Summary: In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed state disability determination services (DDS) to: (1) evaluate the effects of budget constraints that the Social Security Administration (SSA) imposed on state agencies' operations; and (2) determine whether SSA productivity standards were appropriate.
GAO found that budget reductions: (1) limited the number of continuing disability reviews that SSA required the states to do in fiscal year (FY) 1987; (2) cost the Disability Insurance Trust Fund more than $200 million in unnecessary benefit payments; (3) reduced state agencies' work-years for FY 1987 by 3.7 percent; (4) created a backlog of over 300,000 medical-improvement-expected (MIE) cases, which SSA did not expect to complete without the use of funds from a contingency reserve; and (5) could affect the quality of disability determinations. GAO also found that: (1) SSA plans to increase the overall DDS operating budget by $13 million, but will reduce DDS staff by 3.5 percent; (2) the SSA productivity measurement system did not provide accurate or uniform productivity comparisons among DDS; and (3) although SSA developed a Cost-Effectiveness Measurement System which would correct most of the weaknesses in its current system, it did not consider the type of impairment in each DDS case mix.
