Performance metrics designed to speed eligibility determinations created perverse incentives for call center workers to close cases prematurely. Timeliness could be improved by denying applications and then advising applicants to reapply, which required that they wait an additional 30 or 60 days for a new determination. Some administrative snafus were simple mistakes, integration problems, and technical glitches. But many errors were the result of inflexible rules that interpreted any deviation from the newly rigid application process, no matter how inconsequential or inadvertent, as an active
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