The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE), which is composed of the disability examiners who make determinations on Social Security disability claims at the initial and reconsideration stages, predicts exactly that, in its Spring Newsletter. According to NADE, SSA is facing a funding cut of 9% in FY 2012. Amost 3000 DDS examiners have lost their jobs since FY 2010.
Why should we care?
Because the loss of each DDS examiner equates to a loss of work on 600 claims. That means that each of those claims will move more slowly through the process.
At the same time, the budget for continuing disability reviews (CDR) – when current benefit recipients get told that they have to prove they are still disabled or risk losing benefits – is slated to receive significant budget increases.
Does it make sense that Congress has conferred great increases in the number of CDRs at a time when the agency is not being given enough funds to review new disability claims?