From the Social Security Administration:
In December, Social Security will launch a new service for my Social Security account holders where the public can check on the status of an application for benefits or an appeal filed with us.
The service will provide detailed information about retirement, disability, survivors, Medicare, and Supplemental Security Income claims and appeals filed either online at socialsecurity.gov or with a Social Security employee.
The ability to check your application status will be available online to everyone who has or opens a secure my Social Security. You can open an account at www.socialsecurity.gov/myaccount.
The service will provide important information about your claim or appeal, including, as appropriate:
- Date of filing;
- Current claim location;
- Scheduled hearing date and time;
- Re-entry numbers for incomplete applications;
- Servicing office location; and
- Claim or appeal decision.
Why is it that I have no faith in this plan?
ReplyDeleteCould be the result of 37 yrs with the agency.
Pretty basic information, not really helpful but better than the info we get now which is none.
ReplyDeletehonestly 11:16.....take your negativity and go elsewhere if your so miserable? I would imagine you oppose internet filing ...like my union co-workers (insert eye rolling emoji).
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear, this requires a sign up to my Social Security and cannot be legally accessed by a Representative.
ReplyDeleteThis information can be accessed for cases at the Hearing Level or the AC by reps, but not at the State Agency. The inability to know what is going on at the State Agency, including whether or not the case has been received by them or a decision has been issued of which neither the claimant or rep ever received notice is an ongoing problem and frustration. We are told it is impossible to provide the information due to incompatible systems. But if it is available to "my Social Security" then it is obviously possible to provide the same information to registered reps.
So why not just do it?
@6:54 Not everything done by the agency is for the use and benefit of reps. Sorry to break that to you. It does come in very handy for social service workers, SHIP and others, as well as for claimants themselves.
ReplyDelete@9:18
ReplyDeleteSo you think it makes more logistical sense for representatives to be forced to confirm that documents have been received via fax/mail with multiple phone calls to already overburdened and inaccessible field offices?
@6:54 Not everything done by the agency is for the use and benefit of reps. Sorry to break that to you. It does come in very handy for social service workers, SHIP and others, as well as for claimants themselves.
ReplyDeleteAnd in that response, we see everything that is wrong in the way some employees of the SSA see their jobs. Well done sir. Well done. Could not have demonstrated it better.
@11:05 your assumption is 100% WRONG! I am not a SSA employee, I happen to be one of those social services providers. Your statement shows what is wrong from your end assuming everyone at SSA is against you. What a spoon.
ReplyDelete@9:25 this is 9:18
ReplyDeleteI really don't care what it does or doesn't do to representatives. I do not deal with representatives. I do hate that the representatives think they are the ONLY people accessing SSA. Claimants and SHIP counselors do it every day as well. We have to fight the same battles and in the end we do not get a $6000 check. If we are lucky we get our funding cut by only 10% each year. Sometimes program assistance is based on being able to prove that someone has at least applied and has a claim pending, that's how we can get them things like food and medication or even medical treatment. All the stuff the representatives throw their hands up and say, "I cant help you with that, I just represent your SSDI claim." So the time I save on the phone trying to get confirmation is time I can spend getting a couple cans of soup and some crackers for somebody to last them a few days.
Sorry if that cuts into your profit margin.
Well, this is certainly the first time I'm on the RECEIVING end of a greed accusation on this site...
ReplyDeleteBottom line:
1) it's very burdensome for reps to be forced to call in to get simple confirmations from field offices
2) more importantly, it must be burdensome for field office employees to constantly be fielding calls when they obviously have a million more important things they could be working on.
3) SSA clearly has the ability to fix this downright stupid problem if they're rolling out a new portal like us.
Dan, I didn't mean that to sound as harsh as it does, and for that I apologize. I get very frustrated with the system like everyone else, but I take the crumbs they give us thankfully. Having just come off Open Enrolment season and having both the LIS and Plan Finder programs go down again and again is very frustrating and makes for a grumpy holiday season. A cold front dropping temps well below freezing makes it worse as needs go up and we are strangled. The threatening campaign rhetoric has those with emotional/behavioral health problems wound up tighter than ever and truly frightened and decompensating.
ReplyDeleteReps could help and frankly I believe they should. They should find the local ADRC representatives, work with the CIL find the SHIP in their area. If in a metro area they should become familiar with the 211 system and provide those they represent with at least some basic information and referral services.
We have begged them to let us train some of the more popular reps in our area. The response has been, in keeping with the season, rather Ebenezer-esque. You would think they would want those they represent to have meds, food, enough stability to make it through the process and Hearing. What we were told was basically, if contact is lost we will find another claim.
Along with your wishes for the SSA Santa we would add something for getting those who have had benefits stopped, both cash and Medicare, due to a redetermination, continued. Often they request is processed wrong and there is nothing, not a single thing we can do to help get it moving again through a payment center when SSA wrongly processed the reconsideration. Sometimes we can get them Medicaid through ACA, but even that door may be closing for us. Ask most reps for help on this issue and we get a resounding chorus of "we do not handle those claims" which we found means that since there is no back pay we wont touch it.
I feel your pain. I see nearly every one of my consumers face to face. Not on the phone. I smell them, I hear the fear and the loss of faith in the voice. In the end a little info from SSA that I can parley into some insulin or Geodone is informational gold.
So I'm really interested in your experiences but we've strayed pretty far from the topic of Charles's post.
ReplyDeletePlease email me as I have a bunch of questions.
Social Service Provider. 11:43/11:41
ReplyDeleteTell me, how exactly do you access the system? Twice, in the last half hour, I was asked by clients to fax confirmation as to the status of their claims to the Social Services worker. Will do it today, and every day when asked, but why do I need to do it if the SS Worker already has that access?
And, the fee is not $6,000, its $5,909 after the "service fee " is applied and in the vast majority of cases, the fee is not even close to $6,000.00. Its 25% of back due which may, if the SSA actually did its job as quickly as they claim, might even be zero. And, in quite a number of cases actually is zero.
And, there are reps who do very little, if anything for their clients just as there are Social Service workers who do their job by putting obstacle after obstacle in front of claimants who end up begging for the pittance in cash and food stamps or shelter that our Government is willing to provide.
All this is about is noting that a system that can provide adequate information to claimants can also provide that information to appointed reps. There is no valid legal or technological or practical reason why not. Would it help reps? Sure. Would it help the clients they represent? Sure. Would it help employees of the SSA? Again, Sure.
To say that the SSA should not do it because reps are lazy and overpaid and not as wonderful as you are is just plain childish. Grow up.
Please illuminate me 1:46. Where and when did I say "reps are lazy and overpaid" for I cannot see that in my posts. Perhaps what you are seeing in my posts is a reflection.
ReplyDeleteI hope not to grow up, I see no future in it and just a loss of hope. "growin' up leads to growin' old and then to dyin' and dyin' to me don't sound like all that much fun"--John Cougar Mellencamp
An honest man is always a child. Socrates
To 8:04 PM. I'm frustrated and somewhat cynical, but not negative.
ReplyDeleteAn example of my frustration: Client is medically allowed after a hearing. Explain the post-hearing process to client (SSI PERC, etc., etc.). Very upset client calls two weeks later as he's rec'd an SSI denial notice. Notice tells him that he's been denied bcs of his WC and SDI payments. This client has never rec'd or been eligible for SDI or WC & there is nothing in his file to indicate that he has ever filed for either payment. Clint was not contacted for a PERC.
Client isn't physically able to get into the SSA field office, so we're working with the field office now (we wd do this for client even if he cd get into the SSA office).
@1:46 you can access the system, just have the person there with you. Not that hard. We also all know if you do not get paid that you will file a Fee Petition, well inflated. Also, don't confuse Social Service workers with state and federal employees that administer the programs you mentioned, there is a difference, become educated.
ReplyDeleteIf growing up means turning into something like you, I want that social service person to stay young and hopeful!
Those SSA incompetent idiots made it so the site checks your credit before you register. Even though it's unneeded and quite frankly useless information for the purpose.
ReplyDeleteI have no credit, so I can't use it. Tax dollars at work as usual.