Cerner, Social Security Administration join forces to improve disability insurance claims process
Cerner announced a new agreement with the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA), designed to help simplify patient disability benefits claims through secure, clinical electronic health record (EHR) retrieval from health systems.
The arrangement is intended to speed the transfer of relevant, patient-directed medical records from the health system to the SSA, with the goal of cutting transfer times from weeks or months to seconds or minutes.
Currently, most of the 15 million medical records SSA receives annually are in the form of faxed or mailed scanned images. It can be a burdensome process and a frequent source of delay in the disability determination process.
“Cerner is proud to help the federal government better support those in need by getting them the benefits they are entitled to more quickly and efficiently,” Sam Lambson, vice president of interoperability at Cerner, said in a prepared statement.
“SSA’s work with Cerner will help streamline the process and is an important example of how systems that connect to each other can help improve our health and quality of life,” he added.
In addition to easing administrative burdens, reducing costs and labor, and eliminating the mailing of paper records, automating data will also:
- Reduce uncompensated care since faster disability determinations may result in patients having quicker access to Medicare and Medicaid benefits.
- Automate payments from SSA.
- Improve patient satisfaction.
In the statement, Cerner said that it will launch a pilot program with three of its clients a few months down the road and it will expand the offering to additional clients who want to participate.