Improving Access to Clinical Trials Act

NDP · Joined: 12 Feb 2008 Posts: 10

I'm working on an SDM case right now in federal court. I ran across this thread:

http://ssaconnect.com/component/option,com_forum/Itemid,2/page,viewtopic/t,6725/highlight,sdm

That EM is no longer available on the web. Does that mean it is no longer effective? Has it been updated?

-NDP

MikeWalters · Joined: 13 May 2004 Posts: 1315 Location: Cincinnati OH

Not having the EM to review, I suppose the answer would depend on what language from the old EM you are looking for. Based on what you linked, the gist of the EM was to make sure that SSA-4734's clearly indicated that they were signed by an SDM. That policy is now incorporated in POMS. For example:

Olan Barnes · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 1648 Location: Michigan

As someone who was an SDM it is very confusing as it was part of the Redesign and a test in the Prototype first introduced in all of or parts of 10 states and there it stands - and even now Recons are being re-introduced to those states - an new example is Michigan. I said back in the day that a system could not long endure where part of the country was adjudicated one way and part another way.

JOA · Joined: 13 May 2004 Posts: 2021

Emergency messages have a limited shelf life. They all come with a "retention date," just like the milk at your local grocery store. Skimming through the list of currently published EMs will show you that the pull date for EMs tends to be in the relatively near future:

http://tinyurl.com/5b3vn3

The headpost for this thread links to a prior thread about an EM that addressed SDM issues. That prior thread ran through 7/11/08. The EM at issue, first published 7/8/08, went to a revised version on 7/18/08. I'm not seeing that the revisions were all that significant. The revised version had a pull date for 12/31/08. So on 1/9/09 SSA's PolicyNet people archived it.

Archived instructions are not published at ssa.gov. They are, however, available to insiders. IMHO the central teaching for both the original and revised versions of the EM in question was this fairly obvious statement:

MikeWalters · Joined: 13 May 2004 Posts: 1315 Location: Cincinnati OH

This post has nothing to do with the original issue of the thread, but it does relate to the subject of EMs. At the moment there are two "draft" EMs linked on the SSA policy website having to do with letters being sent to Extra Help applicants who were previously denied, notifying them of the changes in the Low Income Subsidy law that became effective this month. The two draft EMs appear to be duplicates, but I can't say I did a line-by-line comparison. In the few minutes since I noticed the draft EMs, one of the duplicates disappeared and then was put back up again. By the time you click on the link below, one or both may be gone, or the drafts may be replaced by the final version.

There isn't anything of great interest here (although any project that involves sending 2.5 million letters will undoubtedly be of great interest to field office employees because of the calls). I just wonder whether draft EMs are supposed to be put up on the public website before they are finalized, or whether instead somebody screwed up.

http://tinyurl.com/35y64r