From KFF Health News:
The Social Security Administration’s new chief is promising to overhaul the agency’s system of clawing back billions of dollars it claims was wrongly sent to beneficiaries, saying it “just doesn’t seem right or fair.”
In an interview with KFF Health News, SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley said that in the coming days he would propose changes to help people avoid crushing debts ...
He said he has concrete steps in mind, such as establishing a statute of limitations, shifting the burden of proof to the agency, and imposing a 10% cap on clawbacks for some beneficiaries. ...
O’Malley said the agency plans to cease efforts to claw back years-old overpayments and halt the practice of terminating benefits for disabled workers who don’t respond to overpayment notices because they did not receive them or couldn’t make sense of them. ...
“One would assume that in a country where people are innocent until proven guilty,” he said, “that the burden should fall more on the agency than on the unwitting beneficiary.”
20 comments:
I guess giving staff enough time to actually process overpayment cases properly is just too obscure an idea for O’Malley and his merry band of intellectually impaired Deputy Commissioners to spot?
This comment needs to be deleted. Such remarks have no place on this board. Really. GROW up. And stop hiding behind the ability to post anonymously to spew hateful comments.
"O’Malley and his merry band of intellectually impaired Deputy Commissioners"
How does this serve any legitimate purpose.
This position from the COSS is completely ignorant. In my long FO career working with overpaid beneficiaries, less than 2 percent were genuinely unaware. And this is why there is a waiver process. This process works.
Most of the other 98 percent... Oh yes, they are all confused and unaware. Confused enough to be overpaid multiple times for the same issue.
crazy world we live in, get money you are not entitled to and now the govt. is responsible for showing you were not entitled do it. This burden shifting is antithetical to our society. This now increases the incentive for beneficiaries to fail or wrongfully report earnings if there is no penalty for getting overpaid.
I can't wait until banks adopt this type of windfall provision....lol. Obviously they won't because it's nonsensical.
I’m interested in hearing the burden of proof policy that’s going to obviously have to be put forth.
Every claimant gets an application receipt with reporting responsibilities attached to it. Does that count as proof they knew? If the claimant didn’t read it, is that the agencies fault? Does every claimant need to have a one on one with a claims rep where they are explained the rules and sign a 795 saying they understand the rules? Does a claimant just say “I didn’t know!” And that’s good enough to get rid of the overpayment?
Does getting one overpayment for working over SGA get counted/waived as an “oopsie, I didn’t know the rules!” And then subsequent overpayments for SGA, SSA has the burden of proof they knew about earnings limits because of the first overpayment? Lots of what ifs that are not answered in the article and will only be answered when these policy changes are disseminated out to the people who are actually processing the overpayment workloads. Until then, it’s all just public relations fluff.
So it’s the agency giving people the wrong amount of money, because they aren’t doing the work required to NOT overpay people, they aren’t doing that work correctly when they do, and they wait months, years, decades to make this discovery and fix it, which is unquestionably absurd because it is the agency that calculates the benefit and disperses it. As many have pointed out, claimants have little to no control to fix this mistake even if they figure it out first because even timely reported changes that effect benefit amounts aren’t processed either at all or years later. Every claimant with a CDR cessation has an overpayment due to processing time, almost without exception, and that is not the claimant’s fault. Thanks to the employees who give the rest of us hints about how to work this system more efficiently to save the govt time and money, but there is not a solution for this other than to do the work on time or stop asking for money paid prior to the date you figured out YOU made an accounting error.
@1140. I thought when DDS input a medical cessation ( in the last 10 years or so?) that benefits, for T2 anyway, were automatically set to terminate. The problem I ran into was a timely appeal that got buried for a few weeks or more and then reinstating benefits had to be done. IPs for money were no problem but Medicare reinstatement was a royal pain.
The T2 system was set up to avoid reinstatements more than overpayments.
Regarding a statute of limitations: if someone is overpaid for work as a disability beneficiary when they're young, SSA is not going to try to recover that at any point? Overpayment letters are sent and ignored and the person is rewarded but I never having to pay back that overpayment? It could make sense to limit the time. For people who have been in pay and social Security had the information ages ago but never acted on it. But that isn't usually the case.
There is also an obligation by all employees, including COSS, to provide trust fund stewardship, which means protecting the trust fund deposits that have been paid by workers and employers. This effort by COSS reminds me of the POTUS student loan 'forgiveness' which simply shifted the burden onto taxpayers (workers and employers). Both issues have systemic problems but the proposed solutions do nothing to address those problems, yet alone properly identify them, and just encourage continuation of the systemic problems while shifting burden onto others.
I mean, it's not a perfect solution, but I've seen a lot of cases where the recipient is confident that SSA is erroneously not reducing their benefits despite the recipient reporting a change in circumstances (work activity, marital status, etc.) Some set aside the erroneous funds, others aren't certain of the amount so they just ignore it and figure it'll work itself out in the future.
Why not literally just let recipients turn off/reduce the benefits? Voluntarily. Not required, just an option. A ton of recipients facing an overpayment don't have an issue having their benefits reduced, they have an issue with the fact that if benefits were reduced years prior by a few hundred a month, they could have managed it. They CAN'T manage a bill for $50,000+.
It is not a good look that the response from SSA staff on this board is so vehemently against helping the claimant. Compassion, grace, please. Hats off to Commissioner O'Malley. I hope his run is long and prosperous, regardless of what happens in the next election.
@12:18 Can you please provide your source for "There is also an obligation by all employees, including COSS, to provide trust fund stewardship..."
I have never heard that before and am genuinely curious. Respectfully, how are you trained to balance that obligation with the obligation to serve the public timely and accurately? Thank you.
Twenty-plus year SSA employee here and I have NEVER been as disheartened with a COSS as I am with O'Malley. There appears to be little to no intellectual curiosity on his part about the structural and policy problems of this agency. How was this guy a governor? He makes reckless comments like these, implying the agency is at fault in all overpayment cases and then acts like he has solutions...solutions which violate the Code of Federal Regulations and lack any substance. I now believe he took this job only to stone-step into some bigger, high-profile agency job with the Biden Administration. He's going to make a bunch of "surface" changes and then tout them as revolutionary. I hear he makes decisions without consulting all the stakeholders, which will honestly lead to disaster. He has NO idea of the ramifications of his shoot-from-the-hip decision-making. Our agency really needed a leader that wanted to understand SSA problems and make thoughtful changes. This guy will just hasten the downward spiral.
“One would assume that in a country where people are innocent until proven guilty,” he said, “that the burden should fall more on the agency than on the unwitting beneficiary.”
Wonder if he will help the Eric Conn Client's?
SSA knew all about this and did nothing!
Is this the ONLY place (SSA Disability benefits) where the government "cares" about the "taxpayers, trust fund, etc?"
I was overpaid at no fault of my own. I reported my move, and they didn't adjust SSI, only SSDI, hence an overpayment. That was CLEARLY the fault of SSA. I didn't know until I got the overpayment bill that the person on the 800 number didn't do their job right. Why should I have to bear the burden of SSA's mistake when I did not know how SSA worked yet? At the time, I didn't even know the difference between SSDI and SSI. (that's why I now visit this blog daily) The overpayment was waived as it was verified I reported the change. It seems everyone is blaming the claimant for "not reporting". Are they out there?? Sure! But SSA makes mistakes too. Those mistakes need to be kept to a bare minimum, otherwise overpayments will continue. I was guilty until I had to prove my innocence. It was not a good time, and it made my disabilities worse.
@1:56
Why bother with overpayments at all? Just pay it out like its Monopoly money. The biggest reward will be for those who lie the most and work the system the hardest...
Like other things, some overpayments should be repaid with a quickness, and some are just unfair or appear to be error by SSA. Yes, when you don't report an event you should have and get overpaid, that should be repaid in an equitable manner. But when you're asked to repay an overpayment because a parent created years ago, or you were overpaid because of workers' comp you received 15 years ago, no, that should be waived. Usually, the waiver system works fairly well.
@4:41pm,
Yes, there are many people who (like you) properly report things to SSA and still get overpaid. The nature of SSA's staffing situation makes it almost a certainty that it will happen. There are also many people who either don't bother to report at all, or who report but do it too late to prevent being overpaid.
The most important thing you can do for yourself when you report work changes (or any other type of changes for that matter) is to INSIST on a written receipt related to your report. You have the right to receive one, but many agency employees simply don't have time to generate them despite the fact that they are supposed to.
Thing is, though, that receipt is your proof that you did what you were required to do as well as the date you actually did it.
So, if an agency employee refuses to give you a receipt, insist on speaking to a supervisor.
BTW, this is coming from a 30+ year SSA employee. Until the agency gets its ship in order (which is unlikely to happen in our lifetimes), protect yourself because the agency lacks the resources to do it for you.
@3:53 - 4:41 here. Thank you for that info! 20+ years on SSDI/SSI and I have never received, nor been offered a receipt after reporting something. That's um...rather worrisome, however, your advice will be taken from this point on! Thank you for all that you do at SSA, I can't speak for everyone, but I always hope to get someone like you with experience when I call or visit the office. Your post is invaluable to me!
How do you issue a receipt for a change of address? If you mean the letter the system issues, then I get it. When did SSA start issuing receipts for all the inputs they do?
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