I seem to be hearing an increase in silly fibs from Social Security employees designed to terminate telephone calls without the Social Security employee having to actually do something about a problem. Example: We called to ask about a missing SSI attorney fee payment and were told "You've already been paid. What you thought was just your Title II attorney fee payment was actually a payment for both the SSI and Title II attorney fees." No, it doesn't work like that. Title II and SSI payments are never mixed. Field office employees know this as well as I do. Yes, the windfall offset can wipe out an SSI attorney fee but it would have been simple to have told us that but that's not what we were told and there's certainly been no notice to that effect or we wouldn't have been calling in the first place.
My point here isn't that Social Security employees are liars. No, they're generally truthful and helpful but things are just a mess at Social Security now. There are huge backlogs everywhere. Field office and payment center employees are overwhelmed. Stretch good employees past their limits and things happen that shouldn't happen. Social Security's grossly inadequate operating budget is the problem here.
24 comments:
The phones were the bottom priority for me when I worked in the FO. I was more concerned with completing an A101 or EF101 rather than answer the GI line ESPECIALLY for some "representative" who is bilking the taxpayers and claimant out of backpay. There's a 1-800 number number for a reason.
You'll get your fee when you get your fee.
SSA retiree of nearly 3 decades here. It’s not just a lack of funds, but a lack of training. Over the years, I received many calls and voicemails in my SA Office with questions about cases, some of which I worked on at some point, i e., wrote or issued decision, concerning issues my job didn’t get into in any way. I was in a Hearings Office, not a FO or Payment Center. Meanwhile, all management cared about in recent years was production numbers, to hell with quality of work, customer service, Agency reputation, etc.
More specific to my department, for example, non-attorney decision writers were being given financial Performance Awards for allegedly writing numerous decisions. What management either didn’t know about, or could careless about, is many of those non-attorney decisions were coming back on remand, and placed on my desk. I recall having several cases, especially non-disability cases, where the non-attorney decision writer merely went through the decision writing template and put a few words, or short phrases, in the blanks that had no relevance to anything. If one read through the decision written, it made no sense! Yet, ALJ signed it because numbers are all that matters - period!
There were many times I was outraged! There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Folks kept being chosen for management positions based on being favorites, not years of Agency specific experience, quality of work in association with production over a period of several years, etc. This terrible management worsened even more as years went on.
Unless, or until, there is a complete and total change of management from the top down at SSA, in addition to appropriate financing being allocated to SSA, I have no faith things will be changing anytime soon. There are some very powerful officials in top levels of Agency who once and for all will have to be completely removed with no promise of re-employment with payment of both full salary and full pension, in addition to numerous ridiculous perks, for any
real change to take place.
So glad I quit SSA and left the FO years ago, after leaving within 6 months I did not need Wellbutrin or Lisinopril. Miss the cheap insurance and pay but sure do feel a whole lot better!
@11:39 you really don't know how this works do you?
Windfall offset is one of the most complex issues , See Steigerwald! In the Covid environment the telephone is almost the sole means of communication. Answering the telephone is a top priority in most FO's. To expect the general staff to be competent in Windfall/Offset attorney fees is unreasonable. Such calls should be routed to windfall "experts" or to management for proper handling. When the SSD windfall amounts are such that SSI would have been zero if paid timely then there is no SSI Fee due . The other scenario is that an SSD fee of the $6000 maximum means no SSI fee is due.
@11:39
Yeah, it's terrible that someone would bilk taxpayers and not do the bare minimum of service required by the job.
Guess we'll just have to start filing FOIA requests and faxes for over 2 years for a fee never received, due apparently to a distain for representatives by the administration's minions. I'm sure that actually cooperating would take far more effort than responding to dozens and dozens of requests.
@11:39. Rep here. Now I have confirmation of what I’ve often suspected. We are an irritating afterthought at best and bilking taxpayers and claimant out of back pay. We should just go away and let the system work properly without us.
I wish our local OHO judges and Fed Ct could be made aware of this attitude. Seems to be much more than an operating budget problem. It’s an attitude problem and likely why it’s been taking more than 8 months on average to be paid on a simple streamlined fee agreement case.
Very hard for me to believe @11:39 is an isolated apinion.
12:45 - You are being as obnoxious as 11:39. Would be super cool to see adult conversations and solutions presented to real issues. There aren't enough staff for the complex problems - what is to be done? But nah - this is the internet and it's better to just post comments that demean others. Yay. Can't wait to see what other great solutions you have.
You, 11:39, I really do wish claimants did need reps. If the agency had a rational and logical system for determining disability that was staffed with reasonable, caring, honest and diligent people whose primary concern was making the right decisions based on the facts, evidence, and law, reps wouldn't be needed. Unfortunately, the system we have is nothing like that.
It may get worse. I am in an office of 10 T2 CRs. 4 will retire in next 2-3 years as they have about 150 years experience between them. 2 are younger and pretty good. 4 are trainees and really show little promise. I dread what it will be like soon.
@1:28
12:45 here. 11:39 criticized reps as bilking taxpayers and recipients out of benefits, and proceeded to admit they are bilking taxpayers. Pointing out blatant hypocrisy is not obnoxious. If you perceived my response as suggesting ALL SSA employees are bilking taxpayers, I apologize.
If you want an answer to the problem me and 11:39 were arguing over, make the claims authorization process viewable, akin to status lists available at OHO and AC via ERE. Simple solution that would allow reps to identify fees that are unusually delayed.
CTE here in ATL region. I can only speak for my area in South Florida but a majority of the new hires of today lack the qualifications and skills to be successful CS’s and CSR’s. The only reason they get hired is by being a veteran or through having a disability. We’re rarely given authority to hire college graduates who are much easier to train and seem to have more ambition to succeed and advance their career.
I can see phone calls not being a top priority prior to the pandemic. But now, it is the main line of communication.
Have a client who got the Notice of Award back in April and now back due benefits yet. Unfortunately, it is the local SSA offices who are tasked with disbursing the funds. So some local SSAs are better than others.
Hope they work this out considering inperson service does not like will be soon.
I’m not sure why you expect the person answering the phone to be able to explain windfall offset or how it affects attorney fees. The agency doesn’t work that way. The 800 # agents have no clue about that aspect (I know because I started at the TSC) and neither do most of the claims reps in my area. As a matter of fact up until just a couple years ago we had a cadre that worked ALL the offsets for our entire area. When they disbanded the cadre (they actually all retired) they gave everyone a rushed and inadequate training for windfall offsets and now it’s a disaster.I used to do the offsets for my office. I learned from one of the cadre members before they retired. I don’t do them anymore because they want the TE in our office to do them.
This is just one example or one workload. Multiply that by at least a dozen and you can surmise what kind of answers you’ll get when you call. We have 5 trainees in our office and only 4 experienced employees so I bet we give out wrong information daily because o don’t answer the phones because I’m taking claims ALL DAY EVERY DAY.
Since the pandemic started we have lost 7 experienced employees. It’s a COMPLETE DISASTER!!!!
@3:11 is spot-on. We have been under limited hiring authorities for years now and that has resulted in unqualified candidates being selected. All jobs in the FO require individuals with logic and analytical skills, not to mention being able to write a complete and coherent sentence. Management hires these un-trainable people because if they don't, they pass the hiring opportunity to someone else. Veteran staff is burnt out trying to train these people, and many of these new hires leave anyway because they know they are in over their heads. In my opinion, it mid-management that doesn't care - ADO and RO levels.
The comments about new hires under limited authority is spot on. Training is very difficult right now anyway in this environment but tack on the fact that most new hires only qualify because of veteran status or disability makes a perfect storm. Training is designed for people who are self motivated, analytical and capable of working independently. Most hires are the opposite of that, being used to direct orders, black and white assignments, or a mistranslation of skill sets. They don’t work together. We need to get back to being able to hire from the outstanding scholar pools or people with college experience.
@11:39, I retired in 2011. WOW, 10 years ago! Anyway, no one in my FO had that attitude toward attorney reps.
There are several employees who really are not capable of doing anything more complex than taking a claim. And even then, I suspect they gloss over things like date of onset, unsuccessful work attempts, etc., and then SSI, well forget getting that right.
These employees were promoted to claims reps from service reps and anyone else in the office. Management got the idea from the corporate world that every employee should do everything. So they promoted people to claim rep that would never have been hired to be claim reps. Several of those people still work in the FO.
Good luck getting correct answers from them. And then the new employees. They are being trained on taking claims using the computer generated path. I doubt they are taught to make the decision themselves and make sure the computer program does the same.
I retired a few years ago as a Title II CTE on an early out because I had pretty much burned out and ruined my health on the job.
Then in a moment of what must have been mental illness on my part, I somehow allowed them to convince me to come back again as a permanent hire.
In the 3 weeks that I have been back, I can see that I made a mistake agreeing to this. Before I retired, the SSI claims reps were taking T2 claims and refused to learn anything about onset development or to do the work associated with it (well, two of them are fully capable but are just too lazy to do it, while the other two are literally so incompetent that some days I wonder how they manage to dress themselves and tie their own shoelaces without picture diagrams and help from their families). In the past I ended up always having to do that work for them, because, as the TE, I couldn't say no - that is what I was paid a higher salary for - and management was all about avoiding the stress of dealing with their poor hiring decisions by dumping it off on me. Hence, the burnout and ruined health. Back when I previously retired, I even gave them 6 months notice, so it wasn't like they weren't aware I was leaving so they could try to train them. Like that would ever happen.
Well, three years on, those same SSI CRs are still taking T2 claims, and still refuse to do onset and work development. In the three weeks since I got back, I have at least a half dozen different cases on my desk where DDS is asking for work and recommended onset determinations. Instead of giving them back to the employees who screwed them up and making them fix them, management instead dumped them on me (even though I'm no longer the TE) because they know I know how to do it right. So, the employees at issue will remain screwups, and I'll have to fix their messes around doing my own work (with rusty skills that are three years out of date). The thought of what they actually sent and that likely was decided by DDS while I was gone makes me literally sick to contemplate (both for the agency and for the poor claimants).
The manager recently hinted to me he is retiring next year because "he's just tired". Literally, the only effort the man has expended since being promoted is to avoid being in the same room with anything that even marginally might look like work.
Originally, I had agreed to stay in a permanent position for 5-7 years. However, I decided yesterday that I'm retiring again in 2023 as a 55th birthday present to myself. They aren't paying me enough to deal with this type of idiocy any more, and the agency is literally beyond being saved at this point.
Several years ago CRs could do most any claim fairly competently. They may need help with more complicated issues like combining family maximums or expedited reinstatements. Now the average CR/CS struggles getting the month of entitlement right. A 63-year-old retiree who has not worked in a few years many requests a month of entitlement 2 months after they file. SSA doesn't even question why. I may be a very good reason but most frequently when questioned later the person will say that they thought it took 2 months to process or something like that. With onsets, the same lack of diligence. A person who has not worked in 2 years may allege a very recent onset date. Recent hires don't question that. Later we find out the person was disabled two years but only recently was declared 100% disabled by the VA. These are the new and future workers and management of SSA.
@7:40
The FOs have never really been diligent with onset dates, unless you think running earnings queries and recommending an onset date to when they no longer had any earnings constitutes some sort of diligence. The AODs are all over the place, have been for years, and when claimants are asked about it, the response is almost always “The FO told me to do it that way.”
You are going to accept the amended onset date offer anyway instead of the longshot Hail Mary date the reps "developed" so dont act like it is all one sided.
@932 PM
True. I was thinking more about first party internet claims where the claimant gives the onset date. They don't know what they are doing which is fine but the FO should clean them up and make them more reasonable.
3:04 I would never return, but I would like to hear more about how your return goes. I do miss the pay, but they would have to triple the pay and add a signing bonus before I would even take the time to flip them off!!!! Worst job I ever had, beating being a stable boy shoveling muck.
anon@3:04pm,
Don't forget, they offset your retirement annuity dollar for dollar when you come back, so the pay re-hires end up with isn't anywhere near worth the misery you have to put up with....
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