IX. Summary of Hearings Process Improvement Goals

SSA is committed to a customer-focused hearings process that is more timely and efficient. To that end, SSA is implementing a hearings process improvement (HPI) plan to further improve service to the hundreds of thousands of individuals who, each year, request hearings at our Office of Hearings and Appeals.

The HPI plan differs from the traditional approach of committing additional resources to the hearings process. It relies on innovative management in an effort to achieve dramatic improvement. The strategy for improving the hearing process incorporates three major inter-related change initiatives that address the main impediments to a more efficient process. They are:

• Process Improvements--Includes implementation of a national workflow model, processing time benchmarks and expanded use of pre-hearing conferences.

• Group-Based Accountability--Hearing Offices will be organized into self-contained processing groups under a group supervisor, each group responsible for processing the case through the entire hearings process.

• Automation and Data Collection--includes enhanced management information and processing tools.

It is our intent that, when fully implemented, HPI will reduce processing times from 316 days in FY 1999 to fewer than 200 days in FY 2002.

The HPI will also increase productivity per workyear (PPWY) in the hearings process by 16 percent by FY 2002 over what the current process would produce. The HPI is an integral part of SSA's overall plan for improving the management of the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income disability programs. That plan is described in Section VIII of this APP.

The following table presents a holistic view, which cuts across all relevant strategic objectives, of the Agency's performance goals related to improving the hearings process. Also displayed are the milestone events which represent key remedial steps during the period FY 2000 - FY 2001. The means and strategies for achieving these performance goals are discussed under the relevant strategic objectives in Section V.

Milestones: