Consulting and Infrastructure Support

UMass Medical School's Disability Evaluation Services continually reviews its disability determination process to ensure high-quality, cost-effective, and timely decisions. Our ongoing training, routine quality assurance reviews, process measurements, and benchmarking result in a streamlined operation. In 2009, Disability Evaluation Services processed more than 40,000 disability applications for agencies in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Disability Evaluation Services offers its expertise and experience in the review process to agencies, organizations, and other disability units on a consulting basis.

Training
Disability Evaluation Services provides formal, structured, and ongoing training programs for our staff and agency clients. This enables reviewers to absorb, understand, and apply information to the disability determination process. Providing curriculum that supports achievement of core competencies, our clinical trainers work one-on-one with training program participants to encourage mastery of these skills.

Performance Measurement and Benchmarking
Based on performance measures and benchmarks established by the Social Security Administration for the state Disability Determination Services, Disability Evaluation Services conducts both regularly scheduled and random quality-assurance audits to maintain the integrity of the decision-making process, measure accuracy, and identify problem areas and trends. We also monitor our performance metrics in other key areas such as timeliness, productivity, and cost-effectiveness and compare the results to regional and national benchmarks, allowing us to make improvements wherever needed.

Process Review
Disability Evaluation Services staff members undergo frequent reviews to find areas that require improvement and identify additional training needs. We have also applied this process for other agencies. Disability Evaluation Services develops key performance indicators and uses detailed metrics to evaluate each functional unit within the agency and every step of our disability determination process, which leads to improved work methods, greater efficiency, and enhanced commitment to continuous improvement.