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SSA Online: http://www.ssa.gov/ I. Getting Started SSA Online, http://www.ssa.gov/, is the Social Security Administration on the Internet. Unfortunately, the documents and authority at SSA Online are not uniformly reliable. Fortunately, SSA Online will become more and more useful over time. The site map http://www.ssa.gov/sitemap.htm, is the best guide to resources at SSA Online. II. Legal Authority The Social Security Act (Act) is at SSA Online at http://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/ssact/comp-ssa.htm. This is probably the best place to read the Act. Even though SSA Online has a search feature, http://www.ssa.gov/search/index.htm, SSA Online is not the best place to search the Act. To search the Act, commercial electronic (primarily CD-ROM) products are superior. In early 1999, SSA Online markedly improved its regulation database. SSA Online apparently will now correlate the regulations at its web site with the annual C.F.R. volumes. See http://www.ssa.gov/regulations/index.htm#rules. Proposed rules are at http://www.ssa.gov/regulations/proposed_rules.htm. SSA Online's compilation of final and proposed regulations should not be considered authoritative. SSA Online had not yet established itself as timely or exhaustive. The best sources for the annual C.F.R.s are Cornell, see http://www4.law.cornell.edu/cfr/20cfr.htm#start, and the National Archives and Records Administration, http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/. For recent proposed and final regulations, the Federal Register must be searched. See http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aces140.html. (The Federal Register online is as useful for recent documents as any fee-based product.) For general searches of the regulations, SSA Online is not competitive with commercial CD-ROM products because it is not as efficient and precise as those products. It is inefficient to use SSA Online to review regulations. Almost all Social Security Rulings and Acquiescence Rulings are at http://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/rulings/rulfind1.html. SSA Online is in fact a primary source for rulings. (Courts will give Westlaw S.S.A. database citations for rulings.) For searching rulings, again fee-based products are preferred. SSA Online does not reliably make available new rulings in a timely fashion. III. Forms, Program Publications, and Office Locator SSA Online has only several forms such as Appointment of Representative and Request for Hearing by Administrative Law Judge. See http://www.ssa.gov/online/forms.html . At the forms page, download the forms desired to a local storage device. In this way you will not be dependent on the Internet to print forms at a later time. The forms are available in PDF format and/or Postscript format. The Social Security Handbook (13th ed. 1997) (or a later edition), is at http://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/handbook/ssa-hbk.htm. The Handbook is non-technical and readable. Instead of reading it online, download it to a local storage device. Peter Young explains how to do this at http://www.ssas.com/handbook.htm. No district office rivals SSA Online's collection of brochures about SSA programs. See http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/. Available in multiple formats, the brochures can be reproduced for your own use. The Office Locator, https://s3abaca.ssa.gov/pro/fol/fol-home.html, does not have current data for many local offices. SSA's 800 number appears to have current information. SSA Online also has separate pages for its ten regional offices. See http://www.ssa.gov/regions/regional.html. The information there is generally superficial, but for each region there should be at least one nugget warranting a visit. IV. SSA Online as a Source of News Unlike SSAS Connect, http://www.ssas.com/connect/, SSA Online content does not change daily. SSA Online's home page, http://www.ssa.gov/, and the page from the Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics, http://www.ssa.gov/statistics/ores_home.html, are updated weekly or biweekly. Every month there is (naturally) a new Monthly Information Package. See http://www.ssa.gov/mip/mip.html. At longer intervals or infrequently, there are new press releases, http://www.ssa.gov/press/press_releases.html; announcements from the Office of Disability, http://www.ssa.gov/odhome/odhome.htm, Office of the Inspector General, http://www.ssa.gov/oig/whatsnew.htm, and Office of Hearings and Appeals, http://www.ssa.gov/oha/index.htm; and new publications, http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/pubs_whatsnew.htm. Representatives should periodically review the main pages of SSA Online to learn what is new and improved. There is no single page on SSA Online that chronicles changes in SSA Online. V. POMS and HALLEX The POMS, http://www.ssa.gov/sspcd.htm, and the HALLEX, http://www.ntis.gov/fcpc/cpn5064.htm are not on SSA Online.
Last Updated May 1, 1999 |
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Eric Schnaufer, Attorney at Law, Eric Schnaufer's e-mail address |