Contractor’s Market Research and Analysis for the Disability Case Processing System (Congressional Response Report)
Office Affiliation: The Office of Audit
Audit Report Number: A-14-18-50506
Our objective was to evaluate the market research and analysis a contractor conducted for the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Disability Case Processing System (DCPS).
SSA partners with State disability determination services (DDS) to evaluate disability claims and make disability determinations. The DDSs use various customized systems to process disability cases.
SSA is developing DCPS to provide DDSs a common system to simplify system support and maintenance, improve the speed and quality of the disability process, and reduce the overall growth rate of infrastructure costs.
SSA decided to suspend development of DCPS in May 2015 and, over the last 2 years, has been developing a new custom-built solution, DCPS2.
In April 2017, SSA hired a contractor to conduct market research and analyze options that could fulfill the Agency’s requirements. The contractor evaluated three alternatives: SSA’s custom-built DCPS2; a commercial off-the-shelf case management system; and a modernized version of the vendor-owned existing systems used by the majority of DDSs. The contractor delivered its final report to SSA on July 31, 2017.