Based on our results, we estimate that as of January 2008, about 6,100 beneficiaries in current payment status had a date of death recorded on their Numident record. We estimate that approximately 1,760 of the 6,100 beneficiaries were actually deceased, and that SSA made approximately $40.3 million in improper payments to the deceased beneficiaries after recording their date of death in SSA's records. Further, we estimate SSA would make approximately $6.9 million in additional improper payments over the next 12 months if these discrepancies were not corrected.
In the overall picture, this is a low error rate, but still, that is over 4,300 people who are listed as dead who are not dead. Goodness knows how many were erroneously denied benefits for months.
By the way, notice that OIG seems a lot more concerned with the erroneous payments than the erroneous denials of benefits, even though it looks like erroneous denials of benefits are a bigger problem. And, yes, I know that the report indicates that the 4,300 living people listed as dead in Social Security's records are actually still on benefits, but I imagine that many, perhaps all of these folks had to go to some trouble to get their benefits reinstated and remain at risk for disruption in their benefits.
2 comments:
My mother was pretty shocked last year when she was unable to fill a prescription because Social Security had reported her as deceased.
Her "you are dead" letter from Social Security finally caught up to her after she had the whole thing straightened out (i.e. proving that she was not dead).
The letter was addressed to another person with the same name (but different SS number and address - in a different state).
The letter had been returned to Social Security as undeliverable (possibly because the person was dead).
So they put another address sticker on it (my mother - same name, different address, different SS number) and sent it to her.
So I guess if they can't deliver the death notice to the person who is dead - they just declare someone else with the same name dead - and deliver the notice to them.
Doesn't it seem like Social Security would go by your Social Security number, instead of just your name, for such things?
SSA does go by the claim number. The Post Office doesn't. Sounds like an undeliverable letter that never got out of the loop in the USPS. How the original death notice entered the system is less easily explained. Often it's nursing home or hospital reports of death that get reported to Medicare with no or an incorrect SSN. Luckily, your mother saw the mistake and corrected it. I am glad it wasn't as hard as it sometimes is.
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