The Social Security Act requires us to review at least half of all favorable disability
determinations in initial claims for benefits made by State disability determination
services (DDS) before we take any action to effectuate the determination.
The Office of Quality Review (OQR) conducts this preeffectuation review, as well as
ongoing quality assurance reviews, to ensure the accuracy of the determination. These
reviews also protect the integrity of the disability programs by preventing erroneous
payments.
As part of these reviews, OQR may find a documentation or decisional error on an uneffectuated
allowance determination that results in a denial determination. Sometimes, the field
office (FO) improperly effectuates the allowance determination.
NOTE: Effective August 23, 2014, we added a system fix to prevent the FO from effectuating
initial and reconsideration allowance determinations in the electronic folder if the
case is pending in OQR. This safeguard will remain in place until we input a final
disability determination into the disability system.