Indiana Disability Determination Bureau
Organization and Staffing
The Disability Determination Bureau (DDB) is a bureau within the Division of Disability and Rehabilitation Services (DDRS) of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA). DDB employs a staff of approximately 300 state employees; 30 Contract Medical Doctors (MDs) and Psychiatric Consultants (PhDs), three Contract Speech and Language Pathologists (SLPs).
DDB has an administrative staff that includes the deputy director and three division directors. DDB’s staff includes one state agency physician; approximately 150 case processing adjudicators; eight disability hearings officer’s; five program specialists, one vocational specialist and approximately 25 other support adjudicators. Five regional supervisors, 30 supervisors and 20 adjudication lead workers provide direction and support to case processing, training, program advice, quality reviews, and professional relations.
Types of Services
DDB performs the medical adjudication of Social Security Disability claims. No other services are provided.
Funding and Dollars Spent
The DDB is 100% federally funded through the Social Security Administration. The DDB operates on a federal fiscal year that runs from October 1st through September 30th of each year. DDB’s Administrative Budget for federal fiscal year 2008 was $39,967,195. For federal fiscal year 2009 DDB has a projected administrative budget of approximately $41,483,242. All funding is to support DDB’s operation. There is no funding for claimant benefits included in this funding.
DDB Accomplishments During Federal Fiscal Year 2008
The Indiana DDB led the entire nation in Productivity Per Work Year (PPWY) for the first 51 weeks of FY2008 and ended the fiscal year in 2nd place with a PPWY of 321.3, just 0.4 a case behind the Minnesota DDS which we assisted throughout the fiscal year. Again this was the 2nd highest PPWY in the entire nation, after leading the nation for 4 years a row.
For Fiscal Year 2008 the Indiana DDB had the 4th lowest processing time in the Chicago Region for Title 2 claims (80.9 days); and 3rd lowest for Title 16 claims (84.3 days).
DDB was able to meet or exceed all federal goals for productivity, processing time and case accuracy while maintaining our Mean Processing Time (MPT) at the post-IDA Certification 8-day reduction level achieved in FY2006.
DDB again met its Initial Pending Goal, having 12,580 Initial claims pending at the end of the fiscal year. DDB assisted the Indiana Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) offices by processing Informal Remands of “aged” ODAR hearing cases. DDB’s Psych Consultants assisted the Minnesota and Illinois DDSs with medical ratings of their cases for most of FY2008. This assistance enabled Minnesota to eliminate significant backlogs and meet their Initial Pending Goal, while “edging us out” by 0.4 a case in PPWY, placing us in 2nd place for the highest PPWY.
All of DDB’s Medical/Psych/SLP Consultant staff maintained both the lowest number of cases pending for medical review; and consistently 100% of all cases were within the Tier 1 (7 to 14-day) aging category of the Chicago Region Report of State Medical Consultant (MC) Queues. DDB was the only state in our region to achieve this performance.
Employees in DDB’s Intake, Systems, and Professional Relations Departments responded to various systems and process changes to provide support to Operations in case production; manage a fiscal process; and promote providers’ electronic submission of claimants’ Medical Evidence Required (MER) and Consultative Examination (CE) medical records through one of the Electronic Records Express (ERE) options (other than “scanning”). DDB Accomplishments During Federal Fiscal Year 2009
In May 2009 the Indiana DDB will receive its 4th Social Security Administration Commissioner’s Citation in 5 years, based on our outstanding performance amidst the tremendous challenges we faced with increasing workloads and high attrition among our examiner staff. The citation will read: For exemplary performance in accuracy, timeliness, and productivity in providing exceptional service to the disabled citizens of Indiana.
