From today's Federal Register:
We propose to amend our regulations to allow a representative payee who will no longer be serving in that capacity to transfer accumulated benefit payments and interest directly to a beneficiary if we determine that it would be in the best interest of the beneficiary. This change would give us more flexibility in deciding how conserved funds should be handled in these circumstances. The change would also reduce or eliminate delays in the delivery of conserved funds to some beneficiaries.
It would mainly serve to alleviate(again) the understaffing at SSA--don't have to spend time taking back checks, issuing receipts, reissuing the funds to the new payee. This continues a pattern of changing policies based on some newly discovered efficencies, which could have been done at any time in the past, but now suddenly have a peculiar advantage when, coincidentally, SSA is short of staff.
ReplyDeleteOld suggestion. About time. Nancy Ortiz
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