Almost every month payments of attorney fees for representing Social Security claimants come to a near complete halt in the last week of the month and then immediately resume with a bang on the first business day of the next month. This pattern is most noticeable if you receive fees by direct deposit as I do. It's not just me who has seen this pattern. Other attorneys I know have commented on it. This has been going on for more than a year.
Does anyone know what's going on? My guess is that this pattern is not coming from Social Security but from the Department of the Treasury which actually issues the checks and direct deposits. My guess is that it has to do with cash and debt management and probably affects a wide range of payments made by the federal government but I don't know.
My girlfriend complains about a similar monthly phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteOh wait...
While I don't have first hand knowledge I would think it would be because the processing centers get crushed the last week of the month by favorable decisions to process from hearing offices pushing out cases to meet their monthly goal
ReplyDeleteMy guess would be similar to the 'guess-timate' above. DDS's and ALJ's seem to have a pattern of surges -- for what reason, I am not certain. There seems to be such a surge just before Thanksgiving, another just before Xmas. There may be other monthly patterns and cycles that I have not noted. With SSI, these 'surges' cause delays in the Non-disability updates and, hence, delays in paying Rep Fees based upon SSI. . . .
ReplyDeleteWe switched from direct deposit back to paper checks because it was impossible for us to tell what case the direct deposit was on. Our bank, or treasury, whomever you belive, couldn't figure out how to make it show. How do you identify who the payment is for?
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