Evaluation of the Ticket to Work Program, Implementation ...

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122quarterly basis if they have received at least three consecutive payments (one must be anoutcome payment) for a given beneficiary.To use COPP, an EN prepares a request for payment on business stationery and sends itto the Program Manager. The request must include a statement agreeing to relinquishincorrectly issued EN outcome payments; earnings documentation, however, is not required.The requests are processed immediately after SSA receives them. If the paperwork is in orderand no other problems surface, the payment can be made in as little as two weeks. As ofAugust 2004, 11 payments had been made under this process. 7 Program Manager staffsuggested that the small number of payments probably reflects both the small number ofbeneficiaries and ENs that currently qualify for outcome payments. Some ENs may notwant to take the risk of being paid for a beneficiary who has stopped working and then berequired to pay SSA the resulting overpayment. SSA will make payments based on the newsystem, provided that no information in the agency’s records contradicts the request. SSA willconduct post payment validation reviews to verify work or earnings.Although the EN payment process is automated, certain management information muststill be entered manually, including the number of EN payments made, payments by states,payments by EN, payments by type (milestone or outcome), and the trust fund from whichpayments are made. In certain cases, EN payments must be made manually because of thesystems errors related to Ticket terminations noted previously. Staff estimate that 16 typesof errors necessitate a manual payment, resulting in up to 70 beneficiaries each month forwhom EN payments must be made manually. These payments represent an average 23percent of all payments in months in which manual payments were made and a high of 30percent in some months.EN staff expressed frustration with both the documentation required for beneficiaryearnings and the delay in receiving payments. ENs reported that the process of obtainingearnings documentation from beneficiaries is extremely time-consuming; they are baffled bythe laborious process of continuously collecting earnings evidence from beneficiaries. 8In addition, Program Manager staff reported that some ENs operating under themilestone-outcome system are confused about the standard for receiving milestone versusoutcome payments. Milestone payments cannot be made after the first month in whichbenefits are not payable due to earnings. This means that if the EN successfully helps a Ticketholder earn enough to leave the benefit rolls before the third milestone payment is made, itimmediately receives only the much smaller outcome payments. The milestone payment the ENwould have received is included in subsequent outcome payments but spread over the period of7 As of July 2004, about 65 ENs had been paid at least three outcome payments on behalf ofapproximately 220 beneficiaries; these ENs could have used COPP, at least in theory. Although not all ofthese beneficiaries may still be generating payments, we conclude that the number of payments made under theCOPP system is relatively small.8 For related information, see Chapter V.VII: Recent Program Implementation
time in which outcome payments would be paid. 9 In effect, ENs are penalized for movingbeneficiaries off the rolls too quickly. ENs may believe that they are entitled to a second or thirdmilestone payment totaling several hundred dollars when, in fact, the beneficiary has worked atthe SGA level in earlier months, in which case ENs are therefore entitled only to a monthlyoutcome payment that is much smaller than the milestone payment they had been expecting.EN representatives we interviewed became frustrated when they received only the smallerpayment amount.123I. TIMELY PROGRESSThe Ticket Act requires a series of reviews, beginning two years after a Ticket isassigned, to determine whether TTW participants are making “timely progress” toward selfsupportingemployment, which is defined as working at levels that will reduce or eliminatedependence on DI or SSI benefits. So long as beneficiaries are determined to be making timelyprogress, their assigned Tickets are considered in use and they are exempt from disabilityCDRs. The purpose of the review process is threefold: (1) to determine whether thebeneficiary is “actively participating” in his/her IWP; (2) to examine whether a goal in the IWPis to work at least three months at the SGA level by the time of the second review; and (3) toassess whether the beneficiary can reasonably be expected to reach that goal. The ProgramManager sends a notice to each EN (including SVRAs) that has held beneficiaries’ Ticketsfor 24 months and requests answers to the following questions:• Has the beneficiary been participating in his/her IWP?• Has the beneficiary been working 3 out of the past 12 months?• Does the EN foresee the beneficiary fulfilling the requirements of the IWP?If there is no response from the EN, the Program Manager will assume that the answersto the above questions are “yes,” and no further action will be taken. If the response is “no”to any one of the three questions, the Program Manager unassigns the Ticket, and thebeneficiary becomes subject to a CDR.The Ticket Act requires the first review to take place 24 months after each Ticket isassigned and annually thereafter. Because the first Tickets were assigned in March 2002, thefirst review was scheduled to begin in March 2004, but it did not occur. At the time of ourinterview in September 2004, SSA and the Program Manager were in the final phases of theplanning process to initiate the first review. The Program Manager is currently awaiting9 While the EN gives up milestone payments if the beneficiary leaves the rolls before the milestones arepayable, the outcome payments under the milestone system fully offset (in nominal terms) the nonpayment ofthe milestones. The outcome payments are larger by 1/60 of the milestone amounts not paid. The differencein these larger amounts is spread over all 60 outcome months. What the EN loses is the immediate paymentof these amounts. The total amount received will be less only if the EN does not get all 60 outcomepayments. The total value of the payments will be less due to discounting and added risk.VII: Recent Program Implementation
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A CKNOWLEDGMENTSThe Ticket To Work
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viiiChapterVI(CONTINUED)PageF. SUMM
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xChapterPageAPPENDIX A: TICKET TO W
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xiiTableVIII.3IX.1IX.2IX.3IX.4IX.5I
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xivFigureIII.5III.6III.7III.8III.9P
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xviIX.3EARNINGS OF BENEFICIARIES WI
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xviiiMIENBSNPRMOAGPABSSPSUSGASSASSI
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xxIn Phase 3, which began in Novemb
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xxiigroups of beneficiaries that Co
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xxivimprove TTW, therefore, is to f
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2of disability beneficiaries, and i
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4country. Phase 2 began in November
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Page Is Intentionally Left Blank to
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8Only a few beneficiary characteris
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10Figure II.2.Participation Rate, b
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12Figure II.4.First Assignments at
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14before Ticket, it is perhaps surp
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16was selected for Phase 3. This ma
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18All of the statistics in this sec
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Table II.2. Beneficiary Groups with
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22In all Phase 1 and Phase 2 states
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24Figure II.8. Ticket Participation
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26Adjustments for all other charact
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28In general, provider and payment
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30next report, we will conduct more
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32Figure III.2.Living Arrangements
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34• Less likely to have reported
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36Figure III.7.Prevalence of Diffic
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38are more likely than all benefici
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40Table III.1.Income and Program Pa
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42coverage through their own employ
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44sizable percentage of TTW partici
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46Overall, 9 percent of working-age
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48leave the rolls in the next year,
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50next year and in the next five ye
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52in their characteristics, levels
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54percentage points to 3.7 percent.
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56Figure IV.2. Phase 1 Ticket Recip
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58situation described in the preced
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60the end of the follow-up period w
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62Figure IV.6. Average Monthly Bene
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66ENs were reluctant to expand serv
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68As of July 2004, there were about
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70But most EN representatives saw T
Page 96 and 97: 72Figure V.2. Number of EN Terminat
Page 98 and 99: 74received a total of just about $2
Page 100 and 101: 76Relatively few ENs have received
Page 102 and 103: 78According to their representative
Page 104 and 105: 80Five EN officials recognized that
Page 106 and 107: 82This was particularly true for so
Page 108 and 109: 84• Another EN representative fou
Page 110 and 111: 86• A third EN received 50 calls
Page 112 and 113: 88resolve administrative issues suc
Page 114 and 115: 90• Raise payments for SSI benefi
Page 116 and 117: 92Finally, the real and perceived w
Page 118 and 119: 94efforts to obtain Ticket assignme
Page 120 and 121: 96SSA payments to SVRAs under the T
Page 122 and 123: 98Figure VI.3. Total SSA Payments t
Page 124 and 125: 100assigning their Tickets to ENs (
Page 126 and 127: 102Table VI.1. SVRA Ticket Assignme
Page 128 and 129: 104case, the counselor selects the
Page 130 and 131: 106• Most of the agreements requi
Page 132 and 133: 108needs of SSA beneficiaries and,
Page 134 and 135: 110to the SVRA under the traditiona
Page 136 and 137: 112Tickets each month from November
Page 138 and 139: 114about submitting virtually ident
Page 140 and 141: 116To make EN recruiting efforts mo
Page 142 and 143: 118E. EN ENROLLMENTThe Program Mana
Page 144 and 145: 120beneficiaries who have achieved
Page 148 and 149: 124SSA’s approval of systems spec
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Page 152 and 153: 128have accepted. But even at that
Page 154 and 155: 130For beneficiaries who express an
Page 156 and 157: 132rehabilitation counselors (Burea
Page 158 and 159: 134generated a payment to an EN gen
Page 160 and 161: 136the milestone-outcome payment ge
Page 162 and 163: 138system is used so infrequently t
Page 164 and 165: 140One option is for ENs to try to
Page 166 and 167: 142approximations. Our planned anal
Page 168 and 169: 144Figure IX.1. Ticket-Eligible Ben
Page 170 and 171: 146Table IX.2.TTW Participation Rat
Page 172 and 173: 148Figure IX.3. Earnings of Benefic
Page 174 and 175: 150Compared with other beneficiarie
Page 176 and 177: 152Like all other beneficiaries who
Page 178 and 179: This kind of mixed success in the e
Page 180 and 181: C. SVRA PARTICIPATION REMAINS STRON
Page 182 and 183: serving beneficiaries who are simil
Page 184 and 185: observe changes in their employment
Page 188 and 189: Mashaw, Jerry L., and Virginia P. R
Page 190 and 191: A-2Table A.1 (continued)Time Period
Page 194 and 195: Table B.1. DefinitionsB-2Variable D
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Table B.1 (continued)B-4Variable De
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Table B.1 (continued)Variable Defin
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B-8Table B.3. Participation Rate by
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B-10C. PARTICIPATION RATES BY BENEF
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Table B.6. Participation Rates by C
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Table B.6 (continued)Group Definiti
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Table B.6 (continued)B-16Group Defi
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C-2survey. Whenever possible, the i
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C-4given the large number of benefi
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C-6• Young SSI recipients who are
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C-8beneficiary may have had with EN
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C-10Table C.2. Overview of the Nati
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C-12Sample completes (n=1,178) and
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C.14Table C.3 (continued)AllIntervi
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C.16Table C.5. Final Weighted and U
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C.18Table C.7. Sociodemographic Cha
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C.20Table C.9. Health Status (Figur
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C.22Table C.11. Program Participati
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C.24Table C.14. Awareness of TTW (F
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C.26Table C.16. Employment Expectat
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D-2Table D.1. Selected Characterist
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D-4information from two pretest int
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