, 2020 before any final decisions are made.
