CDRs To Resume

     Social Security is resuming Continuing Disability Reviews (CDRs) in October for the new federal fiscal year. The CDRs had been suspended due to the huge backlog of cases awaiting a decision on initial claims. Resuming CDRs is likely to slow down Disability Determination Services (DDS) work on initial claims.

Listen To The Voters

      From a Data For Progress poll:

What 

This Is Going To Be A Trip For Those Of You Who Have Never Watched John Oliver Before

WEP And GPO Tactics Raise Concerns Among Republican Legislators

     From The Hill:

A group of House Republicans is making a rare move that would force a vote on a bill to reform aspects of Social Security, stirring unrest in the conference.

The bill at the heart of the push, also dubbed the Social Security Fairness Act, seeks to do away with the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO), a proposal that backers on both sides of the aisle argue is long overdue.

The bill enjoys support from more than 100 House Republicans, and almost four dozen have cosigned the effort to use what’s known as a discharge petition to force consideration of the bill — and the strategy is rubbing some in the conference the wrong way.

“In a well-run Congress, no legislator signs a discharge petition if you’re a majority. That is a rule that is never broken,” Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) told The Hill. “And the fact that 47 of my colleagues signed a discharge petition shows that we have an utter lack of discipline.” ...

Republicans say the matter was a topic of debate in a conference meeting earlier this week. ...

    Regardless of the House vote, it's very unlikely that this legislation will be voted on in the Senate.

...

I Don't Understand

     I recently received the message reproduced below. I'm sure that other attorneys who represent claimants have received the same message.

    It sounds as if I and my firm need to file new forms SSA-1694 (registration of law firm or other entity) and SSA-1699 (registration of individual attorney or representative) and need to start using a new form SSA-1696 (appointment of representative). The thing is that when I look online for these new forms, all I find are old versions of the forms. Does Social Security intend to issue new versions of these forms? Why would they send out a mass e-mail like this when they haven't completed the new forms yet?

    When I think about the "changes" that have been announced, I can't figure out why new forms would be required anyway since the "changes" seems to amount to little more than lip service to a federal court decision.

Changes to Rules for Claimant Representation and Provisions for Direct Payment to Entities On August 21, 2024, we published a final rule, Changes to the Administrative Rules for Claimant Representation and Provisions for Direct Payment to Entities, in the Federal Register. We’ve made changes to our regulations to allow representatives of Social Security claimants to assign direct payment of their authorized fees to an entity with which they are affiliated. We will implement this final rule in two phases. To learn more about both phases, including requirements for representatives and entities, please visit our webpage: https://www.ssa.gov/representation/2024NewRule.htm. Here are some key changes:   Starting September 30, 2024, anyone who has not previously registered with us and who wants to be appointed as a representative must register with us using Form SSA-1699 (Representative Registration) before we will recognize a new appointment request.    Starting December 9, 2024, representatives must use Form SSA-1696 (Claimant’s Appointment of a Representative) for new or updated appointments.    Starting December 9, 2024, consistent with Marasco & Nesselbush, LLP v. Collins, 6 F.4th 150 (1st Cir. 2021), we will directly pay authorized fees to a registered entity when a representative assigns direct payment of their fee to that entity.       Generally, for direct payment to an entity:    The entity must register with us using our revised Form SSA-1694 (Entity Registration and Taxpayer Information).     The representative must register with us and affiliate with the entity using Form SSA-1699 (Representative Registration).    The representative must assign direct payment of the fee to the entity using the revised Form SSA-1696 (Claimant’s Appointment of a Representative).     The representative and the entity must both be eligible for direct payment.    Please share this information with other interested parties. We appreciate your support.    Learn More

John Oliver On Social Security Disability

     I've found a video of that John Oliver piece on Social Security disability. I can't say whether this is an excerpt or the whole thing.

    By the way, I wish I could set this up so you click on the image on the left and you go directly to the video but Blogger doesn't make it that easy.

John Oliver Segment Segment On Social Security Budget; Also "Tackling That Outdated Occupations List"

     A couple of tweets from the Commissioner of Social Security (emphasis added):

Martin O'Malley

@OMalleySSA

·

I want to thank @iamjohnoliver @LastWeekTonight for calling out the crucial need for more staffing + funding @SocialSecurity

 

Martin O'Malley

@OMalleySSA

·

In the 9 months I've been serving, @SocialSecurity has made good progress to improve our disability programs but - as you noted - we need more Congressional support and partnership. By the way, we're tackling that outdated occupations list.

    Did anyone catch that John Oliver segment?

No Anomaly For SSA

    The federal fiscal year ends on September 30. Without some sort of appropriation bill passed before then, there will be a federal government shutdown on October 1. Usually, a continuing resolution (CR) is passed which allows the government to keep functioning based upon the prior year's rate of spending. Every year "anomalies" are added to the CR allowing additional funding for some functions. The Biden Administration has sought an "anomaly" to give additional funding to the Social Security Administration. The CR which has been agreed to contains no "anomaly" for Social Security. This is not good for now and portends an inadequate regular appropriation.  Social Security has been an agency which appears to have been disfavored by appropriators for many years.

WEP And GPO Bill Advances In House

      From Federal News Network:

Legislation to repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset is nearing the finish line in the House.

Just over a week after it was filed, a discharge petition for the Social Security Fairness Act has reached the 218-signature threshold needed to force the bill to a floor vote.

Thirteen House lawmakers added their signatures to the petition on Thursday, after Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Garret Graves (R-Pa.) gathered advocates outside the Capitol building to urge their colleagues to push their legislation forward. …

Don’t get excited. This has no hope of passage in the Senate in this Congress.

Why Change?

     A tweet from Social Security:

Starting October 2024, SSI check recipients will receive their SSI checks in a WHITE envelope instead of a BLUE envelope. It’s quick and easy to get your payments electronically. ...

     Yes, there are still SSI claimants receiving paper checks. Unfortunately, they are, on the whole, a group of people who can be confused by small things.

Bill On Social Security And Identity Theft Passes House

     From a press release issued by the House Ways and Means Committee:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) will be forced to streamline their processes for Americans whose Social Security numbers (SSNs) have been compromised thanks to bipartisan legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. H.R. 3784, the Improving Social Security’s Service to Victims of Identity Theft Act, was introduced by Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Drew Ferguson (R-GA) and Ranking Member John Larson (D-CT) and was passed unanimously by the Ways and Means Committee. ...

[The bill] requires the SSA to provide victims of identity theft with a single point of contact at the agency when the misuse of their SSN results in the need to resolve an issue or issues with the SSA or when their Social Security card is lost in the mail. ...

I Haven’t Read One Of These Stories In Years

      Why is it that haven't seen one of these stories in years? I used to see them regularly. From NBC Philadelphia:

A Philadelphia woman is accused of stealing social security disability benefits from a woman who officials said was found murdered and buried under six to eight feet of concrete in the basement of a home.  … 

Officials said the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office and a forensic anthropologist concluded that the cause of death for E.W. was blunt trauma to the head and neck and the manner of death was homicide. It is estimated that the woman died at least four years and up to ten years prior to the recovery of her remains. …

Social Security And Voter Registration

     From a Social Security website:

... The Help America Vote Act of 2002, P.L. 107-252 (HAVA) requires states to verify the information of newly registered voters for federal elections. Each state must establish a computerized state-wide voter registration list and verify new voter information with the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA).

States are required to verify the driver’s license number against the MVA’s database. Only in situations where no driver’s license exists may the state verify the last four digits of the new voter’s Social Security Number (SSN). The state submits the last four digits of the SSN, name, and date of birth to the MVA for verification with Social Security Administration (SSA). In addition, SSA is required to report whether its records indicate that the person is deceased.

The information submitted through the Help America Vote Verification (HAVV) system is kept confidential and must be used only for voter registration. ...

China Raising Retirement Age

     From NPR:

... Starting next year, China will raise its retirement age for workers, which is now among the youngest in the world's major economies, in an effort to address its shrinking population and aging work force. ...

The policy change will be carried out over 15 years, with the retirement age for men raised to 63 years, and for women to 55 or 58 years depending on their jobs. The current retirement age is 60 for men and 50 for women in blue-collar jobs and 55 for women doing white-collar work. ...

Why Social Security Needs An "Anomaly." Also, The "F" Word Gets Mentioned

     From Government Executive:

...  In a letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., O’Malley warned of dire consequences if SSA is flat-funded past September, as proposed in the House GOP’s six-month continuing resolution. House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday cancelled a planned vote on the measure, after dissent within his caucus threatened to derail its passage.

“If enacted, a six-month CR without any additional funding for the Social Security Administration would be devastating,” O’Malley wrote. “We would be forced to implement a hiring freeze with minimal exceptions. We would lose over 2,000 staff in the first half of the year alone and reach a new 50-year staffing low by the end of December. We would need to significantly reduce overtime to historically low levels, decreasing processing capacity for our most critical workloads.” 

And in testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, O’Malley laid out how both the House and Senate funding proposals for SSA would fall short of the agency’s needs. Under the House plan, employees would be furloughed by 20 days, while the agency would see its headcount fall by 3,400 staff, not including the 1,500 decrease in staff at state Disability Determination Services offices. And funding for the agency’s IT infrastructure would be “barely” enough to “keep the lights on.” ...

Senate Budget Committee Hearing

     The Senate Budget Committee held a hearing yesterday on Social Security Forever: Delivering Benefits and Protecting Retirement Security. Here are the written statements before the Committee. 

• Martin O'Malley, Commissioner, Social Security Administration
• Rebecca Vallas, Chief Executive Officer, National Academy of Social Insurance
• Roger Boudreau, President, Rhode Island AFT/Retirees Local #8037R 
• Molly Dahl,  Long-Term Analysis Unit Chief, Congressional Budget Office 
• Shai Akabas, Executive Director, Economic Policy Program, Bipartisan Policy Center

This is from a news article on the hearing:

… The ultra-wealthy are avoiding nearly $2 trillion in taxes every 10 years," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said during a Senate Budget Committee hearing. "That is enough to keep Social Security whole till the end of this century."

"That's where we ought to go to start making progress," Wyden added. …

OHO Caseload Analysis Report

     A statistical report from Social Security on performance at its Office of Hearings Operations:

Click on image to view full size

 

Remote Work And Disability

     From Does Remote Work Help Older People With Disabilities? by Siyan Liu and Laura D. Quinby, a study for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:

...The shift to remote work that started during COVID and has persisted may have improved job prospects for older people with disabilities by reducing barriers to employment. Consistent with this view, this brief finds that nearly all of the post-pandemic employment gain for older people with disabilities has been in teleworkable occupations, and this pattern holds even after controlling for other factors. Remote work benefits older workers with disabilities by allowing some to reenter the labor force and others to switch jobs instead of exiting work. ...

      Let's remember that whatever benefits there are to disabled people from remote work can only help a part of the disabled population. It doesn't help blue collar workers. People who work in offices, such as most of the people reading this blog, may not be aware that most workers don't work in offices and don't hold jobs that allow remote work.

On That Other Blog

    I continue posting on my firm's separate blog directed at a different audience -- For The Frustrated Social Security Disability Claimant. Take a look at some of the recent posts on that blog.  

• Disabled Widow And Widower Benefits
• Auto-Immune Disorders
• What Are Disabled Adult Child Benefits?
• What Is Disability Insurance Benefits?
• Fibromyalgia
• How Do I Dress For A Social Security Disability Hearing?
• What Is SSI?
• Your Medical Condition
• Avoid Unnecessary Payment Delays
• Why Is There A Waiting Period?
• FAQs On Consultative Examinations
• Help Yourself

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good News

      A tweet from Social Security:

The IT issue that affected personalized services for several hours on Friday has been resolved.  In-person services and full telephone support will resume Monday.

Major IT Failure

     Social Security is in the midst of a major national IT failure. Every time I hear an estimate on when it will be fixed it's later than the last estimate I heard. They're now saying early afternoon Eastern time but who knows whether that will hold?

    Are the field offices able to service walk-ins? Scheduled appointments? Able to do anything? Are the payment centers able to get any work done? What about the teleservice centers? Are hearings being held?

    Update: This is from Social Security's website:

Social Security’s personalized services - online and in-person - are temporarily unavailable while we address an IT hardware issue. We continue to answer general questions by telephone on our 800 number and in our local offices, while offices are temporarily closed to in-person service. We are working to quickly resolve the issue today and apologize for the inconvenience.

    Update: They've made progress. I was able to get in ERE at 3:20 pm EDT.

A 73% Error Rate?

    From Follow-up on the Accuracy of the Social Security Administration’s Manual Billing Process to Collect Medicare Premiums, a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

...  When a Medicare Part B recipient receives a monthly Social Security benefit, SSA deducts the monthly Medicare premium from the benefit. Some individuals’ monthly Social Security benefit is lower than the monthly Medicare premium. SSA bills these individuals for the balance of the premium. Each year, SSA uses its Benefit Rate Increase (BRI) program to generate an alert for individuals whose Social Security benefit is lower than their monthly Medicare premium. SSA considers this alert to be a high priority because SSA must bill beneficiaries the remaining Medicare premium as soon as possible and timely issue benefit statements.

In a 2016 report on the Accuracy of the Social Security Administration’s Manual Billing Process to Collect Medicare Premiums, we concluded SSA incorrectly calculated the Medicare premium owed for 48 percent of the sampled beneficiaries we reviewed. For this audit, we reviewed a random sample of 100 beneficiaries from a population of 111,976 beneficiaries SSA’s BRI program identified in November 2022.

SSA timely processed the cases in our sample; however, it incorrectly processed or calculated the Medicare premium owed for 73 of the 100 beneficiaries we reviewed where their Medicare premium was higher than their SSA benefit payments. This included approximately $147,000 in processing errors where employees did not correctly credit monthly benefits to Medicare billing information and $102,000 in payment errors where beneficiaries were not correctly billed for Medicare premiums, which led to overages and arrearages.

Based on the results for our sample, we project SSA did not correctly update records or calculate Medicare premiums owed for approximately 82,000 beneficiaries, which resulted in approximately $76 million in billing errors and $91 million in processing errors. ...

Anomaly Requested For Social Security

     The federal fiscal year ends on September 30. Without Congressional action there will be a government shutdown. It's clear that individual appropriation bills will not be passed before the end of the month. A Continuing Resolution (CR), which permits the continuation of spending at the previous rate, will be needed. Every time there's a CR, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) submits a list of "anomalies" -- government functions that require something beyond the prior rate of spending. The OMB anomalies list this time includes a request that the Social Security Administration be funded at the full rate of the President's budget request for FY 2025 -- $15.4 billion instead of the $14.2 billion in the FY 2024 appropriation, warning that:

... Without the anomaly, SSA would be required to reduce funding for core information technology operations including SSA's network support. In addition, SSA would likely reduce the hours field offices are open to the public and would need to close field offices over time, extending wait times or seniors and individuals with disabilities. ...

    Government Executive calls the OMB request for Social Security an "unusual step."

    It's unlikely that Social Security will receive anything like what is requested. The House funding bill doesn't include an increase for Social Security. In fact, it cuts Social Security's appropriation below the current FY.

Benefits Come In After TV Station Gets Involved

     I guess this is a dog bites man story but a Virginia man has finally received his Social Security benefits after the intervention of a television station. 

    But Social Security has announced that it's stopped doing this sort of thing. No more expediting a case because of "adverse public relations potential." Of course, I didn't think they'd really stop. Did you? 

    I'm certainly not sorry the man finally got his benefits. He had been waiting far too long. It's just that he's not the only one. Getting media intervention is like winning the lottery. It has little to do with just how bad the delay is.

What's Going On? Oh, Not Much

     It's been a few days since I've posted anything. You wouldn't expect much Social Security news over the Labor Day weekend anyway but there's usually a little bit.

    I will speculate that there are two causes for the slowness. First, it's the election season. My observation over the years is that Social Security is always careful to avoid making even the slightest news during a Presidential election season. I've always wondered whether this is explicit or just instinctive at Social Security. Second, I think Martin O'Malley has picked all the low hanging fruit he could find. Maybe he's planning to leave the agency after the election one way or another or maybe there's nothing more of consequence he can do without Congressional approval and there's no way to get that now.