From some television station in central New York:
On March 17th, 2020, Social Security offices across the country closed their doors to the public. The federal agency cited the emergence of COVID-19 as the reason - aiming to "protect" those they serve.
While restaurants, schools, and other government agencies like the Department of Motor Vehicles have all since resumed in-person business, social security offices are still closed. They won't open again until early April, according to a spokesperson, over two years since the pandemic began.
This has caused problems for people in Central New York, left to try to reach representatives on the phone. Some have reported waiting for hours trying to get through to someone at Social Security - at times, the call will just drop without anyone answering.
Jeanne Marshall first reached out to CNY Central in November of 2021. Having moved to Nedrow at the end of the summer from Colorado - Marshall said she was in a desperate situation, missing thousands of dollars worth of checks from Social Security.
She said she had spent over 48 hours cumulatively on the phone - finally learning that there was an alleged issue with her bank routing number. Even after learning that, she said nothing was actually fixed, left without money coming in for three months in a row. ...
Checking the google reviews for the office, she's not alone.
As recently as one month ago - a user wrote "been calling for couple months and no one ever answers."
Another from 3 weeks ago said, "I can't wait till they reopen this office and these people go back to work and are held accountable for their actions of not doing their job!" ...
18 comments:
"I can't wait till they reopen this office and these people go back to work and are held accountable for their actions of not doing their job!"
We have been working quite hard from home, thank you. And quite well, I may add. I am quite proud of the good work that teleworking SSA employees have accomplished.
To be honest, instead of these insults, we should be getting thanks and appreciation on this blog, from the general public, and from newspapers. SSA telework has in fact been a success. High employee morale, less leave used.
The problems of insufficient SSA staffing, and lack of overtime for the last two years, are well documented.
Overtime hours for SSA Operations were cut severely shortly after employees were sent home to telework in 2020. This led many to falsely believe that telework was causing SSA service problems and backlogs, when the real culprit was the cut in OT.
@11:35AM When people can't contact your office to deal with issues because no one answers the phone, this may make you feel efficient because you are only dealing with the work you have in front of you. Not answering the phone and not returning phone calls is what gets attorneys dragged before disciplinary counsel but for SSA its just the way that business is done. If people can't tell you they need help, then you don't have to help them. That's a hell of a way to operate.
"When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority."
News flash to the general public..
The crappy employees not doing any work from home also don't do any work in the offices. They aren't held accountable which is why the good employees despise the culture at SSA.
You guys sound like idiots. How do you think stuff gets so messed up in the FO's in the first place. The same crappy employees you see in the office, takes your paperwork or claim, tells you everything is fine and then down the road someone tells you whatever you wanted done wasn't done and so forth and so on.
Its not going to change. Hell, we have temporary hires in our office processing work with zero training. How do you think that's going? think that will get better face-to-face?
The agency is in bad place and it's not going to get better for quite some time.
12:57
Those crappy employees still existed pre-pandemic, or do you have no memory of the before times? It was better when things were face-to-face.
I am sure service varies FO to FO, but some are markedly worse compared to pre-pandemic. I know because I have experienced it first hand as an attorney.
I spoke to the lead tech staffer from a large SSA FO in NY yesterday. She conceded that working from home is less efficient, which is why she works in the office 5 days a week.She also admitted that they only lost two employees, so its not new employees that are causing all the errors and bad service. There a multiple systemic failings that did not exist pre-pandemic. Telling the public and attorneys not to believe their lying eyes/ears is not a great strategy .
Its time to reopen. Its ridiculous - restaurants, bars, theme parks, law firms and other government agencies are all up and running. But the delicate flowers at SSA cant risk seeing people face to face. I dont care how hard someone works from home - there are things that require personal interaction to resolve. Especially with unsophisticated or homeless people.
It's a sham, and it is hurting people. And the phone system is awful, no one can get through.
Sorry to disappoint the anti-SSA worker types on this blog, but SSA telework is continuing. FO employees will get 2 days per week telework even after the offices reopen, PSC employees will get 4 days per week telework.
The reason for this is in large part due to the fact that SSA management knows full well that telework is working well. They have access to the internal stats regarding production, leave usage, employee retention, phone times etc.
Attorneys and the general public do not have access to these stats, so it is understandable that some are confused about the efficiency of telework.
3:30
I wasn’t advocating for telework in my previous post. In fact nowhere in it did I say anything about wanting to continue to telework. I was simply stating that going back to the office will not be the service boost the public is expecting.
And of course service varies from office to office but if anyone thinks that poor performing SSA employees are somehow held accountable for their sub par work, nothing could be further from the truth.
As a matter of fact, I have seen far more poor performing employees promoted over the years than fired…sad but true. The agency can’t afford to fire anyone so they just let them mess up work and then have the more experienced employees fix it. Like I don’t have my own work to do, now o have fix someone else’s.
I’ve been through 4 managers and 8 or 9 supervisors in my 20 years and nothing ever changes. It really is laughable they even mention public service as priority when clearly it’s not.
I actually can’t wait to get back in the office so at least the public can physically identify the idiot that took their paperwork and do it incorrectly instead of sayin g “I don’t know who I talked to”. Don’t get me wrong, management will still make someone else fix it but at least the public will be able to see the crap.
I there’s zero incentive to perform your work correctly. I guess I’m the idiot because I actually try to do things right.
I don't know what the writer of this blog needs to hear, but it's true that DDS's and FO's are bleeding workers. My office has lost so many seasoned analysts who were then replaced by trainees, and the trainees are leaving now too. The backlogs in most states are immense and, unfortunately, continuing to grow. Recons are sitting for months before being assigned to analysts. Cases are going through 2, 3, 4 examiners due to examiners leaving the agency.
The delays are not based on telework or laziness. The delays are based on lack of overtime - and please believe that many employees, including myself, are working unpaid overtime just to provide good customer service. Delays are also due to COVID causing claimants to not have in-person visits, which necessitates the need for CEs. Lastly, delays are due to changes in staffing.
FO and DDS employees are working, and working hard. The continual bashing of employees on this blog and in the media is disheartening.I get that it's difficulty to get through on the 800 number, but that is not the fault of the average claims worker or examiner. Whether you believe it or not, the reality of the situation doesn't change. Placing the blame for delays on FO/DDS employees and closed offices isn't going to get claims done faster.
Once the offices reopen you can wait for hours on end in a line instead of on the phone. Prepare for disappointment.
Correct...I am at a smaller office and our lobby normally has 25-30 people in it at any point but with social distancing, we can have 5!
And with so many of our staff quitting or retiring during the pandemic, we'll be lucky to move people through at an acceptable pace. Heaven help you if you get a trainee or a temp hire helping you.
@5:06
Incorrect statement. Many managers and supervisors know that telework is not as effective yet they have to bend to the union's requests of "we need our PAYING union members to stay home because they have kids and elderly parents to deal with, and it's so much easier to handle that at home without having to take leave" all while using COVID as an excuse. Like others have pointed out, every other business around the country has opened yet SSA is still in lockdown mode.
So come on now, let us be realistic. Do not just make a blanket statement that management knows telework is working well without some hard data to back that up. A significant portion of SSA's management will agree that while expanded telework is a nice to have, it is impacting productivity.
And let us not use the general comparison of SSA with any of the tech giants that have moved to full telework, because that's not comparing apples to apples. SSA has always been in the "people business" and it is not feasible to deal with people if those people cannot have access to you.
@ 5:06
We do not need access to the stats. How can you not comprehend that attorneys offices with years of experience in dealing with multiple FOs would have insight that goes beyond "stats." Do you not believe us when we say service has declined precipitously since the pandemic began? It is fine to lay some of the blame elsewhere, and I am not blaming low level SSA employees, but to claim everything is perfectly fine because of the "stats" is laughable/insulting. This is effecting our business and livlihoods and the quality of representation we can provide to clients--do you think we are just making it up?
Also, there have other SSA staffers that have commented in past blog posts that argue against your point. They provide specific anecdotes of how certain processes are way less efficient to perform at home. Again this is not an attack on SSA employees, or an argument that ALL tele-work should end. I understand that lack of overtime, staffing shortages, and other issues contribute to worsening performance, but please stop claiming 90%+ remote work has not contributed to the problems. I work in an attorney's office that was complelty cloud based pre-pandemic. We faced none of the IT challenges that SSA has dealt with, yet our office efficiency was still negatively impacted during the 6 month period of 100% remote work.
I had to reach out to SSA's regional communications manager last week because I was getting nowhere with the FOs on many problem cases. Fortuatley they are responsive, and I got called back by the FO lead tech staffer this week--she works in the office 5 days a week b/c its more efficient. She also told me she is working with legal aide in our area, as they were experiencing the same issues as our office for their indigent SSI claimants. So please stop saying everything if fine, or that things were just as bad pre-pandemic.
Many businesses have not reopened: insurance companies, Comcast HQ are still letting their employees stay completely remote. Others are going hybrid: part remote, part work from home. Insurance companies are somewhat similar to SSA .
The cuts in SSA overtime happened about the same time that employees went remote. Also, many employees retired or quit in the last two years.
Face it: these are confounding variables which make it impossible for those outside of SSA to know whether problems are caused by telework, or by cuts in overtime and staffing.
When the offices reopen, if you are expecting things to get better I think you will be sorely disappointed. Unless OT returns and a new SSA favorable budget comes at the same time.
When the offices reopen, more retirements will happen. Everyone in the field office will be busy waiting on in person claimants, and due to staffing shortages, no one will be available to answer the phones.
SSA needs to hire more staff. Management dreams of the public doing everything themselves online are part of the problem.
Amen!
Spot on! No accountability and when mgmt. attempts to council/discipline, we don't get the support needed from Regional LMR. Also.....we need to get back to the basics. SSA is bending to attorneys, advocates and other third parties and doing the work they want us to do. Maybe if we got back to doing the basics (i.e., RIB, DIB, SSI) we could focus on quality. This would reduce improper payments, adhoc workloads. Less improper payments and screw ups means less interaction with attorneys and advocates. AND HOW ABOUT CMS TAKE BACK MEDICARE and have SSA do their work. But I forgot, SSA IS BOUGHT OFF BY Attorney's/ Advocates.
Accurate article. Customers better pack their lunch, get ready to line up at 8am and get helped at 2pm when offices open.
Post a Comment