From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):
... To identify and prevent payments after death, SSA established a program under which States can voluntarily contract with SSA to provide it death data to match against its records. Through Electronic Death Registration (EDR), States electronically submit death reports to SSA. If the decedent’s data match SSA records, SSA posts the State death information to its Numident file and terminates payments to deceased beneficiaries. In addition to EDR, SSA receives death information from other sources, such as family members and funeral directors.
We obtained data files that provided the personally identifiable information of approximately 7 million individuals Alabama, Georgia, or Illinois recorded as deceased between January 1978 and December 2018. We matched the data against SSA payment records and the Numident.
We estimate SSA issued approximately $79 million in payments after death to 1,127 beneficiaries and 4 representative payees who died in Alabama, Georgia, or Illinois between January 1978 and December 2018. Identifying and correcting these discrepancies will prevent approximately $14 million in additional improper payments after death over a 12-month period.
We also identified 53,486 non-beneficiaries who were deceased according to Alabama, Georgia, or Illinois records but whose death information was not in SSA’s Numident. Resolving these discrepancies will improve the accuracy and completeness of death information the Agency shares with other Federal benefit-paying agencies.
I don't understand. Social Security is marking these people as dead when it receives notice from the states that they're dead but when OIG matches state death records with Social Security records, they find a number of people who are dead but who are not marked as dead in Social Security records. Social Security seems to be relying upon the same records as OIG but OIG finds more dead people. Is the problem at Social Security or is the problem with the data the states are providing Social Security? The report doesn't deal with this question although the answer seems to be crucial for preventing the problem from continuing.
I'm sure that Social Security officials have asked themselves for years, "How did we get roped into the death master file business?" It's nothing but endless headaches. There's no obvious reason why Social Security should be doing this instead of some other agency. Many, many other agencies and private businesses rely on the death master file.
Seems like this would be an easy automated process, but the computer systems of the agency are pretty antiquated and perhaps that is where the problem is. Maybe if the the computers are forced to return to the office, they will retire and can be replaced.
ReplyDeleteIf I recall, since the person is not a beneficiary, reports of death for such aren't updated to the Numi unless we get a report from family. There was something about the probity of taking the State report and using it alone without knowing exactly which non-beneficiary it was referring to. Way too much drama on the agency and impact on the citizen if you mark them as dead by mistake to take it lightly.
ReplyDeleteAppendix A, contrary to the earlier verbiage, says that they obtained death data from the states for larger past periods. I suspect the issues are found there. SSA gets the data on a flow basis, getting a multi-year past period would mean that it's the beneficiary of the many updates, format fixes and other tweaks such files get as problems are identified and sorted out. SSA is dealing with DMF data on an ongoing basis, not so much as "hindsight".