Justification for the Non-Substantive Changes to 0960-0821

Justification for Non-Substantive Changes for OMB 0960-008

Retaining Employment and Talent After Injury/Illness Network (RETAIN) Demonstration

OMB No. 0960-0821

Background

On June 28, 2021, OMB approved our RETAIN Demonstration, which includes staff interviews, service user interviews, staff activity logs, as well as both an enrollee survey and a provider survey.

When we submitted the provider survey for OMB’s approval, we included placeholders for four questions in section C (Questions C15 – C18, in Appendix G of the submitted documentation). At the time OMB approved the survey, we informed OMB that we would update those placeholders with finalized questions, and would resubmit the survey for approval with the finalized survey questions.

As we noted in the approved documentation, we submitted the initial ICR documents and information collection tools during Phase 1 of the RETAIN evaluation. At the time of OMB submission, DOL had not yet selected a subset of Phase 1 states to continue to Phase 2, full implementation. Therefore, Appendix G (Provider Survey Instruments) of the approved OMB package included a placeholder for state-specific items. The four items described above and included in Appendix A replace the placeholder questions. We are requesting this change now so we can incorporate these questions prior to the start of the provider survey data collection. Since will begin fielding the survey in early 2023, we cannot wait for the renewal of OMB approval in June 2024 to incorporate these changes.

Therefore, the Social Security Administration is seeking approval for four finalized survey questions in the previously approved Provider Survey for the RETAIN demonstration. We expect to implement these questions on October 1, 2022. Therefore, we are asking for OMB approval by September 23, 2022 to ensure we can update the survey prior to use.

Revisions to the Informatrion Collection

We are making the following revisions to the Provider Survey:

• Change #1: We finalized the four provider characteristics questions (Questions C15‑C18 in Appendix G) to replace the four placeholder items at the end of section C in the approved provider survey.

Justification #1: We will use these finalized questions to assess whether providers have similar characteristics and lived experiences to the enrollees they serve. The questions about sex, race, and ethnicity align with the demographic questions included on DOL’s enrollment form completed by all demonstration enrollees (OMB No. 1230-0014, Retaining Employment and Talent after Injury/Illness Network (RETAIN) Demonstration Projects and Evaluation). The question on disability assesses the share of providers that have a lived experience similar to RETAIN enrollees.

As we mentioned above, we plan to implement these changes beginning October 1, 2022, after we receive OMB’s approval. Since we already included the expected burden for these four question in our initial (previously approved) submission of this ICR, we do not anticipate any change to the burden for this survey due to these finalized questions.