Denied rubber stamped social security disability claim.
Previously, much has been written about the dangers posed by AI and algorithmic decision-making tools in relation to people with disabilities. This is because such tools are built by being fed vast quantities of data reflective of typical patterns of human behavior. As disabled people often sit outside such patterns – they are all too often screened out by algorithmic tools much to the alarm of disability rights campaigners.
However, brand new tech startup Advocate is not only planning to turn this trend on its head but to achieve this through using a sophisticated mixture of AI and human expertise to address one of the most significant historic pain points afflicting the disability community. Namely, the unbearable delays and complexities involved in navigating America’s burdensome Social Security Disability Insurance system.
The fledgling company has just announced $4 million in seed funding to build a technology platform that aims to not only shorten and streamline the process of applying for long-term disability benefits but also provides claimants with a clear view of the strength of their application and chances of success. The company’s seed investors include New York-based Lerer Hippeau and Khosla Ventures who were an early-stage investor in OpenAI.
Advocate CEO Emilie Poteat, an accredited disability benefits advocate herself, has already drafted expert advisors onto the corporate team in the shape of former Commissioner of Social Security, Jo Anne Barnhart and the former Secretary of Veterans Affairs, David Shulkin.
Tortuous And Inhumane
The problem they are attempting to solve, as Poteat sees it, is that of a wholly broken disability benefits system, as detailed earlier this month in an eye-opening Washington Post piece, in which confusing rules, inconsistent judicial rulings and a low-tech approach to information gathering is ruining the lives of claimants who find themselves no longer able to work. Whilst some spend years navigating the cumbersome appeals process, others simply give up due to being left destitute and, others still, pass away before a final decision is made.
Testifying to this decision-making inconsistency, which results in some of the $200 billion spent annually by the government on disability benefits being squandered, is the fact that consistently, over the past three decades, some 50% of decisions get overturned on appeal. Meanwhile, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, 109,000 people have died over the past decade while waiting for money from a system they have already paid into whilst 48,000 declared bankruptcy.
“The government benefit system exists to provide financial protection for people with disabilities but, all too often, it offers a disheartening maze of paperwork and delays,” said Advocate advisor and former Social Security Commissioner Jo Anne Barnhart.
“Applying a modern technology solution will help alleviate the burden on the millions of disabled Americans who simply can’t afford to wait years in an outdated and underfunded processing system while their health and economic situation deteriorates.”
In an interview, Poteat describes the current system as “tortuous” and “totally inhumane” but further adds, “There is no ill intent. It’s a case of having a Byzantine bureaucracy with conflicting motivations allied to a legalistic and monolithic administration that desperately needs a private sector supporting partner.”
At the front end, users of Advocate will encounter an elegant and accessible platform that assists them in optimizing their claim by connecting to, prioritizing and synthesizing electronic health records as well as providing a means of filing the paperwork itself. The aim here is to remove much of the guesswork and trial and error that dogs the current system by encouraging users to submit the strongest claim backed by the most appropriate personal data at the outset.
Modeling Success
What will enable Advocate to provide this information is its intelligent use of proprietary algorithms at the back end to profile and analyze the specific criteria and data points related to historic successful claims and then automating the infusion of this valuable knowledge into the initial stages of every new application.
It is not so much an attempt at gaming the system but rather, providing all claimants with a degree of transparency regarding the likelihood of their claim being successful now and in the future.
Though algorithmic processes will be a key component in delivering these outcomes, Poteat, who was inspired to start Advocate after witnessing her step-father’s travails navigating the welfare system following a stroke, is keen to emphasize that the company will still make use of expert human agents to assist users in filling out forms.
“I can assure you we are not just leaving this down to some hallucinating algorithm running all by itself,” Poteat explains.
“We have decades of combined expertise and a commissioner of social security on our team. We are taking the logic of very experienced advocates who have worked in this area for many years and helping the users to benefit from that stored institutional knowledge.”
For the here and now, Advocate’s prime focus is on building the user-facing platform to prove its real-world efficacy to stakeholders. Yet the mission doesn’t end there and stage two will hopefully involve more proactive partnerships with government agencies to reduce administrative burdens further still and provide swift resolutions at those moments in life when they are most urgently needed.
