Electronic Bench Book
June 24, 2016
Office Affiliation: The Office of Audit
Audit Report Number: A-01-12-11217
Our objective was to assess the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review’s (ODAR) use of the electronic Bench Book (eBB) to process hearing decisions.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) provides Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income disability benefits to eligible individuals under Titles II and XVI of the Social Security Act.
In 2012, SSA piloted eBB in a limited number of sites and implemented it nationwide in 2014. The eBB is a voluntary Web-based application designed to assist users in documenting, analyzing, and making consistent and accurate decisions on hearing-level adult disability cases. It was also designed to reduce claim processing time, increase cost efficiency, and provide a more modern infrastructure. The eBB pulls data from other Agency applications, such as case documents and bookmarks from SSA’s electronic disability folder, and certain data from SSA’s appeals system. To achieve our objective, we interviewed administrative law judges and ODAR staff as well as staff responsible for developing and enhancing eBB. We also attended a demonstration of eBB.