At the end of 2014, 86 percent of federally administered Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients were receiving benefits based on disability or blindness. Individuals file claims at a local Social Security office, and we send claims requiring an evaluation of disability to the State disability determination services (DDS) for a disability decision. Applicants may appeal unfavorable initial DDS decisions. Historically, the State DDS conducted the first level of appeal — the reconsideration appeal step. Claimants denied at the reconsideration level could then request a hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ) and if dissatisfied with the hearing decision could request a review by the Appeals Council. Those dissatisfied with the Appeals Council’s action could seek further relief through the Federal court system. This appeals process is still in effect for the majority of new applicants.1 However, since the mid-1990s the Social Security Administration (SSA) has conducted small pilots testing revisions to this process and introduced a modification of this process that 10 States use for applications filed on or after October 1, 1999. The revised process eliminates the reconsideration step, so the first level of appeal of an initial determination is a request for hearing before an ALJ.This process of application and appeal can span several years. However, before 1993, the only data available on the disability determination process resided in files compiled at each separate stage of the process and only captured various point-in-time snapshots. Only a longitudinal database of administrative records at all stages of appeal can provide a complete picture of the disability determination process. Beginning in 1993, SSA’s Office of Disability Programs constructed such a longitudinal database, the “Disability Research File,” to assist our agency in understanding and managing this process. However, we did encounter some problems in the construction of this database due to inconsistencies in the data collected from all the respective levels of appeal. The following sections present some additional details and qualifications essential to a complete understanding of the resulting data. Following these technical notes, tables V.C1 and V.C2 present the latest available summary of results on disability determinations under Title XVI.Methods used to build the Title XVI Disability Research File — The “base” file for the Title XVI research file is the Supplemental Security Record, the main computerized file for administering the SSI program. We match the “base” file against records from various other administrative sources, including transactions from the disability determination (SSA-831) files, Social Security number identification records and earnings data, and Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) appeals data.Methods used for estimating results (through January 2015) for claims filed in 2014 — Although decision counts are available for 2014 filers from many of the source files, those counts do not translate directly into the claims/appeals counts in the following tables because we consolidate multiple transactions and apply claims-based tolerance rules when we build the research file.To prepare preliminary estimates of results through January 2015 for 2014 filers, we started from the latest available transaction data, such as the SSA-831 data, and took into account recent years’ experience of the relationship between corresponding earlier transaction data and the resulting claims/appeals data in completed research files. We estimate ODAR appeals activity from a file that tracks individual claimants, rather than individual claims, which has resulted in a slight undercount of ODAR individual claims. Recent revocation of the agency’s subsequent application (i.e., an application filed while an earlier claim is pending at a review level) policy should largely eliminate the disparity between the number of claims and claimants.While we believe that these methods are reasonable, we emphasize that the resulting estimates may not be completely reliable, especially because the estimates give results only through January 2015, whereas the final research files will reflect information through June 2015. Actual data for 2014 will replace these estimates in the 2016 Annual Report.
• Data for 2014 filers are preliminary estimates as of January 2015, and reflect larger numbers of claims still pending. January 2015 data on number of appeals may be too low because larger numbers of claimants are still within the period allowed for filing an appeal (i.e., larger numbers of recently denied claimants who have not yet filed an appeal may appeal before the time limit runs out).
Table V.C1.—Disabled Adult Claims: Disposition of Applications for SSI Disability Benefits by
Year of Filinga and Level of Decisionb
Selected summary case information by decision status: Numbers of cases
Table V.C2.—Disabled Child Claims: Disposition of Applications for SSI Disability Benefits by
Year of Filing a and Level of Decisionb
Selected summary case information by decision status: Numbers of cases Includes cases remanded to SSA from the Federal courts.
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