The Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over Social Security, has written to the Acting Commissioner of Social Security to express concern over the process for applying for Supplemental Security Income benefits. The letter asks a number of pointed questions about what is going on.
Aug 15, 2023
SSI Application Drawing Congressional Attention
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12 comments:
lol Kilolo is way over her head on answering this request for information. It'll be passed to/written by her underlings as she dances around to symposium after symposium, reading off prewritten scripts, harping on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion issues to non-profits, all while ignoring the root causes of SSA's issues: Lack of budget and horrible, out of touch leadership at all levels.
Number three sounds like a bad idea Separate applications for every category
Isn't it telling that every time there's a hearing, Kilolo is not there? Seriously - it will be like the DCO, the DC for BFM, or someone like that. Every time. Not even someone from her office.
Sure. Why not get the WSUs more involved.
I just got a call from an attorney checking on the status of an SSI claim. Medically approved December 2022. WSU hasn't even noticed or attempted to start the PERC.
@3:31
Fairly certain #3 has the opposite meaning. The "If" doing a lot of work. They are saying "IF" SSA decides to go their normal route and over-complicate the "simplified" SSI application, Congress needs an explanation for why this is better option.
This appears to be a real oversight effort by Congress. They are holding SSA to a timeline and outline very specific deliverables which seem to focus on ensuring the new process is actually simplified and easier for claimants and SSA FO staffers.
@ 9:46
You are spot on. The WSU's need to get more involved. They either need to take the vast majority of SSI applications that can be filed online, or they need to do more PE work. The FO literally cannot do everything and survive, especially in small FOs where there are sometimes 4-5 employees at most. I understand that they (WSU) are taking iClaims, but there are days where I see numerous claims that haven't been touched in months at the WSU, specific WSU offices are worse than others. The sooner SSA shifts work to being more centralized, policy and errors will go down. The big problem with SSA is that is doesn't operate as a central organization, it operates as an HQ and then the separate regions. Regions make their own software, some implement policies that others don't, when you get down to the FO level, some offices use POMS religiously and for some FOs it's just a mere suggestion. The decentralization of SSA as an organization is part of its downfall.
SSA really does need to centralize some aspects of case processing outside FOs. There is simply too much variability between FO workloads and quality of trained employees. Basic case processing issues are not handled uniformly, sometimes not even within the same FO.
WSUs are not trained in any meaningful way to handle SSI claims/PERCs. They already can only handle the simplest of RSI claims and kick the more complicated issues to FOs. WSU processing times are tragic. FOs pull back their WSU claims so people in their communities aren’t disadvantaged by waiting months and months for action. It’s absolutely insane to hope or expect that WSUs handle SSI IC and PE-esque issues unless employees are fully trained in the SSI program like an FO employee is. Here’s an idea: staff the agency so that those who process SSI have time to handle more SSI-related issues vs. having them lick envelopes, open mail and answer the phone calls that the TSCs cannot seem to manage.
Crazy idea....hire more people at the TSC to answer all the flipping GI calls. When 2/3 of the FO staff is required to answer the phones it is a waste of staff resources who ARE trained on processing claims. I know most offices have Technical Experts on phones and upfront handling SS5s . These are GS12's doing GS5 workloads.
If you can count on one thing, it’s that the agency short changes the FO’s at every turn. It’s always the FO’s responsibility to do “fill in the blank”.
When you under staff and over burden the FO’s, the public suffers.
But hey, just keep giving us more to do with less to do it…what’s the worst that can happen?
It’s decentralization that’s the downfall. It’s the failure to fully embrace it or fully and completely move to centralization.
Nothing meaningful will happen here until Agency leaders, the WH, and Congress start taking SSI policy seriously. Recycling regulations from the 1990s is not innovation. Let's start by having employees in Policy do mandatory rotations in field offices taking SSI applications and then see what they come up with. A FO immersion program should be part of core and refresher training for every employee no matter where they work in Headquarters.
This response should be prepared by Stephen Evangelista and Dawn Wiggins, the responsible executives for the Simplified SSI Application and Presidential Rank Award winners.
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