The House Social Security Subcommittee asked Social Security's Office of Inspector General to do a study on Social Security's telephone service during the pandemic. The Inspector General's office prepared The Social Security Administration’s Telephone Service Performance in response to this request. None of the data presented by OIG is less than a year old and most of it is from before the pandemic even began. Was it too much trouble to obtain more recent data? By the way, the Inspector General's cover letter includes a sentence that may encapsulate the current Inspector General's attitude: “My office is committed to combating fraud, waste, and abuse in SSA’s operations." Right, but what about how well the agency serves the public? Isn't that part of your mission, too. You were asked to produce a report on that. Why are you emphasizing "waste, fraud and abuse" in your cover letter?
Anyway, here are some interesting charts from the report -- click on each of them to view full size:
The "acceptable" standards for this agency overall are very, very low. A hearing request sits in an office for 10 months even though repeated calls were made to get it moving. Finally get it sent to hearing office only to have it sent back to local office and it sat there again until we called. And they act like that's just business as usual. I'm so glad teleworking is working so well.
ReplyDeleteSeems as if Field Offices are doing a pretty good job answering calls based on this study.
ReplyDeleteI think if they had an adequate budget and adequate staffing things would improve. As a rep I blame Congress mostly.
ReplyDeleteBased on the report the Field offices did relatively well. The main issue is not telework. The main problem is a massive lack of staffing. If everyone went back the office full time. The abandoned calls would be higher. The field offices have more retirements coming this year. The SSA desperately needs to hire.
ReplyDeleteOur office just passed submitting a grant that we have had for 17 years that offsets the cost of us helping people with SSA problems, primarily the aging, but we did some disability too, it is just too hard and too time consuming for us to be involved. We are finishing the problems we have and not accepting any new ones and referring everything to the SSA office for resolution.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, not going to miss it at all.
Just over 50% of the calls are handled, whatever that may mean, and nearly 50% are abandoned and yet the claim is that the average call is answered in less than two minutes. Thee two figures do not matchup.
ReplyDeleteJust the message explaining the call process and then hit one or two or if you know the extension or just hit -0- takes almost two minutes. The next time a call is answered in less than two minutes will be the first time in the last two years that happened. The typical call is put on hold listening to that fairly decent hold music, and then, in about 50% of the cases, after fifteen minutes, the call is cut off (abandoned) and you have to start the process over.
Frankly,, the 800 number does answer more consistently, before teh 15 minute cutoff, but then you have to deal with the nonsensical answers you get from them.
Simply,, dear OIG, either you are being lied to by the SSA or your study design makes no sense.
Why not just call each office and record the results in terms of how long it takes to get a live person on the phone and then tell us those numbers.
11:14 Nailed it !! Staffing . The flip side of hiring is that one does not walk off the street and become a "serviceable" ( and I use that term loosely) employee either in the Field or in a Payment Center. New Hires need to be trained and there is a dearth of " experts" and trainers/mentors will likely be among the first to go.
ReplyDeleteMy office had 2 people trying to answer over 200 calls today and not two people at the same time...it was split because someone has to take appts too. It's a disaster with the lack of staffing.
ReplyDeleteI have similar problems calling attorneys
ReplyDeleteHave you tried calling the IRS? Pretty much the same thing...nobody answering, then "we're too busy," followed by dropping your call. Senators offices not answering, so you call another. They give you a phone # that only allows you to leave a message. This crap needs to stop! Covid is just being used as an excuse...after more than a year and a half! IRS refunds still waiting after half a year! It's not just SSA!
ReplyDelete4:15 I have similar problems calling attorneys
ReplyDeleteI doubt that since attorneys actually want to stay in business and they do that by talking to their clients.
As tp calls from Social Security or the State Agency or the Hearing Office, they get answered all the time. Its also how we do business and try to get claims approved.
Are there times when the answer or call is slow, sure. But not answering half of the alls at all and leaving people on hold for 15 minutes and then cutting them off with no ability to leave a message or if you do leave a message, never getting a reply is how an Organization that knows it cannot go out of business, like the Government operates.
Casual slurs like saying you have problem reaching lawyers really serves no purpose.
FO TE here…In my area (South Florida) we are answering phones for other offices in the area whenever we don’t have a call in our own queue. Before implementation of this bright idea we could answer 90% of our calls during the pandemic. We’re a small middle class servicing area so we were pretty good considering. Now that we’re helping the other dense, urban offices 200 miles away, we went from 120 calls a day to 400 calls a day and our percentage has dropped to near 40%. The same thing happened to many other well performing offices in the area. Yes, the other offices were bleeding enough calls to bring down the entire area that much. What the hell was going on over there? What’s worse is often we simply can do nothing for these callers with pending cases other than taking a message for their servicing office. Does it count as an answered call? Yes, but is it good service, hell no. Nothing is being accomplished on their case. What’s sad is the service is worse than the numbers suggest. Many of the new hires are nothing more than warm bodies. The hiring authorities are so narrow it’s impossible to find young qualified candidates anymore. Reopening will help significantly however getting caught up on all the enumeration will take months which means other workloads will take a hit. We have to face the facts that a majority of the clientele are not capable or willing to use online services. Now that I have less time to develop my DIB cases (thanks to the increased phone calls) I actually wish more claimants had representation to help them slog through the online DIB apps. The claimants that do manage to file on their own have no idea what they’re doing.
ReplyDelete10:54 pm is correct. SSA has serious staffing issues. Reopening offices wont solve the problem. The offices should reopen when safe. The agency needs to hire staff first!! Train them properly which requires years and work to retain staff (big problem). SSA needs to prove to its employee they want to be a place where staff want to work and have a career. Otherwise the exodus of staff will continue. SSA needs to commit to the public that customer service is important again. Stop talking and act. Right now SSA is just shifting work anywhere they can without any concern if the work is done or processed correctly. I wish folks who read this blog would stop attacking the employees and hold managers in the SSA responsible. Including agency executives, for example one of the regional commissioners who retired a while back and came back as a consultant, she is one of the highest executives in the agency and has run the SSA amok. She should have been put out to pasture 20 years ago. Replace executives who are focused on statistics and crunching reports, the leaders offer no ideas. Why does SSA employ senior staff who have failed over and over? Why does SSA not hold senior leadership accountable, rank and file staff are accountable for any actions they take.
ReplyDeleteSeems like Congressional/Executive oversight of SSA is failing. Democrats have in interest in proving government can work. Why are they ignoring the staffing and service problems at SSA, while at the same time proposing new policies that would further burden the agency? How dumb is it to propose SSA handle a new program like paid family leave when they cannot even handle the current workload? I am a hardcore leftist, but the persistent bureaucratic failures at SSA make me sound like a conservative on this blog. The incompetence is astounding.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the incentive as an employee to work faster? "Oh you're the best employee, let us give you double the workload and same pay, all while all the slackers get to relax and we're scared to tell them to work." No thanks!!
ReplyDelete