Electronic Records Express (ERE) Third Parties

Justification for Non-Substantive Changes for Electronic Records Express (ERE) Third Parties

20 CFR sections 404.1700 - 404.1710 and 416.1500 - 416.1510

OMB No. 0960-0767

Justification for Non-Substantive Changes to the Collection or Resubmission of the Collection within One Year of OMB Approval

Background:

In 2009, SSA obtained OMB approval for changes to Electronic Records Express (ERE), an electronic platform developed in 2007 under the auspices of the E-Government Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-347) and the Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA; Pub. L.105-277). These changes allowed us to provide online copies of documents contained in disability claimants' disability files to the claimant's third party representative. Third party representatives can obtain the same information from SSA as the disability claimant. In 2009, we limited online access to documents and did not provide access to the audio files of disability hearings that are also stored in the disability file. We were unsure of the numbers of users, the pattern of download requests, and the ability of our infrastructure to provide larger audio files downloads in addition to the documents. Now that the online process for documents has been stable and we have more experience with the amount of downloads requested, we are ready to add the ability to download audio files in addition to documents.

Change:

Currently, third party representatives must request SSA to send a CD copy of the audio files from the disability hearing contained in the disability applicant’s file, which can be time-consuming. However, in this change request we are adding new functionality to ERE. Specifically, this functionality will allow third-party representatives to request a download of the audio files from their clients’ disability files online through ERE. We are adding a tab to an existing screen where the representatives select documents to download. When the third party representative selects the new Multimedia Files tab, he or she can download any available audio files by making selections on the screen. This tab will only be available if the disability file contains audio recordings. This expansion of scope will allow representatives to avoid manually requesting a CD of the audio file(s) and provide quicker response times. We expect to provide this functionality in August 2012.

We approved this software change for implementation in fiscal year (FY) 2012. The next full clearance occurs FY 2013.