From Reducing Processing Centers’ Pending Actions, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):
... SSA met its annual PC [Payment Center] pending actions performance measure goal in 4 of the 6 FYs [Fiscal Years] between FY 2018 through 2023. SSA reported it did not meet its goals in the remaining 2 FYs because of unexpected staff reductions, increased workloads, and less than expected overtime funding it would have used to pay employees to process more PC pending actions.
Although SSA achieved its PC pending actions performance goals in 4 of the last 6 FYs, there was no overall reduction in PC pending actions over those 6 years. In fact, the PC pending actions backlog increased from 3.2 million in FY 2018 to 4.6 million in FY 2023. As the backlog grows, many PC pending actions remain unresolved for long periods of time. From a sample of 139 pending actions, 102 (73 percent) were pending for 300 days or more, with 60 of the 102 pending for 500 days or more.
Delays in processing PC pending actions can lead to higher improper payments, which increased some beneficiaries’ financial burden as they waited longer for underpayments or were charged with increased overpayment amounts. If SSA resolved the PC pending actions we reviewed at the earliest possible instance, we estimate it would have determined approximately 528,000 beneficiaries were improperly paid approximately $534 million. After the pending actions were not processed for 12 months, the improper payment amount for those same beneficiaries rose to approximately $756 million. By the time of our review, many of the PC pending actions had been pending for longer than 12 months, and the improper payment amount had increased to approximately $1.1 billion.
Notice that it didn't seem to bother OIG that the payment centers were frequently failing to pay benefits for long periods of time. The only thing they seemed to have been concerned about was an increase in overpayments. This in a nutshell is the OIG outlook on the Social Security world -- It doesn't matter when or if you pay claimants what they're due; the only thing that counts is that you not overpay them. That outlook is a prescription for disaster for claimants.
That was my experience with Operations mgt and staff when I worked in Systems. We had developed processes to automate payment of many underpayments that were due but the over-riding philosophy was even if you can process at 95-99% accuracy, there will be some overpayments so we don't want to pursue that. The Systems group running the bi-annual AERO runs used to comment that underpayments were lower than whale crap in priority. I had several discussions with mgt to the effect that underpayments are also incorrect payments but this seemed to have little impact. I suspect it is due to the consistently bad publicity surrounding overpayments, the recovery methods, and the backlog of processing them (correctly), not to mention the complaints regarding the corresponding notice language, that drives this thinking.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this a consequence of Ennis being the IG so long? She's been a disaster, and anyone she groomed will continue her legacy
ReplyDeleteThe improper payments you reference in the summary would appear to be both overpayments AND underpayments. I work in an FO but I am sure the problem is the same in the PC — too much variety in workload so you have to learn too much and it takes too long to train. If you narrowed the focus and concentrated the work you’d get trained faster, start being able to contribute to workloads sooner, and through repetition you get more proficient and faster. The pending is too much. You cannot keep having the same people expected to do it all. Every time someone leaves and is not replaced their pending is spread amongst the already overwhelmed.
ReplyDeleteThe IGs office has to justify why they exist and get a budget and it's not surprising at all that they do what they do. Any focus on improving customer service likely means spending money and the IG metrics are on dollars "saved" (or identified as misspent). Plus employee service metrics are hard, while "you were to get $$A but instead got $$B" is elementary school math. My first experience with IG was on a fraud case, and it looked like a cool job. Later, after dealing with their audits more directly, I saw it was this remorseless grind as a never ending hunt for anything that they could rub SSA's nose in and prove they were the smartest in the room. And who you could never ever say anything to, due to their power. If you asked them to work more like IRS's TIGTA and work with citizens directly, they'd not find their butt with both hands.
ReplyDelete@1:27pm,
ReplyDeleteIt is actually a valid report with valid concerns. And, it has nothing in particular to do with Ennis' incompetence. The problems described in the report do exist.
In the end, like the vast majority of the problems at the agency, it all goes back to the staffing issue. This report is a prime illustration of how staffing issues affect ODO/PSCs. They simply don't have enough knowledgeable people to do the work. I won't comment on how their failure to check their work in the end expands their workloads as it is beside the point.
Well, we'll see in 60 days how the agency responds. I'll be shocked if "increased staffing", the true answer, is even addressed given the usual suspects in CO will be giving the response.
How do you get more staffing when your funding level does not keep pace with inflation and the mandatory program integrity spending keeps increasing. Before too long we will have facilities and guards and staff that do RZs and CDRs because we cannot afford anything else.
ReplyDeleteImproper payments are both underpayments and overpayments, so the report addresses both with equal importance.
ReplyDeleteFormer Social
ReplyDeleteSecurity watchdog
Gail Ennis abused
authority, report….
2 days ago
tup Washington Post
Payments to representatives has become absurd! I have run out of people to call about this.
ReplyDelete