Under the Paperwork Reduction Act Social Security must post notices when it develops new forms requiring information from the public. This is from such a notice posted today in the Federal Register:
... SSA developed an online tool to allow internet users to request an appointment to file an application for benefits and to establish a protective filing date with SSA. The electronic protective filing tool will allow individuals to submit information for the appointment request using a computing device, such as a personal computer or handheld (mobile) device instead of calling SSA by phone or visiting an FO [Field Office]. The tool will be available to potential claimants, as well as those individuals assisting them ...
[T]he system will ask the individual to tell us whether they are answering these questions about themselves, or about another person. To do so, the system will present several options for individual to select from the categories of individuals who, under current regulations, can establish a protective filing date. The next screens ask for basic information about the individual who will be claiming benefits, or requesting SSI payments. Additionally, the tool will collect the name, phone number, and email address (optional) of the person submitting the information, if that person is different than the person who will be claiming benefits or SSI payments. Once the system collects the data, it gives the individual the opportunity to review the information provided and electronically sign and submit the form. The system then transmits the information into eLAS [?] and establishes a protective filing date. ...
The notice does not say when this might come into effect. The agency estimates that only 21,250 of these forms will be completed annually, which sounds awfully low.
6 comments:
It doesn't sound that new to me. Our internet unit got a few of these each week from people who tried to file online but could not and it gave them an appointment within a couple of days to file with the local office.
eLAS is the system we use to schedule an appointment. It shows how many appts are left then I select one foryou. Like today where I see initial disability claims are booked up to April 25th.
Totally different Those are CLs that tried to file online and failed. This sounds like it's just to schedule an appt.on elas to apply for benefits.
Oh, look another workload that's not budgeted. Good thing claimants will be told when their appt is, won't be any scheduling conflicts and phone calls generated with that SMH.
Subsequently, eLAS will notify SSA
of the pending request, and an SSA
technician will use the information
submitted to schedule an appointment
and send a notification of the date, time, and type of appointment to the
individual who will be claiming
benefits.
@149 Those failed to file appointments were also on eLAS. One per day.
Good luck. I wish the new appointment system, ELAS, could be shared to the public. Why are there 3 or 4 boxes on each page, and the Edit button is on the top right of each box? Not intuitive at all. Why when you type in a date you have to type in the slashes too, it should prefill. Why when you key in the time, you need to key the colon also? Try sending a closeout notice with it, yea good luck finding which box/screen to do that. Pretty much every section is super badly designed.
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