An e-mail I received today from a legal assistant at my firm: "_____ [Field Office] is again telling people it will take them 90 days to even call the clients for the SSI
resource interview after they have been approved."
Actually, it probably won't take that field office that long to do an interview needed before benefits can be computed and paid but it tells you something about workloads at Social Security's field offices that one would say this to a desperately poor person who has just been found disabled.
And a Social Security spokesperson recently used the phrase "world class service"?
"World Class Service..." Words repeatedly said by SSA's 'wonderful' Acting Commissioner Carolyn Colvin. She is so focused on promoting her cronies who are overwhelmingly African American before Obama's term ends next year, she is completely out of step with reality when it comes to appropriately managing and being an advocate for the Agency. Would Congress please take note and necessary action?
ReplyDeleteYou know chuck,
ReplyDeleteI'm a beneficiary and one thing that seems lacking in the post and overall tone is GRATITUDE. Social security is running low on disability funds although the email was about SSI. An approve claimant should be grateful for an approval. This aint the 1970's. I at times read disability forums and some of those people stink of a sense of entitlement and if i smell it then so can ALJS and SSA.
In response to the first comment about"overwhelmingly african american". How many SSA or government buildings in the country are overwhelmingly black or minority? It's like people particularly white complaining about illegal immigrants when white invaders coerced or stole land from mexico and native americans. How much nerve does one person have? And i'm almost sure i'm not the only one thinking what i'm thinking.
"It's like people particularly white complaining about illegal immigrants when white invaders coerced or stole land from mexico and native americans. How much nerve does one person have? And i'm almost sure i'm not the only one thinking what i'm thinking..."
ReplyDeleteI think Post 2:16 emphasis is the words "cronies" and "promotions," especially at the highest levels of the Agency. Nevertheless, they have predominently been African American and some without seemingly appropriate qualifications.
I am still at a loss to understand how these time frames keep growing and growing yet more and more services are moving to online interaction with the agency. I realize that someone still needs to process some, if not most of the online related services, but it would seem the level of work would be much less than in the past. Despite all the complaints about staffing, the numbers employed at SSA hasn't appreciably changed much. The level of staffing has remained the same as it was 3 years ago and is only slightly less, about 2%, than it was when the first boomer hit retirement age.
ReplyDeleteThere has to be something other than a numbers issue going on here.
SSI and SSDI are different, but 90 days is too long for either.
ReplyDeleteFor SSDI, this is insurance that I purchased. If I got in a car accident and it took State Farm 90 days to send me a check once they'd verified my claim, I'd be pissed.
For SSI, this is money that desperately poor people need. By definition, they can't work and have almost no resources or income, and they don't have spouses that can support them (since that income would be "deemed" to them). Taking months to pay approved SSI claims just means that we all spend more on extremely expensive services like emergency rooms, ambulances, homeless shelters, and jails.
3:15, it doesn't take much more time to do an in-person interview than it does to read what someone wrote on an online form and track them down to clarify stuff they wrote or fill in stuff that's been omitted. It might even be easier to sit down with someone and get all the information at once. So online access only does so much. And in 2009-13, there were about 10% more Title II recipients (mostly retirees). A 2% decrease in staff + 10% increase in caseload = backlog at field offices.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Chagnon??
ReplyDeleteSome online features have created more work. For example many sources do not accept e-827s . They then need to be re contacted for an ink signed one adding several more weeks to processing time. The electronic forms do not ask applicants to describe their past jobs if they had more than one. Discrepancies between their ER and their reported work is not picked up until later in the process resulting in delay. Even obvious typographical errors are not picked up creating a lot of extra effort for both the DDS and the field office
ReplyDelete