The Social Security Administration (SSA) www.ssa.gov has released their new “Open Government Plan 4.0” with information on disability determinations, customer engagement tools, data exchanges, the analytics center, and how health IT has helped the agency to provide disability determinations at a faster rate.
Each year, SSA makes about three million initial disability claim determinations. It is expected that more than eight percent of initial claims will contain health IT medical evidence. SSA expects the volume and percentage of initial disability cases with health IT to increase as the agency continues outreach efforts.
According to the report, the time it takes the SSA to complete a disability claim decreases as the number of treating sources using health IT increases. As of July 2016, SSA has partnerships with various medical networks and providers in 49 states and the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico. So far, 7,569 providers are using health IT within 54 organizations.
In 2016, SSA completed a national rollout with the Department of Defense www.defense.gov on the eHealth Exchange http://sequoiaproject.org/ehealth-exchange. The eHealth Exchange is a community of partners who share information under a common trust framework and a common set of rules.
As of March 2016, the eHealth Exchange has more than 110 participants sharing health data for more than 100 million patients. Participants include four Federal agencies, approximately 50 percent of our country’s hospitals, 26,000 medical groups, 3,400 dialysis centers, and 8,300 pharmacies.
SSA plans to continue outreach efforts in FY 2017 and 2018 to include adding additional providers and the VA www.va.gov. In addition, SSA will collaborate with the HHS Office of the National Coordinator’s Federal Health Architecture Boards. www.healthit.gov. SSA also plans to participate on government-wide health IT policy and standards setting advisory panels, workgroups, and task forces.
Go to www.ssa.gov/openstory-2016-open-government-plan4.html#healthit for information on the SSAs “Open Government Plan 4.0. Go to www.ssa.gov/disabilityssi/hit for more information on SSAs health IT initiatives.