The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has already approved Interim Final Regulations on "Waiver of recovery of certain overpayments accruing during the COVID-19 pandemic period." They are being published in the Federal Register tomorrow. Read them today.
The weird thing about these regulations is that they apply to overpayments that occur between March 1 and September 30, 2020 and which are identified by December 31, 2020. Does Social Security seriously think it will be able to fully process its workloads by the end of September? Why would the agency automatically waive an overpayment based upon when the overpayment is identified rather than when it occurred. From the point of view of the claimant, that makes no sense. I don't see how it makes any sense even from Social Security's point of view.
The regulations fail to identify which overpayments they apply to. They merely refer to overpayments occurring "because of the actions that we took in response to the COVID-19 national public health emergency, including the suspension of certain of our manual workloads that would have processed actions identifying and stopping certain overpayments." Could you be a little more specific? As an attorney representing claimants I don't like a standard that sounds like "We'll waive 'em if we want to and if we don't, you can't complain about it because we never promised you anything."
Even under the circumstances I think the agency should have thought these regulations through a bit better. I'd call this sloppy. At least the public can comment on them. My guess is that there will be comments and that the agency will have to modify them before we're done with this issue.
15 comments:
They never should have stopped processing adverse actions. They did and now it's a mess.
The only logic I can see to basing it off the date of identifying the overpayment is that waiver of the overpayment is theoretically equivalent to a tax cut/deferral, which the executive branch believes has a stimulus effect.
That ignores the psychological differences of having extra cash on hand versus having debt reduction on hand, as to consumer spending. People generally spend money they have access to. While eliminating a debt is comforting, it doesn't really encourage spending. But, that's the only logic I can see.
Well, if SSA continued to pay and incur additional o/p from March-Sept. Then I see these being waived because it was done without the bene asking for it. Sept 30 is when all these thousands of cases will come out of Hold, doubt they will be processed by Dec. IMHO
Well, the agency has not lifted the adverse action restriction. So if they lift it say 10/01/20, any OP's caused after 09/30/20 would not be subject to the provision and fair game for collection. They know what they're doing and logic has no room in government...trust me...it's all too painfully clear.
SSA stopped providing clear explanations of overpayments several years ago. Trying to get an explanation is like pulling teeth. Collecting money based in a letter "You were overpaid XXX dollars" does not give the beneficiary the ability to contest the overpayment. SSA should stop collecting any overpayments until they go back to listing the reason (clearly, not legalese) and how the overpayment occurred, month by month (amount due & amount paid, month by month).
@313PM That would be good but sometimes even if it's a simple overpayment due to making too much money, it's not so easy to figure it out. Person makes $10K too much while on retirement and say age 63. So he should be overpaid $5K but the records show $4783. Hmm. With a bit of work one can determine that yes he's overpaid $5000 but the extra earnings increased his benefit and reduced his overpayment by $217. This is a pretty simple example of how complicated they can get if there are say 2-3 years of work, perhaps a child was entitled part of the time so was overpaid for a year, etc etc. The darn computer may come up with a correct number but like being in school, it would be good if it showed its work so you can explain it to anyone.
anon@3:13pm,
That is why you ALWAYS file simultaneous reconsideration and waiver requests if the reason for the overpayment isn't immediately obvious. The waiver has to be deferred until the reconsideration is processed. In most cases, the recon reviewer invariably will send a more detailed letter with the recon decision (which will usually include SCFR-determined correct and incorrect payment rates).
Unless...you get SSI...then the overpayments are MUCH easier to explain and almost always due to failing to report a change in income /resources or living arrangements.
@6:44
Unless the local field office refuses to take both requests, tells you to "pick one" and you have to fight it to regional.
Why pick one? Because sometimes people wan to file an appeal on something they can't...say an overpayment caused by WEP or GPO. If you disagree because you think it's "unfair" then an appeal wasyes time and gets you nowhere. Best otion would be a waiver...but if you have the ability to repay, you're still wasting time.
1:24 but who are you to decide when someone can't file a recon request for WEP or GPO? There are cases on dual-status military/civilian folks, where the beneficiary thought WEP was "unfair" and district and circuit courts agreed. But they had to start with a request for recon.
anon@11:12am,
6:44pm here.
Always send a copy of the waiver request AND the reconsideration request certified mail to the servicing program service center in addition to the FO. Make sure the reconsideration request reflects that you are questioning BOTH the fact AND the amount of the overpayment. When they get the request(s), it will be scanned (creating a permanent dated record of the filing) to their paperless system for processing and the PSC/OCO will have to deal with the recon request.
If you don't make the fact/amount thing absolutely clear in the recon request, it allows the PSC to avoid the issue by sending it on to the FO as an implied request for waiver instead of an recon request.
I know they don't ever timely process this stuff. However, you can only do what you can do. And, more times than not, the PSCs do date stamp receipt of stuff and save postmarked envelopes (something the FOs are notoriously bad about not doing) which can make a difference in the argument as to whether a recon request is filed timely or not.
@2:18
Because the agency can't overturn WEP or GPO so you're wasting everyones time by appelaing something only Congress can change. Maybe in the case you're referring to it would work but this is a nessage board about SSA...not military/civilian issues. Context matters.
11:12 here.
@7:31
Thanks! Good info for the future.
anon@7:36am,
For your information, anon@2:18 was referring to a real life Social Security case where a valid WEP/GPO appeal resulted in a favorable court decision for that claimant in the 8th Circuit.
An appeal filed because somebody just "doesn't agree" with WEP/GPO having no underlying issues takes very little time and effort to dispose of at the reconsideration level (provided you know what you are doing). Hearings take longer, but the system is what it is.
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