From the written testimony of Peggy Murphy for the National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA) to the House Social Security Subcommittee:
... Field offices can be more responsive to the public only when employees are onsite. The current telework program in field offices makes it difficult to adjust to surges in office visitors or telephone calls while balancing appointments, scheduled and unscheduled employee leave, and back-end work. This is further complicated by having an appreciable number of field office employees continuing to work from home full-time due to personal circumstances. SSA has the technology and flexibility to consider transferring field office employees, who are unable to work in the office, to other components that can better accommodate their telework needs and limit the impact on front-line public service. We need employees in field offices who are able to work onsite and assist those who seek our help in person and to handle the multitude of workloads that are not portable. As an agency we need to be able to maintain our flexibility in the field offices so we can respond to surges from the public.
By the way, Murphy's written testimony says that Social Security ought to accept electronic signatures. Per a White House order, they must! Social Security is mentioned by name in that order. Grace Kim, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner for Operations, also testified that the agency couldn't yet accept electronic signatures. I don't understand this.
Not sure what she means by this -
ReplyDeleteSSA has the technology and flexibility to consider transferring field office employees, who are unable to work in the office, to other components that can better accommodate their telework needs and limit the impact on front-line public service.
If those field employees working 100% from home for personal reasons (typically waiting on a reasonable accommodation request) are transferred to other components, how will this help the field office losing said employee?
ReplyDeleteSSA workers are already feeling overwhelmed by the workloads, confirmed by yesterday's testimony by Grace Kim. Working from home a couple of days per week gives field office employees a break from having to commute to the office every day, and they can accomplish most of the tasks they do in the office from home anyway.
There is no reason to return to 100% work from the office, for the field offices, or anywhere else in SSA. This isn't the 1980's with crowded offices and supervisors breathing down our necks.
To further curtail telework will result in morale, retention, and recruitment problems.
FO employees will retire, quit, or put in for transfers to jobs which allow telework.
As for the field office employees with legitimate medical issues which require them working from home every day, at least they are contributing.
Transferring these experienced employees elsewhere is not going to help the field offices or SSA operations in general.
I don't have a problem with some employees still working from home. Good workers do fine wherever they are.
ReplyDeleteAs to electronic signatures, good for medical releases because by the time you get to that, the claimant has a vested interest in getting that signed. However, electronic signatures on a 1696 and a fee agreement are a problem and I don't think that should be accepted.
@10:27
ReplyDeleteIt's not a problem for claimants to be represented and SSA has no business questioning the legitimacy of an SSA-1696 or fee agreement short of an actual complaint by the claimant of some issue with either.
The flexibility to move CRs/CSs to the front end to handle CSR/SR work may help some moving the crowds late in the day but the cost of not processing claims is detrimental to the public too. The problem in some offices is just not enough bodies to answer phones, take care of the public that walks in and handle CSR/SR work such as post entitlement inputs, etc. When management pulls CRs/CSs to do that work, generally it is done less efficiently because they aren't trained to do that work or they do some of it very seldom. So management gets people that aren't very good at post entitlement work doing it at the cost of them not doing what they are best at doing--processing claims. Yet when they come up for review at the end of the year, it's not how many death inputs did you do but how many claims did you clear and how timely were they done? It's frustrating to not be allowed to do the job you are trained to do and do best because of budgetary concerns (not enough people) and management decisions (promote every SR/CSR no matter how good they are so the SR unit is always full of new trainees).
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ReplyDeleteThe Biden Administration has warned of a COVID surge in the fall, when cold weather returns. SSA FO employees will be put at higher risk if they have to come to the office every day.
@10:27 - Why are they a problem on 1696s and fee agreements? And, since there are two federal statutes that require they be accepted, why does the agency feel it can ignore the laws? Also, hasn't the agency been accepting them for the last couple of years based on an emergency message from the beginning of the pandemic? Has there been a problem with them?
ReplyDelete11:40 I guess none of the rest of us will face higher risks in our jobs or lives, just SSA?
ReplyDeleteYou people absolutely disgust me.
@11:40
ReplyDeleteBy that logic, SSA should never reopen field offices. We are in the endemic phase of Covid. It is never going away, which means there will always be a new variant and seasonal surges. Everyone has to live with this virus, including SSA employees. The solution is not to keep offices closed forever to protect a small minority that are not fully protected by the vaccines.(we do not do this for the seasonal flu). SSA employees are not a special class of workers, and there are many jobs that require similar level of public interaction that have been open/in person for many months.
@12:57
Not helpful to launch personal attacks. These views represent a small minority of SSA employees that are over-represented on this blog.
ReplyDeleteSome of you seem to believe that since SSA reopened that is written in stone, and the offices cannot close again in face of a public health emergency.
Covid is not over, as much as we would like it to be. It is quite possible even likely, that there will be a COVID surge in the fall, more lockdowns in the fall, and not just SSA offices. Private industry and government wide. Did you just ignore what the Biden Adm said about the threat of a COVID surge in the fall?
Endemic, Pandemic, whatever you call it, if thousands are getting sick and dying , SSA offices can and will close again. The FO especially, for protection of both the public and the general public.
11:40, your palpable disdain is disgusting.
ReplyDeleteWhat 11:21 said!
I am absolutely shocked to read that my colleagues don’t want to go back to the office. I would have thought they were tired of sitting at home, letting the phone ring incessantly, then hanging up so it registers as a call. Sorry you have to work like the rest of us now. I sincerely think 80% of us actually want to work. I for one welcome it.
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ReplyDeleteIt doesn't surprise me that Murphy, who represents managers, wants FO employee's telework to be curtailed. SSA managers have historically been resistant to telework, in part to justify their own jobs. Also due to a lack of trust, and a desire to control.
Anyway, especially with the threat of COVID still hanging, and employee retention/recruitment/morale problems, this is certainly not the time to totally eliminate SSA telework. Not in the FO or anywhere else.
A fair compromise is to keep Operations telework at the current levels: 2 days per week for FO employees and 4 days per week for TSC and PSC workers.
@10:27
ReplyDeleteI am sincerely interested in finding out why you think electronic signatures should not be used on 1696s or Fee Agreements. They offer significant convenience to claimants, attorneys and SSA. Furthermore, they create a much more secure identity trail than wet signatures.
It is extremely concerning to me that so many at SSA are actively telling attorneys and claimants that e-signatures are not allowed. These employees need to be found in contempt of court for violating the agreement SSA made in the FDC case that lead to the March 2021 Emergency Message allowing e-signatures.
ReplyDelete"Employees are not always more productive working from home, as some have stated. Many employees were more productive at the beginning of the pandemic, based on the way the agency measures productivity, meaning that they were able to process more work. This was due in large part to the clerical assistance they received from onsite personnel, primarily management..."
So she admits that SSA measurements shows employees were more productive from home. Then she tries to explain the productivity increase away. But it's the best measurement we have and it fits with what many employees have themselves said, that they get more done at home.
What a bunch of crybabies on both sides of this argument. I see why things can’t and don’t get done.
ReplyDelete@4:31 pm
ReplyDeleteClaimant Rep here. I just happened to have researched this yesterday.
There was a recent revision of EM-20022 which revised the EM issued on March 11, 2021 and has a Retention Date of October 13, 2022. EM-20022 REV 3 specifically says:
"These temporary instructions, while in effect, replace our subregulatory wet signature requirement for the written notice of appointment (i.e., SSA-1696 or other written notice of appointment) and the fee agreement."
Here is the procedure when SSA receives a Form 1696 with an electronic signature:
c. If you receive a written appointment notice (other than the SSA-1696) that contains the claimant’s electronic signature:
The SSA-1696 is not required. We continue to accept other written notices.
Confirm the claimant’s signature and intent to sign the notice of appointment using the following scripts:
i. “We have received your written notice of appointment with your electronic signature and need to ask you a few simple questions to confirm you signed it. Did you sign this writing?”
ii. “And you understood that by electronically signing this notice of appointment, you agreed that [insert name of Appointed Representative listed] will now represent you for your claim with SSA, and [he/she] can obtain information about your claim from SSA”?
NOTE: Follow existing procedure to process the SSA-1696 or other written notice and to recognize the appointment.
3. Fee Agreement submitted with new electronically signed representative appointment
If a new appointment and fee agreement are submitted together and the claimant’s signature is identical on both documents, accept the fee agreement with no additional verification only if the claimant verbally confirmed the signature on the notice of appointment, or during a telephone hearing per C.2. above.
(If you use SSA's online e1696, the above verification is not required.)
I believe they are required to try to reach the claimant 3-4 times before returning the paperwork.
https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/reference.nsf/links/11122021125633PM
E signatures on the 1696 and the fee agreement are a problem, because the claimant forgets that they 'signed' these things. At some time, the claimant and the representative should meet, at least when they sign those forms. I haven't seen a problem with SS employees accepting the e signatures but more with claimants not connecting with what they authorizing.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's necessary for everyone to pile back in the office.
If SSA confirms that the claimant signed this document and understand that person has access to their information, that's okay. I did see an instance of a claimant signing a 1696 and fee agreement and not having a clue about that happened. He was quizzed about it or made aware he had this out of town representative.
ReplyDeletePeggy Murphy makes this point:
ReplyDelete"The current telework program in field offices makes it difficult to adjust to surges in office visitors or telephone calls while balancing appointments, scheduled and unscheduled employee leave, and back-end work. "
I am not an SSA employee. Would this be possible as a compromise: For older FO employees or those with health issues, could they not assist the claimants in the Social Security office by video link. We already have video hearings. Why not have video office visits?
@758. Not sure what the difference would be between calling a claimant versus a video call. Employees at home can pull information on those who are waiting in the office now.
DeleteIn my experience, surges were in part due to poor planning by management.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a claimant in the phone? We barely have time to breathe much less trying to call a claimant 3-4 times. Multiply that one claimant by 20-30 and you have a ton of wasted time trying to track down claimants.
ReplyDeleteDoes this happen on every claim? No, but often enough to be counterproductive to having a signed 1696.
So someone’s time, if not yours then ours, I’d being wasted on either front.
Welcome to the government.
The law says the agency must accept electronic signatures. That should the end of the story. But, as usual, this agency thinks it can pick and choose when to comply with the laws.
ReplyDelete@8:52
ReplyDeleteWhy does SSA expect you to verbally verify an e-sig, as opposed to just charging the purported representative with something in the event the document is fraudulent (maybe criminal? Pretty sure the statutes are quite strict on this sort of thing but I'm not going to take the time to look into it).
@ 11:14
ReplyDeleteBecause it’s the federal government and we specialize in red tape…thought everyone knew that by now.
You have to forget about a common sense approach to anything.
Okay, I’m shocked that she suggested transferring the reasonable accommodation folks to other offices in need. Aside from being shocked of her obvious disdain for our colleagues that are enduring medical and family issues; she plans to telereassign them thus creating even more issues for there current field office. Such brilliance so glad I’m leaving July 30 under early out.
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