Today’s Portland Oregonian reports that despite an infusion of $148 million and attention at the highest levels, the Social Security Administration has made little progress reducing an enormous backlog of disability claims for the nation’s sickest and most vulnerable people, a House subcommittee heard Tuesday.

The hearing into the agency’s record came amid rising criticism for the bulky and overloaded system that often forces aged, blind and disabled Americans to wait three years or more to learn if they qualify for disability payments that average $492 a month. See Oregonian story here:

Together Rx Access, a multicompany collaborative patient assistance program that provides discounts on prescription drugs for people without health insurance, has widened its eligibility criteria so that 90 percent of uninsured Americans will qualify.

As the number of uninsured Americans has risen in the past decade, so has the number of people living with HIV who do not have access to affordable treatment—including those who do not qualify for Medicaid or AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAP). For these individuals, there are company-led patient assistance programs. But income limits for these programs resulted in many people falling through the cracks.

The Together Rx Access program, which provides savings on prescription medications—including, but not limited to antiretroviral treatments—reports it has increased its income limits. Cooperating companies that make HIV medications include Abbott, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Tibotec. Now, a single person making up to $45,000 per year qualifies for the program, up from $30,000 per year. For a family of two, the limit has increased from $40,000 to $60,000. For a family of three, the limit has increased from $50,000 to $75,000.

People interested in applying for the program can call 1-800-966-0407 or visit TogetherRxAccess.com.

Social Security has apparently been using the records exchange protocols described in this article for over a year. The program can receive electronic records frommedical providers – unquestionably this has been a huge bottleneck. Our offices can wait months for records after they are requested, so any inprovements along this line are welcome.

Fox News reports: The Social Security Administration (SSA) today announced a first-of-a-kind electronic records exchange system to help speed the process of granting disability benefits for millions of Americans. Through the use of new software and services, the SSA shaved the amount of time to process requests for medical records needed to evaluate disability benefits from months to minutes.

The project, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Nationwide Health Information Network began just 14 months ago and represents the first health information exchange between a regional health information organization and a U.S. federal agency. The new system uses IBM’s not only reduces processing times, but hopes to also improve claims accuracy and reduce costs. See full story here:

The idea of furloughing state employees to balance budgets is spreading. This could spell disaster for the states’ Disability Determinations Services offices — these are the offices in each state where initial and reconsideration decisions are made on Social Security disability and SSI disability claims. Let’s hear what the Commissioner of SOcial Security thinks about this:

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, in a letter today to Governor Edward G. Rendell, Chair of the National Governors Association, urged states to exempt their Disability Determination Services (DDSs) from hiring restrictions and furloughs. The DDSs are state agencies that make medical determinations for Social Security and Supplemental Security Income disability claims.

“I am compelled to write to you to express my grave concern over the hiring restrictions and furloughs that some states are employing,” Commissioner Astrue said. “Each month, SSA provides over $11 billion in Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income benefits to more than 12.1 million citizens across the nation. We could not provide these vital benefits to some of the most vulnerable people in our society without the DDSs’ work.”

Social Security funds 100 percent of DDS employees’ salaries as well as overhead — about $2 billion nationwide this year. These funds cannot be used by the states for any other purpose, so states do not save money by cutting employees in DDSs – they only slow getting benefits to the disabled. Nevertheless, many governors are imposing across-the-board hiring freezes or furloughs that also affect DDS employees.

States receive significant benefits from the operation of the DDSs. The faster SSA approves claims for benefits, the sooner many disability applicants move from state to federal support. In addition, the salaries for DDS employees funded by SSA reduce unemployment levels in the states.

Today’s Oregonian reports a frightening prospect – the state’s governor is proposing furloughs for all state workers to try to balance the budget – including DDS personnel. Just as they start to make a dent in the hearing office backlogs, this would move the bottleneck back one step to the office that makes intermediate determinations of disability.

The Oregonian says: Social Security officials say Oregon’s proposal to furlough state workers who handle the agency’s disability applications will bog down an already slow claims process, harm sick and injured people and provide no savings to Oregonians.

In a letter to Gov. Ted Kulongoski this week, the Social Security Administration’s regional commissioner, Donald Schoening, urged the governor to exempt Oregon’s 192 Disability Determination Services employees from proposed furloughs. Schoening pointed out that Social Security pays the salaries and overhead — more than $25 million a year — for those state workers.

“Furloughing Oregon DDS employees will not reduce state expenditures,” Schoening wrote. “It will, instead, reduce federal monies paid to the state and delay payments to disabled citizens who rely on the monthly benefits to meet their living expenses. These outcomes are directly opposed to your goals.” See article here:

US News and World Report says that almost half of half (48 percent) of the baby boomers surveyed in 2007 planned to collect Social Security after age 62. Thiose plans were altered by the economy and also unexpected disabilities.

Since 2007, the majority of these survey respondents (80 percent) have not changed their plans. However, 17 percent indicated that they will now collect Social Security benefits later than originally planned, many because they are still working. Only 3 percent of the baby boomers indicated they would collect Social Security benefits earlier than originally planned. Top reasons include a disability (28 percent), health reasons (18 percent), and because they want to (8 percent). See story here:

Technology can sometimes make the eyes glaze over, but this piece of news should wake us all up. Social Security has finally received funds to update its antiquated computer systems – these systems were least part of the cause of the elephantine backlogs that have plagued us for so long. We’ve noticed different systems for every stop of the process – for example, the bar codes used by the state disability offices are different from the ones used by the hearing offices to sort evidence. Too many fingers in too many pots. Here is an update from the Daily Tech report:

The U.S. government is rarely accused of being a speedy and efficient organization. The hoards of different governmental agencies are often using technology that would have been retired years ago if it was being used in a commercial organization.

Still many U.S. agencies stumble along on antiquated systems that make Americans wait simply because of the inefficiencies inherit in the many systems. One of the most backlogged and important administrations in America, the Social Security Administration (SSA), is looking to spend millions in stimulus funds to build a better IT system and significantly improve its efficiency.

The SSA now has $1 billion in federal stimulus funds that it plans to use 3/4 of to implement a new data center with a goal of reducing the massive backlog of disability claims and improve overall efficiency. The $750 million data center will be used to store the world’s largest repository of digital medical records. The massive repository is expected to grow significantly in the coming years as the baby boomer generation retires and e-health records become standardized. See entire article here:

Today’s Los Angeles Times notes that “Barack Obama makes no small plans.

Until last week, there was still skepticism in Washington that the president really meant to tackle all of his big domestic goals at the same time: healthcare reform, alternative energy, education projects, plus a tax hike on the well-off to pay for it all. Congress isn’t used to bickering about that many thorny issues at once.

But Obama’s budget proposal Thursday made it clear that he expects action on all of his priorities this year — beginning with health insurance, which has been on the wish list of every Democratic president since Harry Truman.

Obama’s innovation was outlining how he would pay for his health plan before he had fully formulated the plan itself. Earlier presidents were always a bit vague on the funding question. Obama proposed at the outset to increase taxes on high-income earners by cutting their deductions for such items as state taxes, mortgage interest and charitable deductions.” Check out LA Times Editorial Here: