I was having a discussion -- via e-mail -- with several legal assistants at my law firm recently about their experiences over the last few months trying to communicate with PC3, that is, Social Security's Third Payment Center, the one in Birmingham, AL, which handles much of the business of computing and authorizing benefits in the Southeastern United States. Here's what they had to say:
- Horrible, 19 out of 20 times no one answers. Actually, even that stat is high.
- They never answer for me. I have been asking for help from DO [District Office] to send Mgr [manager] to mgr messages.
- I haven’t been able to get through to anyone there since March. I have the DO send mgr to mgr messages to them and still don’t get any results.
- It is terrible. I have called repeatedly and I can never reach anyone. It does not allow you to leave a voice mail. The only time I have seen action is if the DO requests that they do something or if I send a fax. Sometimes I have aggravated people at other PCs that have contacted PC3.
- PC 3 is horrible
46 comments:
Now I am confused. First we hear that telework is the greatest thing since sliced bread, productivity is higher than any time in recorded or pre-recorded history, everyone loves telework and it is the blessing to end all blessings.
Then we get this saying "terrible" "horrible" "never answer" so maybe it isnt the bestest thing ever I guess.
Great Lakes payment center isn't much better. My office called NOSSCR a few months ago asking for suggestions. Attorney fee payment has been running really slow.
"Now I'm confused."
Perhaps part of the problem is that you're letting a handful of anecdotes about phone service at a particular payment center color your impression of how the agency's other 50,000+ employees are coping with the expanded telework.
It is difficult to get through to the Attorney Call Center in Baltimore and to the Regional Payment Centers. In my case it is the Mid America Payment Center in Kansas City.
Of course, calling and leaving a message is not helpful. Rarely do they call back. When I leave a message I state. "I would appreciate the courtesy of a return call. If you call and leave a message for me I will call you back. I would like the same professional courtesy." My messages do not work.
Social Security has put an impenetrable iron fortress around themselves in the form of toll free numbers, answering machines etc. Another option in some cases is the ERE message. That does not get a response either.
I hesitate to give out my hold card. It usually works when nothing else does. SSA does not advertise many direct numbers. They do advertise telephone numbers for the Regional Public Relations people. I have called them from time to time. I tell them I am a member of the Public and that this is a matter of Public Relations. I will call them and state I have left five messages with the Muskogee, OK Social Security Office about a case and no one will return my call. Please have them call me. Or, I have called Kansas City about payment on a case for 8 months without success. Please have them call me. In most of those cases someone from the offending office will call me in a few hours to a day.
I think someone wiser then me said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over. I have done it and I am tried of the same results.
NOSSCR does not seem to be much help. I have thought out of the box and use the SSA Public Relations people to help with a "Public Relations" matter.
9:39 AM stated "Attorney Fee payment has been running slow." That is true. I understand that for several months the Payment Centers were told not to pay claimant's past due benefits and to just start monthly payments. I do not know if that is true. I was told that inadvertently by a Call Center staff on one of the few times I was able to get through.
8:44 "Now I'm confused". Let me clear things up for you, the statistics show telework is working fine.
Anecdotes are by definition based on casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis. Not reliable. Especially when judging the agency as a whole.
Although your agenda may be to end telework because you don't like federal employees working from the comfort and safety of their homes, I think I'll trust the statistical evidence.
Another major problem for my office is with cases involving Attorney Fee Petitions. I have filed four Attorney Fee Petitions since March 2020. Three of those are with one office. One Petition was filed in March for $10,732.50. Nothing happened and in July I sent an inquiry letter. Someone from OHO called and said they were sending it to the ALJ (4 months later). Several days later I received an Attorney Fee Authorization for $6,000.00. That Fee Authorization was not documented with a written rationale or a Form SSA-1178. I requested that rationale because I wanted to appeal and never received anything. I filed an appeal with the Regional Chief ALJ yesterday. This case involved two hearings and a successful appeal to the Appeals Council. It is worth more than $6,000.00.
Another one of my Fee Petitions was filed in June. It involves $606.42. That is six hundred not six thousand. I inquired last week and was told it was on an ALJ's desk. I do not know what that means. This is a case involving a previous attorney and a small award because of a Partially Favorable Decision that the client did not want to appeal.
I did get one Attorney Fee Petition filed in April, approved in August and paid today. It was only paid because I called the Attorney Fee Call Center and the representative said I have authorized it for payment.
The point is unless we take extra action like call and ask what is happening these cases could linger on and on. I feel like I am begging to get paid what I have already earned. I doubt that there is anyone in the Government or in politics who cares if Attorneys are paid.
I can echo identical problems at Great Lakes. I have never had a call answered by a person since March and have never had a voice mail message returned in that time frame. We have resorted to having the district offices having to send to send messages and manager to manager contact in an effort to move things along. I would love to hear an explanation for why Great Lakes stopped answering and responding to calls.
On the other hand, district offices are much more responsive to phone calls than they were pre-Covid 19.
Historically, these payment centers have been terrible at customer service. We've had issues with PC3, and PC's 1 -6, for many, many years. Their "published" numbers are out of date and it feels as though they want to do all they can to discourage any communication with them.
We've found, however, that with PC7 the Representative Call Center has done a great job at reducing call times and they actually return our calls when we leave a message.
This is 8:44, I am simply pointing out how this blog posters react, no matter what the agency does there will be complaints here.
Lighten up folks, this is SSA disability law, not rocket surgery.
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics"
Fuggedaboudit!!! Issues with FOs, in particular, since March are off the charts.
I just received a NOA approving case that was awarded/paid last Sept. Few folks who answer FO phones know the diff between Appointed Representative and rep payee. Management rarely returns calls, if you're bold enough to escalate. Tech support is untrained as to what you're asking for - happens way too often.
Recently had case at a SE DDS where both (new) examiner and "new" manager were clueless as to how I got data into ARS/ERE and weren't sure (ultimately didn't care) that supportive evidence was on record. I lost count of the number of times a specialist outside the practice area of claimant's matter handled case.
Getting through to Rep Services is a breeze. Except most who answer have diff answers and issues don't get resolved. (What are they there for?) I had one refer a matter to Legis Liason...who didn't return calls and when she finally did wouldn't speak w/ me about case "because we (leg liasons) work for claimants!"
Forget payments, NOAs with my name on them... I did have one with "You were represented. Your representative can receive a fee." Delineated all the usual stuff but neglected to have my name or cc me!
I could go on. If you decide to put together a group of reps who want to try to work together with SSA to right the ship, LMK.
BTW- I also deal with many at SSA who really care about their work, have the best interests of claimants at heart, and know their stuff. I <3 them!!!
Stay safe!
I was wondering what happened to the payment center in Birmingham. I haven't been able to reach anyone. My local office had problems with this also.
to be fair, the PCs, particularly PC3, didn't exactly have great reputations for being reachable, calling folks back, or solving tricky issues quickly before COVID...
If you recall - it was afge Saying it was working fine - and all things considered it is. The problem is we were very restricted when this shutdown started ..:///so much so that we could readily keep up and work backlogs. Over the past few months they have slowly opened up thing and something else happened- the public found us again. Since early August - mail and calls have exploded. We are back to that “barely keeping up.” Wait until the floodgate is fully open - soon
The local offices haven't even been able to directly contact the PSCs for years, so I don't know why it would be a shock that they aren't responding to outside contacts. The local office managers even in many cases have limits put on them as to what they can and cannot send as a manager to manager requests on. I know this was the case when I retired last July, as my then manager had previously shown them to me as explanation as to why she couldn't do it on a case.
The work does not get done properly during normal times. It certainly isn't getting done now.
Chuck has been pimping WFH for months. This can't be right!
You forget that the hearing office support staff is now covering all hearing reporter duties and thus not their regular jobs.
PC 3 was always the poster child for poor service. Email executive secretary of the head of PC with cc to mod manager.
This is little consolation, but as an ALJ, I had the same problem when calling reception at the hearing office from the hearing room with an immediate issue -- no one would answer and there is no option to leave a message. When VEs or reps called in to say they were late due to traffic or even to call in sick (back when hearings were held in person), they couldn't get through either. Due to the "team" staffing system, no staff members were allowed to take calls directly and the receptionist was a gatekeeper of sorts -- couldn't handle the calls so most never got answered.
No idea what is happening at payment centers but at hearing offices the support staff is recording hearings and case processing is behind.
Father submitted to a retirement adjustment to OPM over two months ago with no indication the envelope has even been opened.
I can speak for delays at individual OHOs since HCRS/S are taking tons of hearings now instead of VHRs, and compared to some workloads, fee authorizations (and/or complex petitions such as remands or those requiring RCALJ approval) just add another layer of complexity and waiting.
The fee petition process needs to be streamlined at least, or overhauled ideally. That and I never feel like I'm doing my job when a rep calls and we've done our part (obtaining authorization), but then it's sitting in the black hole of the PC. Doesn't help that we aren't really authorized to tell them anything except "call your DO or wait." It's incredibly inefficient and frustrates me as someone who is usually approached for fee issues in our office as an HCSS who chews through these damn things.
My two cents. Something needs to change with the fee petition/authorization process because it's a disorganized mess.
If claiming there are problems at PC3 is the proof telework isn’t working then you have got to do better. I worked in the field for 6 years in a southern state and PC3 never answered the phone or returned emails no matter what. This is nothing new and not related to telework. The way I used to get through them was calling the garnishment desk and claiming I had a case to work and then I would ask to be transferred to a BA or CA or Mod Manager to confirm one last detail. Other than that forget about it.
Remands are another source of irritation to me. I handle many remands, Appeals Council and District Court. Since March at least two of my Court Remands were mishandled by OHO.
In one case, the case was remanded in February. In late April someone from OHO called about the case and asked for telephone numbers for a hearing. That caught my office off guard because we did not receive a notice of hearing. Also, we were in the midst of updating about 2.5 years of medical records. My office staff let the OHO know that. About 10 days went by and another OHO staff member called asking for telephone numbers. I talked to the staff member. I told her we did not receive a Notice of Hearing and that I was trying to represent my client. She said she did not understand why I was still representing the client after the District Court Remand. I noted to her that I had represented the client in the case since 2015. She became angry and hung up.
The other case was also a Court Remand. The client, but not my office, received a Notice of Hearing on August 8th for a hearing on August 25th. I contacted the OHO involved. They gave me some double talk about not understanding why I was still representing the client after the District Court Remand.
Both cases were postponed. In both cases OHO asked if I wanted a postponement. I stated no that I felt the postponement was the fault of SSA and they should do the postponement. I did not want them to say later that I asked for a postponement.
I had a similar occurrence with an Appeals Council Remand.
In all three cases my name was plastered all over the cases. How do the people looking at these cases ignore that an attorney was involved. Do they think the client's were pro se in Federal Court? It is also irritating because some clients might not contact the attorney's office if they receive a Notice of Hearing. We (attorneys) have very little protection in those situations. I have handled about 6,500 hearings. In at least two times hearings were scheduled without my knowledge but with the knowledge of the claimant. One of those situations was worked out, the other was not. In the one that was not the ALJ made a snide comment about me. The client fired me. That case was also a Court Remand.
I also do not understand why the OHO staff cannot understand why an attorney handling a case in Federal Court would not continue with the case at a Supplemental Hearing.
@11:41 AM
"In both cases OHO asked if I wanted a postponement. I stated no that I felt the postponement was the fault of SSA and they should do the postponement."
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but based on this, it sounds like you might just be an exceptionally difficult person to deal with, and that this is being highlighted by the highly unusual circumstances we're all struggling to navigate. If you wanted a postponement, why do you care which party is on record as instigating it?
I work in a payment center as a Claims Specialist. Many cases I work are extremely complex and require full concentration. Dual entitlement, complex workers' compensation etc.
I can't be disturbed by taking phone calls from attorneys or I will lose my train of thought and make mistakes that could cost the government thousands of dollars.
So yes I let all my incoming calls go to voice mail including the attorney calls. I did that when I was in the office and I do it now when I telework. No change.
We wouldn't get anything done in the PC if we had to immediately answer all calls, drop what we are doing, and look up everything the attorney wants to know on a different case.
The system in the payment center was purposely set up to protect us from excessive incoming phone calls. This is the only way we can get our work done.
Maybe that's the problem. I understand times are more difficult but I heard this same excuse for 30 years. I worked in PCs, FOs, and TSCs. Do you think you are the only one that has challengeing workloads?
You need to see the bigger picture and maybe you shouldn't be working for SSA. Nobody said it would be easy.
"I can't be disturbed by taking calls from attorneys or I will lose my train of thought..."
Wow! This one sentence is appalling and explains a lot. Good to know where the priorities are by some at the payment center.
@1:57 AM and 9:34 AM
Way to fall right into the trap Congress set over the past decade. Someone from the payment center chimes in to note that they're far too understaffed to do their jobs and answer the phones throughout the day, and your immediate reaction is that they must be incompetent and/or lazy. Shaking my G.D. head.
Wow! This one sentence is appalling and explains a lot. Good to know where the priorities are by some at the payment center.
Wow, attorneys still think the only people getting paid by SSA are disability claims with lawyers.
Anon@4:04pm,
You don't get anything done anyway, and even when you do the majority of the time it isn't fully processed or isn't done right. And, because we can't contact you to point out your screwups so you can fix them, nobody EVER holds you accountable for them. And, because you are never held accountable, you do the same things OVER AND OVER and don't have to deal with the consequences of your errors and see how what you have done has just maybe destroyed somebody's life.
Further, many of the PSC employees who "can't be disturbed" use final case inputs as a SEP field - after they make that input and don't bother to check what it did (which a large majority don't as a rule), the resulting fallout becomes Somebody Else's Problem since it is not on your list anymore. Of course, then it won't be fixed for 6 months (or more) after umpteen messages from the FO and maybe a manager contact or two.
I've got news for you - you aren't all that. In the end, you (like most SSA employees) are an overpaid button pusher whose employment hinges solely on the fact that the agency is run by promoted problems and incompetent political bureaucrats who are incompetent to the point where the agency is incapable of designing a system capable of processing its workloads without making 30% of it some sort of exception.
Now, I should probably also speak about the lazy or borderline-incompetent CRs in the local offices (of which there are many) who can't be bothered to learn to do their jobs correctly either, but since none of them have posted any worthless drivel here yet about how they "can't be disturbed" I won't.
Painting all of telework with the failures of one Payment Center, which had a bad reputation even among the bad reputation of all the Payment Centers, is patently unfair and below you, Charles.
The issue is with the concept of the payment centers themselves. They are deliberately firewalled off not only from the public, but from most of the rest of SSA. They are completely unaccountable to the people they affect.
Our field office got a claims authorizer in our office as a compassionate reassignment, and it was a godsend. PC-level issues solved THAT DAY. There is no reason on earth that every level one field office in America couldn't have one benefits authorizer and one claims authorizer assigned to them, save for SSA's HR department being lazy and the PCs being provincial about their power.
Note that the PCs have no problem sucking resources away from FOs in the form of Workload Support Units staffed up with Claims Specialists, who are just as unreachable and unaccountable as their buddies in the Mods. (And, judging by how many issues we need to fix, especially on the Title 16 side, poorly trained to boot)
The problem is structural. You can flog customer service all you want; the agency misallocates resources and that's what needs to be solved.
10:53 try decaf.
11:23. I work in PC7 as a Claims Specialist and I spend a lot of my time fixing cases the FO's worked incorrectly.
Workers' compensation cases are almost never input correctly by the FO, and the underpayment and overpayments caused by incorrectly worked FO cases which are not caught by the PC7 Claims Specialists, are enormous. Also the FO never input the WC paragraphs correctly so the claimant doesn't know what is going on based on the notices they receive,, this causes a lot of recon requests,.
The PC's are necessary because we can specialize in issues such as workers' compensation as we don't have to do interviews or deal with the public, except for occasional phone calls.
As for attorney calls I don't mind them but there is nothing I can to to expedite payment on case once I've worked it and sent on to the Benefit Authorizer for MACADE input. It sits in the BA backlog and is worked based upon age, it's out of my control. The problem is staffing in the payment centers.
Yes, CS training for workmans comp is inadequate and much of their knowledge atrophies as well when they don't get regular claims for it (depending on geography). I almost always have to go back to the workflow guide to make sure my stuff is tight, because I get less than a dozen a year.
I don't doubt every branch of SSA has bad employees that allow them to point fingers at each other. But TSC employees, for all my gripes about the quality of their output, have to put up with insane metrics and micromanaging. PCs are the ones that get to hide behind the MDW wall while FOs have to deal with anguished claimants.
PC7 has the worst reputation by far in ODO as well. One of our co-located ODAR people asked a Regional Commissioner if anything could be done about PC7 accountability and timelines for getting claimants in pay, and literally they laughed in her face.
There must be some firewalls set up to prevent the PSC from being overwhelmed by phone calls from claimants, attorneys, and field offices. The most complex and challenging cases are given to the PSC technicians, and that has to be number one priority there. This is why we have the RCC,TSC, the MDW system, etc.
There are good reasons why SSA set things up the way they did. Given the enormous complexity and volume of the workload, it is handled well with considering the limited staffing which SSA has.
Years ago the PC modules had to deal with incoming phone calls from attorneys and claimants. That did not work well, interfered with handling workloads, which is why the current system evolved.
OPM is even worse. Good luck.
I work in Seattle region. The employees are more interested in everything being fair and equitable. Meanwhile management is breaking it's back to keep everything going. DMs are adjudicating claims so that Card can have work life balance.
For the attorneys that think PC should answer every one of their calls immediately, do you do the same for your clients and SSA offices? Not in my experience.
I have talked to an attorney once this millennium.
This isn't to say your calls shouldn't be returned.
11:29: yes, it is our office's policy that all client calls should be answered by a live person who can help them on the spot. When a VM has to be left, the call is returned that day, or at the very least, within 24 hours. The same goes with calls from SSA. If we adopted the call return policy that the payment centers use, our google review page would soon be filled with 1-star reviews and we'd be driven out of business. As I tell the staff when they complain about the constant crush of phone calls: these calls are the reason why we all have jobs and are job security. The real concern would come if those calls stopped.
It's different for a payment center than a law firm. PC technicians in the modules are busy working cases which were backlogged, or priority cases assigned by their managers. If they were also answering phone calls from attorneys and claimants, it would be impossible to keep up with our workloads. We can't put our other cases on hold to work a younger case the attorney is calling about which could take hours to complete.
Also the issues raised by phone inquiries into SSA are likely more complex and time consuming than phone calls going into law firms.
RCC was set up to handle phone calls in PC7, that seems to be working fairly well from what I see.
Maybe Amazon or Instacart should take over.
With their productivity metrics I'm sure service would improve fairly quickly.
Interesting to read the comments here. I enjoyed representing disability clients for years but through in the towel about a year ago as the practice simply became financially untenable due to SSA's record of lawyer fee payments not being made timely, if at all. In fact, when budgeting, I would just assume that I would never see payment on 25% of the claims that I won for my clients. Hard to pay the overhead and staff if you do see a check for months and months. Consequently, the system seems to encourage "mill" firms that just take every claim to hearing regardless of the merits while doing the very minimum of preparation and see what sticks - essentially, a numbers game. While this may result in a substantial windfall for large firms handling thousands of claims, I think it results in a serious disservice to claimants in quality representation as well as contributing to a bloated caseload of non-meritorious claims for SSA and the OHOs to work through. This, in turn, leads to the hostile feelings expressed here by some SSA stuff to attorney reps and vice-versa. Not sure what the solution would be but seems like its the claimants who end up getting the short end of the stick from both SSA and the reps.
Exactly!
I can’t stop laughing 5:52pm!
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