Former Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul has only been gone from the agency a number of days, but Social Security is already moving in the direction of removing initiatives the agency worked on under Saul’s leadership.
Social Security published a notice in the Federal Register that it would be withdrawing a proposed rule that would have mandated increasing the number of Continuing Disability Reviews (CDRs) the agency conducts. A CDR is conducted by Social Security on a disabled Social Security beneficiary after a certain amount of time, anywhere from 18 months to five years, to determine if the beneficiary is still disabled and entitled to benefits. If the agency were to increase the number of CDRs, as the proposed rule suggests, it would result in many more people being kicked off disability benefits. It is now likely that Social Security will begin to pull back on initiatives set by Saul as this is a good indication of what we might see for the future of Social Security. Below is a description of the initial proposed rule change and the action taken by Social Security to withdraw the proposed rule.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
On November 18, 2019, we proposed to revise our regulations regarding when and how often we conduct continuing disability reviews (CDR), which are periodic reviews of eligibility required for benefit continuation. The proposed rules would have added a category to the existing medical diary categories that we use to schedule CDRs, and would have revised the criteria for assigning each of the medical diary categories to cases. The proposed rules would also have changed the frequency with which we perform a CDR for claims involving permanent impairments.
In this proposed rule, we provided a 60-day comment period, which we extended for 15 days, concluding on January 31, 2020. We received 125,552 comments during the comment cycle. The total comment count reflects electronic submissions through the eRulemaking portals at the Office of the Federal Register and Regulations.gov, as well as emailed, mailed, and faxed comments. We did not make 181 comments available. These 181 comments were submitted after the comment period closed; included personally identifiable information or profanity; were unrelated to the rulemaking subject matter; or were submitted by individuals commenting in their capacity as Social Security Administration (SSA) employees.
The Office of Management and Budget conducted 11 listening sessions under the authority of Executive Order (E.O.) 12866 during December 2020 and January 2021 for interested stakeholders, many of whom also provided thoughtful and relevant comments during the NPRM comment period. We appreciate all the commenters who provided thoughtful feedback on their analysis of, and concerns about, the proposed rule.
Withdrawal of the Proposed Rule
After considering the submitted comments and further feedback provided in the listening sessions, we are withdrawing the proposed rule, Rules Regarding the Frequency and Notice of Continuing Disability Reviews (84 FR 63588, November 18, 2019) (RIN 0960-AI27). We noted our intent to withdraw the proposed rule in our Spring 2021 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.
