Rep Payee Problems

      From a report by the Government Accountability Office:

For children receiving Social Security benefits (beneficiaries), such as disability benefits, the Social Security Administration (SSA) typically assigns representative payees (payee) to manage those benefits. When children enter or exit foster care, SSA may need to change the payee. Since 2018, SSA has encouraged states to set up data exchanges to submit monthly data on children in foster care to help SSA identify when these beneficiaries need a new payee. Twenty-five states were submitting data through these exchanges, as of July 2026. However, no new states have begun submitting data since 2024; officials from four of eight selected states not submitting data had minimal awareness of the data exchanges. Yet, SSA has not changed its state outreach efforts, thereby limiting the number of beneficiaries covered under its exchanges. … 

SSA generates alerts from the data exchanges when a beneficiary enters or exits foster care or changes placement while in foster care. Alerts have helped SSA field office staff identify when to reassess payees. But staff GAO interviewed from four selected field offices reported challenges addressing alerts, such as: • Each alert had limited information, requiring field office staff to conduct additional, time-consuming research. • There is a large volume of alerts to address—over 50,000 in fiscal year 2025—but many of these generally do not require a change in payee. SSA field office staff GAO interviewed had existing practices and ideas for changes SSA could implement to mitigate these challenges. For example, they said that SSA could designate staff to address alerts, include more information in each alert (e.g., payee email addresses), and use artificial intelligence tools to more easily address change of foster care placement alerts that require action. Although field office staff are the end users of the data, SSA has not sought staff input or provided a way for them to share potentially useful practices with each other. Without seeking input, SSA is missing opportunities to improve the efficiency of its processes and ensure beneficiaries in foster care have suitable payees. …

Medicare Changes

      A notice from Social Security to attorneys who represent claimants before the agency:

Changes to Medicare Eligibility Requirements

Date: Tuesday, November 10, 2026

Dear Colleague,

We are sharing important information about changes to Medicare eligibility under Section 71201 of Public Law 119-21.

Under this law, an individual may be entitled to or enrolled for Medicare only if they are:

• U.S. citizens or nationals;
• Lawful permanent residents (green card holders);
• Cuban-Haitian entrants; or
• Compacts of Free Association migrants.

These changes do not affect Social Security benefit eligibility or payment rules.

What Your Clients Should Know

This week, we will begin:

• Applying the new requirements to Medicare applications and enrollments.
• Notifying current beneficiaries whose eligibility we cannot confirm that their Medicare coverage may end February 1, 2027, unless they establish eligibility within the applicable timeframe.

How You Can Help

Please encourage your clients who receive a notice to:

• Read it carefully to understand how the changes may affect their coverage.
• Respond by the deadline provided and follow the instructions for providing evidence of U.S. citizenship or eligible immigration status.

Clients may submit evidence through their personal my Social Security account at www.ssa.gov/myaccount by selecting “Upload Documents,” or bring documents to a local Social Security office. For assistance, they may also call 1-844-507-7131(U.S.) or 855-522-6939 (outside the U.S.).

Individuals who later obtain an eligible immigration status may apply for Medicare at that time, subject to other applicable eligibility requirements.

Visit our webpage to learn more.

Thank you for your continued partnership. Please share this information with your clients, members, colleagues, affiliates, and other interested parties.

Sincerely,

Nick Perrine

Chief Communications Officer

DDS Allowance Rates

      Social Security has posted statistics on allowance rates at the initial and reconsideration levels on disability claims.

Social Security Disability and Supplemental Security
Income (SSI) Disability Claims
Allowance Rates1/
Initial and Reconsideration Adjudicative Level
Fiscal Year 2026
by Nation, Region and State
	INITIAL	RECONSIDERATION
NATIONAL	35.9	14.9
NATIONAL - DDS ONLY	35.9	14.9
BOSTON	39.2	15.4
CT	41.7	14.0
ME	39.3	14.3
MA	35.3	15.5
NH	44.0	20.3
RI	44.0	15.7
VT	45.7	16.0
NEW YORK	35.1	14.0
NJ	33.0	13.9
NY	35.6	14.0
PR2/	42.0	14.3
PHILADELPHIA	35.7	14.1
DE	39.1	12.5
DC	33.0	12.5
MD	43.0	16.7
PA	35.7	13.4
VA	36.3	15.4
WV	33.9	12.3
VA EST3/	22.1	13.2
ATLANTA	36.3	15.7
AL	32.8	15.6
FL	42.0	15.7
GA	35.2	21.1
KY	29.9	9.6
MS	35.4	15.1
NC	37.3	14.2
SC	37.3	16.1
TN	34.3	13.6
MS EST3/	0.0	0.0
CHICAGO	35.7	13.7
IL	36.4	16.9
IN	33.4	11.3
MI	34.6	13.5
MN	39.1	9.9
OH	36.3	12.8
WI	35.9	15.7
DALLAS	36.0	16.2
AR	35.1	12.2
LA	37.7	17.8
NM	41.1	20.3
OK	33.6	14.5
TX	36.5	15.5
AR EST3/	33.6	19.0
OK EST3/	32.1	0.0
KANSAS CITY	39.7	12.9
IA	40.0	10.3
KS	43.6	20.7
MO	38.1	13.0
NE	41.3	13.1
DENVER	35.4	14.1
CO	31.9	13.3
MT	38.5	18.2
ND	40.1	17.4
SD	39.4	11.1
UT	37.3	14.8
WY	40.7	14.2
SAN FRANCISCO	33.8	14.9
AZ	29.6	14.8
CA	34.5	15.1
HI	36.8	15.7
NV	35.2	12.8
SEATTLE	35.6	13.2
AK	54.5	33.0
ID	35.1	11.8
OR	36.7	14.3
WA	33.7	12.5
FEDERAL4/	54.1	18.3
San Juan DPU	5/	5/
Atlanta DPB	0.0	0.0
Chicago DPB	91.1	25.0
Kansas City DPB	0.0	0.0
New York DPB	4.2	1.1
Philadelphia DPB	0.0	0.0
San Francisco DPB	0.0	0.0
Boston DPU	5/	5/
Dallas DPU	5/	5/
Denver DPU	5/	5/
Seattle DPU	5/	5/
Philadelphia DPU	5/	5/
OCO	0.0	0.0
INTPSC	44.0	21.2
Guam	48.1	24.8
Virgin Islands	5/	5/
1/Allowance and denial rates equal 100%.
2/Includes Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI, Title II) only as there is no Supplemental Security Income (SSI, Title XVI) in Puerto Rico.
3/ EST DDS data comes from four extended service team sites in Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Virginia. Workload from State DDSs is transferred into these sites.
4/Federal Site data comes from the following SSA sites:  Office of Central Operations; International Payment Service Center; Guam; the Virgin Islands; and Disability Program Branches in the Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco Regions.
5/The federal sites that have zero allowance rates are sites where they do not have their own legacy system and complete cases by remotely logging into the legacy system of the state they are assisting.  Therefore, the allowance information rolls up into the state they are assisting.
Note:  Allowance rates are on determinations completed by State Disability Determination Services (DDSs) and other components which make disability determinations.  For workload balancing issues, cases may be transferred to other states or to SSA components for determinations.  Determinations are not always done in the applicants' state of residence.
Cases processed in the ESTs and Federal sites DO NOT include cases under QDD, CAL, and other fast track case screening.  Accordingly, allowance rates in those sites are NOT comparable to regular State DDSs. Allowance rates equal to zero indicate no cases.  High rates may indicate very small numbers of cases.
Produced By: SSA/LDP/DP/ARTS/DSSIT
Date Produced: October 28, 2026
Data Source: SSA SAOR (State Agency Operations Report)

Struggling In Rhinelander

      From WORT in Madison, WI:

The Social Security Administration office in Rhinelander, Wisconsin has recently cut their hours in half due to a severe staffing shortage. This is happening in other locations around the country as the agency has been truncated and starved of operating funds. Labor Radio spoke with Jessica LaPointe, President of both the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, Council 220 and Local 1346.

REPORTER: What is going on with the Social Security Administration in Rhinelander?

JESSICA LAPOINTE: Rhinelander has a field office up there that serves about 35 people a day plus another 40 people that are looking to get a temporary work visa for summer camps and ski resorts and agricultural work visas.

Basically, that field office has reduced their service hours from 9 to 4 to 9 to 12:30 due to under staffing.

REPORTER: What is full staffing there?

JESSICA LAPOINTE: About 12. They were reduced to about 7 over the years and then in the last two years they’ve been reduced to 2.

REPORTER: Why did this happen?

JESSICA LAPOINTE: The 12 to 7 (cut of employees) is a result of budget cuts and limited hiring over the last decade and a half. And then, in January 2025, the Trump administration sent the Department of Government Efficiency to incentivize workers to leave, paid workers about $25,000 to leave. That reduced staff and then that had a snowball effect on attrition where workloads became unmanageable and workers began to burn out and become very stressed.

And then our rights began to get stripped as workers, our workplace flexibilities, our ability to get time off and care for ourselves and our family. That caused more people to leave as pressures began to mount so now they’re down to 2 and now they have to reduce the service hours in the office.

REPORTER: Who does this affect?

JESSICA LAPOINTE: This affects the community of Rhinelander.  The closest field office is about an hour away in Wausau. And then it affects the businesses that now don’t have that office to go to to get their worker visas taken care of, to get replacement social security cards timely.

Now there’s one remaining front desk worker, one remaining claim specialist. They’re also at risk of burnout. …