Overview
Disability Determination Services (DDS) are state agencies that make initial and reconsideration disability determinations for the Social Security Administration (SSA) under a contractual arrangement. Each U.S. state and territory has its own DDS. When a worker applies for Disability Insurance (DI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the application is forwarded from the local SSA field office to the DDS, where a team — typically a disability examiner paired with a medical consultant — evaluates the claim through the five-step SSA Sequential Determination Process. DDS examiners make determinations on behalf of SSA using federal medical and vocational standards; SSA retains formal authority but delegates the substantive evaluation.
Key Contributions / Features
- Initial determination: DDS makes the first allow/deny decision on all DI and SSI applications; denial at this stage can be appealed to a reconsideration (also at DDS), then to an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) hearing within SSA
- Medical-vocational evaluation: DDS examiners assess medical evidence (treating source records, consultative exams) against the Listing of Impairments (Step 3) and Residual Functional Capacity (Steps 4–5); they do not directly examine claimants
- Examiner-as-instrument: The quasi-random assignment of DDS examiners to cases is exploited as an instrument for DI receipt in Maestas, Mullen, and Strand (2013); examiner allowance-rate variation across otherwise similar cases identifies the causal work-disincentive effect (~28 pp LFP reduction) for marginal applicants. See Local Average Treatment Effect
- Regulation Basis Code: The SSA-831 administrative file records the specific regulatory basis (Regulation Basis Code) for each DDS allow/deny decision, enabling step-specific decompositions of determination patterns
- State variation: State DDS agencies differ in denial rates, processing times, and examiner caseloads; these differences have been exploited to study application costs and take-up. See DI Application Costs and Take-Up and Geographic Variation in Disability Insurance
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