From Emergency Message EM-24009:
... Since May of 1992, a prepayment review is required for any SSI case (initial or post eligibility), if an underpayment (UP) of $5,000 or more is due through the month prior to the current computation month (CCM) as per SI 02101.025 - Basic Requirements of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Underpayment (UP) Review (ssa.gov). Effective 03/16/2024, the amount of an SSI underpayment that requires a prepayment review will increase from $5,000 to $15,000. ...
This should help reduce the SSI workloads a bit. The SSI effectuation backlogs are a major problem.
I wonder whether something like this is planned for the Title II payment centers. Certainly the larger payments are a source of major delay. If you've been a high wage earner you could be looking at many months of delay before you're paid your back benefits. Would they announce that sort of change? Emergency messages generally don't concern truly emergent matters. They concern matters the agency believes are important -- that they want the public to be aware of. The agency isn't all that consistent in what it announces via EMs.
6 comments:
This is great to see. So many cases get stuck after the PERC, before the claimant is paid, and there's of course only ever one person in the district office who can do the UP review...
From my time in the payment center (37 years before I retired), I don't believe that there's a Title 2 review that corresponds to the SSI one.So probably no saving there.
The SSI Underpayment Review Staff staff in 1982 was located in Metro West in OCRO. A staff of about 9 of us, all ex-SSI CRs from the field, got SSIDs on every case with a U2(?) alert and called the DO and did a telephone review of the case and the documentation in the file. We got the alert as soon as the system was updated by the DO, and we called within a few days. We had aged cases, but tried to clear them right away if the FO had the file documented right. A lot of files were sad, and we did change a lot of amounts, both lower and larger, based on getting the better documentation. And it wasn't always the FOs fault, a number of recipients had a tendency to not give up information unless directly asked and lots of living arrangements ended up different from the initial setup.
None of the criteria in current policy existed then but likely such profiles came out of our work, I'm just glad Windfall didn't exist when I did this.
https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0502101025
One of my client is owned about $87,000 in Title II back payment and the case has been stuck with the second review for now 240 days. I emailed the Regional area director last month and they told me that the SSI offset was done and the case was with the payment center. Guess what, SSI offset is still not done.
11:53, I've heard there are additional levels of signoff for T2 underpayments of $50,000 or more. Given that the APT exceeds 7 months each for initial and recon, a lot of folks with high PIAs and/or awards at OHO and above probably hit that amount.
This will certainly don’t things: speed up the adjudication of cases and increase the errors in back pay.
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