Can Anyone Explain How This Happened?
From a
television station in Austin, TX:
The KVUE Defenders help a 93-year-old World War II veteran caught in
government red tape. A few months ago, the Social Security
Administration admitted to Charles Corvill it mistakenly changed the
date of his birthday, but refused to correct it.
According to his birth certificate, his birthday is March 2. The agency incorrectly changed it to March 20. ...
Corvill says he noticed the change in his birthday while paying for
his prescriptions. He says Medicare stopped making payments because his
date of birth didn’t match its records.
“Well, they charged me $300 maximum when they were suppose to charge $150," Corvill said.
So, with a copy of his birth certificate in tow, he visited an Austin Social Security office to correct it.
“And [the agency representative] went around to talk to people in the
office and came back and asked if I'd be willing to live with it for a
while. I said, 'No way, Jose!'" said Corvill.
In April, Social Security sent him an unsigned form letter stating,
“We have reviewed [your birth certificate] that indicates your date of
birth is March 2, 1920. But, in the next sentence, it stated "We cannot
overturn our original determination that the correct date of birth is
March 20th. Please use the date of birth we have already established." ...
Social Security also claimed correcting his date of birth could reduce his monthly benefits. ...
While Corvill 's complaint went nowhere, the KVUE Defenders got results
after calling Social Security and Congressman's Lloyd Doggett’s office.
Two weeks later, the agency sent him another unsigned form letter
showing it corrected his birthday and wrote, "We are sorry for any
inconvenience this has caused you."
6 comments:
Somebody obviously screwed up. Date of birth discrepancies like this are fairly common, where the day within the same month does not match for some reason--such as date recorded being used instead of date of birth on birth cert. corrections are made all the time because of it affecting Medicare.
It should not have been difficult.
Probably another example of the effect of poorly trained, overworked field office staff that couldn't take a breath and an extra five minutes to get it done right.
Poor hiring practices, overcrowded offices, poor training...that's SSA!
Can't figure how the earlier birth date could cause a decrease in benefits but can figure how it might cause a change. In the arcane would of SSA a claimant born on 3/2/20 would be considered to have attained age 62 on 3/1/82 while a claimant born on 3/20/20 would not attain age 62 until 3/19/20. 20 CFR 404.2(c)(4).
Actually it would potentially change his month of election since if he was born on 03/20/20 he would have have been able to file for reduced benefits until 04/01/whatever year.
It is entirely possible that the date of birth has always been 03/20 on SSA records and it is just coming to light given the Agency's current push to correct discrepancies in its social security number database records.
If a prior determination was made over 4 years ago and is now administratively final, the agency can't change the date of birth -- it doesn't matter what the birth certificate shows.
It probably wouldn't be a big deal if the 1st or 2nd day of the month wasn't involved, as a change of the date of birth to any other day wouldn't affect computations or age attainments.
If he pushes it and gets his way, he could end up with an unwanted consequence: an overpayment of benefits due to changes in computational factors which he would be liable to repay.
A:55 administrative finality does not preclude correcting errors on the face of the record at any time, such as clerical errors in typing info from a birth certificate. Can't imagine what might cause an overpayment, even given the one month potential difference in benefits. And, if there were an overpayment, it should be waived as the claimant not at fault in causing the overpayment and against equity and good conscience to recover an overpayment due to Agency mistake.
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