Jan 14, 2014

Challenges At Social Security

     From a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General on the agency's Major Management and Performance Challenges:
While SSA made progress in FY 2013 in addressing these challenges, some improvements are needed.
  • While SSA had a plan to eliminate the hearings backlog by 2013, the number of pending cases has increased, and the average processing time remains above the 270- day goal
  • SSA needs to address millions of initial disability and reconsideration claims, as it still has backlogs of initial disability claims and continuing disability reviews.
  • SSA is one of the Federal agencies with a high amount of improper payments. SSA will need to take additional actions related to reducing improper payments. ...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Today I got a special project to recomputed the 'manual deemed income' cases, which are mostly disabled children of parents with no Social Security numbers. The computation doesn't automate. As part of reducing improper payments, I am tasked with changing the deemed income using the new COLA amounts as of 1/14. Sounds like a good plan except that many of these cases haven't been profiled for redeterminations and the parents' wages are not current. But the instructions don't say anything about updating the wages, just the deeming allocations. Focus on the minutia, not the big picture. Geez.