The Social Security Administration (SSA) one of the largest disability insurers in the world requests 15 million medical records annually from 500,000 providers to make decisions on over 3 million disability claims. To view the medical records, SSA uses the eHealth Exchange to obtain information from health information exchanges and healthcare organizations and expects to expand.
Since this fall, SSA has partnered with 20 participants on the exchange covering over 1,500 healthcare facilities. Now that providers are able to use the exchange to send and obtain medical records, SSA is able to move quickly to make disability decisions and start the flow of cash benefits and health insurance to the disabled.
Organizations partnering with SSA over the exchange are able to see savings in health information management labor costs. In large number of states, claimants approved by SSA for disability under the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program are able to gain immediate coverage under the states’ Medicaid programs. In some instances, this coverage can lead to retroactive payments for healthcare treatments received.
SSA also pays a fee for each successful payable transaction to the exchange participant that supplies the medical information. SSA makes batched payments periodically using electronic funds transfer thereby reducing the providers operational overhead to voucher and reconcile individual payments.
For more information, go to www.ssa.gov.hit/contact.html.