Joe Davidson at the Washington Post writes about the recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) on the problems that the agency is having delivering service to the public with a dramatically smaller workforce.
My gut feeling is that sooner or later Social Security's service delivery problems are going to blow up in the same way as the VA's problems blew up. The only question is who gets the blame.
3 comments:
Agree. Local office can't be reached by phone. The national number require at least 45 minutes to talk to a rep. SSA should move forward quickly with online services. Yes,i know complex matters require a representative. I'm sure SSA will have enough reps to handle the online submissions.
We have found that the national 800 number causes more problems than the information it provides. After we've begun representing a disability claimant for a month or more, should the claimant call the 800 number to check the progress of their claim at application or reconsideration stages, they get told that nothing has been done. Then the upset claimant calls our office. We will have file-stamped copies of the 1696 and other documents submitted, but they have not yet been entered into the system. Perhaps some types of cases, such as retirement information can be gleaned from the 800 number, but it appears to be a waste of time and resources which causes headaches for claimants and reps.
The national 800 number is incapable of handling SSI issues--this has always been the case. There are too many simlar complaints from claimants to blame it on claimant misunderstandings. 800 number reps often cannot even read a an SSI record screen to be able to tell the claimant what is going on. Thus it always falls back on the FO's.
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