Aug 10, 2012

Spending Money To Save Money -- Is It Really So Hard To Understand?

     Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has done a study using a database of persons who are receiving Social Security retirement benefits but who have not used Medicare in the preceding three years even though they are 96 years of age or older. OIG estimates that if Social Security contacted or attempted to contact these people, that they would find that the agency is paying benefits to several hundred deceased individuals. OIG estimates that $99 million could be saved if this were done.
     Unfortunately, it takes manpower to do this sort of thing and Social Security has less manpower and more and more work to do. Projects like this which would save money are deferred because the agency has to answer its telephones and deal with people filing claims. 
     There's no way around it. It comes up all the time. You have to spend a little money at Social Security to save a lot of money in benefit payments. Republicans in Congress have a hard time understanding a concept that any businessperson can quickly grasp.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

If they know who these people are, just stop the benefits and see if anyone complains

Anonymous said...

SSA has the manpower to do tasks like this, it just chooses to do other things. There are employees in the regional offices who spend their time looking at spreadsheets to see how quickly cases are moving from one status to another in the various offices in that region and sending out e-mails to the office management if cases linger too long in a status; instead of spending so much time worrying about whether a case stays in a writing status for 10 days instead of 7 days, these individuals could be given projects such as determining whether beneficiaries in their late 90s are still alive. Or, some of the employees in underutilized field offices could be doing that task.

Anonymous said...

SSA has the manpower to do tasks like this, it just chooses to do other things. The night shift at WBDOC could do it. They are on duty during the hours people are most likely to be home if phone calls need to be made.

Anonymous said...

@ 9:32

exactly. SSA has so many levels of "management" and "analysts" that do absolutely NOTHING. They don't process claims, they don't write decisions and they don't even actually "manage" the people that do. Instead, they track numbers and worry about them, but never work to make changes or figure out how to improve them. I think they should actually be classified as "observers."

In a private company, at least 75% of managers and analysts would have been fired/cut as redundant and unnecessary.

Anonymous said...

@7:53am - If I recall, OIG often employs a 3rd party contractor to use a mainframe to analyze selected records, but under some computer data agreement, they cannot share SSNs and names.

Some audits seem to differ because there will be some areas (like W/C), where OIG will then go and repeat the same procedure, but use SSA databases for the results, which then lead to specific workloads for SSA. I could be confusing this with other limited audit as well.

Anonymous said...

Doing this task should have cost less than the study cost. A cover letter to each district office with a list of names of those individuals in their service area suspected of having passed on. On average, a couple per service area. An afternoon's work for one person making a house call. Stop talking about it, just do it!

Anonymous said...

Easier said than done. Just go make a housecall. OK, lets see what the CR will have to do. First, clear a schedule of phone and in person applications for benefits, retirment, SSDI, Lump Sum Death, Medicare, Medicare Part D Extra Help, Etc. We wont go into the milage aspect, there is no Feild Office Company Car. What happens if the address is in a less than affluent neighborhood, send only one person? Why dont you see SSA out of the office? it is a nightmare to get them out with the rules, regulations and union.

Anonymous said...

union has absolutely nothing to do with it--that was an egregious cheap shot. We haven't gone out on field contacts in years, due to lack of staff, period. Everyone has appts all day long.

Anonymous said...

Can't SSA send out letters requesting contact to verify information and just terminate benefits based on failure to contact?

Anonymous said...

to anon 5:37--yes, you could, but the public relations fallout caused by cutting off a 99-yr-old who didn't read their mail would be a nightmare.

Anonymous said...

Just use the private sector! Similar to cetnralized mailing that sends 25 envelopes to a VED for a sweek of hearings, when one would do with a little thinking!

Contract out to the scam finders, put some protections in so granny doesn't have a coronary during the contact procedure and you would save lots of money. All those law school grads - looking for work, here it is.

Anonymous said...

"yes, you could, but the public relations fallout caused by cutting off a 99-yr-old who didn't read their mail would be a nightmare."

SSA has no balls and a spine of jelly. Willing to waste money because of possible bad PR.

Anonymous said...

And all the criticisms everyone is saying is exactly why Social Security should be privatized. Hmmmmm, maybe the Republicans are onto something here. Looks like they do have better business common-sense then the democratics.

Anonymous said...

"Can't SSA send out letters requesting contact to verify information and just terminate benefits based on failure to contact?"

Don't T-1 the people, S-9 them. Just like you S-6 people when a check is returned for a bad address until people contact SSA with a good address.