FR Doc E7-15663

[Federal Register: August 10, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 154)]
[Notices]
[Page 45079-45081]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr10au07-132]

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SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

Agency Information Collection Activities: Comment Request

The Social Security Administration (SSA) publishes a list of
information collection packages that will require clearance by the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in compliance with Public Law
104-13, the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, effective October 1, 1995.
The information collection packages that are included in this notice
are for new information collections and revisions to OMB-approved
information collections.
SSA is soliciting comments on the accuracy of the agency's burden
estimate; the need for the information; its practical utility; ways to
enhance its quality, utility, and clarity; and on ways to minimize
burden on respondents, including the use of automated collection
techniques or other forms of information technology. Written comments
and recommendations regarding the information collection(s) should be
submitted to the OMB Desk Officer and the SSA Reports Clearance
Officer. The information can be mailed, faxed or emailed to the
individuals at the addresses and fax numbers listed below:

(OMB), Office of Management and Budget, Attn: Desk Officer for SSA,
Fax: 202-395-6974, E-mail address: OIRA_Submission@omb.eop.gov

(SSA), Social Security Administration, DCBFM, Attn: Reports Clearance
Officer, 1333 Annex Building, 6401 Security Blvd., Baltimore, MD
21235,Fax: 410-965-6400, E-mail address: OPLM.RCO@ssa.gov

The information collections listed below have been submitted to OMB
for clearance. Your comments on the information collections would be
most useful if received by OMB and SSA within 30 days from the date of
this publication. You can obtain a copy of the OMB clearance packages
by emailing OPLM.RCO@ssa.gov.
1. Consent Based Social Security Number Verification Process--0960-
NEW.

Note: Please note that we published the 60-day Federal Register
Notice for this collection on December 30, 2005, at 70 FR 77439. For
the year and a half following that date, we have communicated with
multiple businesses interested in this collection and have
significantly altered our business process plan based on their
comments.

Background

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has provided limited fee
based Social Security Number (SSN) verification service to private
businesses and other requesters that obtain a valid, signed consent
form from the Social Security Number Holder. Based on the consent
forms, SSA verifies the Number Holders' SSNs for the requesting party.
The Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. 552a(b), section 1106 of the Social
Security Act, 42 U.S.C. 1306, and SSA regulation at 20 CFR 401.100
establish the legal authority for SSA to provide SSN verifications to
third party requesters based on consent. Currently, the consent-based
SSN verification service for high volume requesters is a paper-driven,
labor-intensive process. In recent years, the demand for SSN
verification has grown within the business community. As a result, SSA
is developing an Agency strategy to perform fee based SSN verifications
with consent in a high volume, centralized process.
The Consent Based Social Security Number Verification (CBSV)
process is the first phase of the Agency's long term strategy to
provide the business community with fee based disclosures with consent
in high volume. SSA is developing CBSV as a user-friendly, Internet-
based application with safeguards that will protect the public's
information. In addition to the benefit of providing high volume,
centralized SSN verification services to the business community in a
secure manner, CBSV also will provide the Agency with inherent cost and
workload management benefits.
SSA is in the planning stage of developing the Agency's second
phase of the fee-based web service system which would provide private
industry and other third party requesters with disability and
retirement data (including insured status information, dates of
entitlement, and benefit amounts). This process, the Consent Based
Benefit Information System (CBBI), would assist private insurance or
pension benefit companies to determine private entitlements and
coordinate entitlement to such benefits. These actions help the
requesters to reduce and/or eliminate the overpayment of these benefits
to their insured clients. Similar to the CBSV process, companies would
be required to enter into a legal agreement with SSA, obtain written
consent from the record holder, reimburse SSA, and follow SSA's
established systems security and audit guidelines.

The CBSV Collection

The CBSV is a fee-based automated SSN verification service that can
be used by private businesses and other requesting parties who register
with SSA to use the system and have obtained valid consent from Number
Holders. The purpose of the information collection is to verify for the
requesting party that the submitted name and SSN match or do not match
the information contained in the SSA records. After completing a
registration process and paying the fee, the requesting party can
submit a file through the CBSV Internet application containing names of
Number Holders who have given valid consent, along with each Number
Holder's accompanying SSN and date of birth (if available) or obtain
real-time results using a web service application or SSA's Business
Services Online (BSO) application. The Agency matches the information
against SSA's Master File of Social Security Numbers, using SSN, name,
date of birth and gender code (if available). If batch mode was used,
the requesting party retrieves the results file from SSA; the results
file indicates a match or no match for each SSN submitted.
Under the CBSV process, the requesting party does not submit the
consent forms to SSA. SSA will require each requesting party to retain
a valid consent form for each SSN verification request for a period of
seven years. The requesting party is permitted to retain the consent
forms in either electronic or paper format.
To ensure the integrity of the CBSV Process, SSA has added a strong
audit component that requires audits (called

[[Page 45080]]

``compliance reviews'') at the discretion of the agency with all audit
costs to be borne by the requesting party. These reviews will be
conducted by independent certified public accountants (CPAs) to ensure
compliance with all the terms and conditions of the parties' agreement
with SSA, including a review of the consent forms. This review is
performed at the requesting party's place of business to ensure the
integrity of the process. In addition, SSA reserves the right to
perform unannounced onsite inspections of the entire process including
review of the technical systems which maintain the data and transaction
records at the requesting party's place of business.
The respondents to the CBSV collection are the participating
companies, members of the public who consent to the SSN verification,
and CPAs who provide compliance review services.
Type of Request: New information collection.

Time Burden

Participating Companies:

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Average
Number of Frequency of burden per Estimated
Requirement respondents response response annual burden
(minutes) hours
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Registration process............................ 90 1 120 180
Creation of file with SSN holder identification 90 *251 60 22,590
data; maintaining required documentation/forms.
Using the system to upload request file, check 90 251 5 1,883
status, and download results file..............
Storing and maintenance of consent forms........ 90 251 60 22,590
Activities related to compliance review......... 90 251 60 22,590
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Total....................................... .............. .............. .............. 69,833
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* Please note there are 251 Federal business days per year on which a requesting party could submit a file.

People Whose SSNs Will Be Verified:

CPAs (conducting compliance review and preparing written report of
findings):
Number of Respondents: 90.
Frequency of Response: 1.
Average Burden Per Response: 4,800.
Estimated Annual Burden: 7,200 hours.
Total Collective Burden: 577,408 hours.

Cost Burden

The public burden cost is dependent upon the number of companies
and transactions. The first year cost estimates below are based upon 90
participating companies submitting a total of 10 million transactions.
The total cost for developing the system is $5.6 million. $2.6 million
will be required prior to development of the system. The $3.0 million
that SSA has already expended will be recouped over the depreciable
life of the system based on the fee per transaction model.

One-Time Per Company Registration Fee--$5,000
Estimated Per SSN Transaction Fee--$0.27 \1\
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\1\ The annual costs associated with the transactions to each
company are dependent upon the number of SSN transactions submitted
to SSA by the company on a yearly basis. For example, if a company
anticipates submitting 1 million requests to SSA for the year, their
total transaction cost for the year would be $0.27 x 1,000,000 or
$270,000. Periodically, SSA will calculate its costs to provide CBSV
services and adjust the fee charged as needed. Companies will be
notified in writing of any change and will have the opportunity to
cancel the agreement or continue service using the new transaction
fee.
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Estimated Per Company Cost To Build Web Service--$200,000 \2\
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\2\ A company may choose to submit batch files via the SSA Web
site or submit real-time individual requests via the SSA Web site.
There is no public burden cost with either of these methods of using
the CBSV system.
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Estimated Per Company Cost To Store Consent Forms--$20,000
Estimated Per Company Cost To Contract With CPA for Audit--
$8,000

SSA will hold an ``open enrollment'' season. If more than the
estimated number of companies enrolls, the estimated per SSN
transaction fee cited above could be less.
2. Medicare Quality Review Forms--20 CFR 418(b)(5)--0960-0707. The
Social Security Administration (SSA) uses the Medicare Quality Review
Forms collection to verify the information reported on Medicare Part D
Subsidy applications (OMB No. 0960-0696) for a selected number of
applicants. SSA is planning to expand the scope of this collection by
conducting Quality Reviews with some current recipients of Medicare
Part D subsidies who have recently undergone the redetermination
process (OMB No. 0960-0723). This ICR is for two new appointment
letters (forms SSA-9313 and SSA-9314) that such beneficiaries will
complete to schedule an appointment for their Quality Review. The
respondents are current recipients of Medicare Part D subsidies who
have recently undergone a redetermination and who were selected for a
Quality Review.
Type of Request: Revision to an existing OMB-approved information
collection.

[[Page 45081]]

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Average burden Estimated
Form No. and name Number of Frequency of per response annual burden
respondents response (minutes) hours
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SSA-9301 (Medicare Subsidy Quality Review Case 10,000 1 35 5,833
Analysis Questionnaire)........................
SSA-9302 (Notice of Quality Review 10,000 1 15 2,500
Acknowledgement Form for those with Phones)....
SSA-9303 (Notice of Quality Review 1,000 1 15 250
Acknowledgement Form for those without Phones).
SSA-9304 (Checklist of Required Information; .............. .............. .............. ..............
burden accounted for with forms SSA-9302, SSA-
9303)..........................................
SSA-9308 (Request for Information).............. 20,000 1 15 5,000
SSA-9310 (Request for Documents)................ 10,000 1 5 833
SSA-9309 (Life Insurance Verification Form)..... 8,000 1 15 2,000
SSA-8510 (Authorization to the Social Security 10,000 1 5 833
Administration to Obtain Personal Information).
SSA-9313 (Notice of Appointment Quality Review 4,500 1 15 1,125
Acknowledgement Form)*.........................
SSA-9314 (Notice of Quality Review 500 1 15 125
Acknowledgement Form (unknown phone numbers)*..
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Total....................................... .............. .............. .............. 18,499
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* These are the two new forms being cleared in the current ICR for this collection.

Dated: August 7, 2007.
Elizabeth A. Davidson,
Reports Clearance Officer, Social Security Administration.
[FR Doc. E7-15663 Filed 8-9-07; 8:45 am]

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