Problems With Federal Workers Compensation Offsets

Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently looked at a sample of 50 people who were receiving both Social Security disability benefits and federal workers compensation benefits. Of that group, 32 had overpayments because their federal workers compensation benefits had not been considered in computing their Social Security disability benefits. Additionally, OIG looked at another 50 who were receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits and federal workers compensation and found that 21 of them were being overpaid.

Before you assign the blame to Social Security, let me tell you that the federal Office of Workers Compensation Programs (OWCP) has a longstanding reputation for being incredibly incompetent. There are many attorneys who have handled one federal workers compensation case and decided that they never wanted to mess with OWCP ever again. At the moment, I am not sure that there is any attorney in the state of North Carolina who regularly takes on federal workers compensation cases. Around here, even the federal employee unions do not know who to refer these cases to. OWCP is the biggest mess of any agency, federal or state, that I have ever dealt with. Social Security has real problems with workers compensation offsets in general but difficulty in getting information from OWCP almost certainly exacerbates the problem for claimants receiving federal workers compensation benefits.