From a recent report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:
… SSA’s SSI financial account validation process for applicants and recipients who alleged having less than $400 in financial accounts did not always lead to accurate SSI determinations. SSA’s process led it to make inaccurate SSI resource determinations for 27 of the 140 recipients reviewed. Based on these determinations, SSA paid the recipients $130,430 in SSI payments they were not eligible to receive. Based on these sample results, we estimate SSA incorrectly made SSI resource determinations that led to 198,960 recipients receiving $718 million in SSI payments for which they were not eligible because applicants/recipients underreported their financial account balances by $100 or more.
SSA’s policy did not require that it validate the recipients’ financial account balances because they alleged they had less than $400 in liquid resources. The AFI reports we requested identified 102 of 140 applicants/recipients under-reported their financial account balances by $100 or more. Additionally, the AFI reports showed 28 of the applicants/recipients owned financial accounts of which SSA was unaware. Based on these sample results, we estimate 800,140 applicants/recipients under-reported their financial account balances by $100 or more, with 219,640 failing to report all the financial accounts they owned to SSA. ..
5 comments:
SSI determinations are an assembly line operation where one cuts corners in order to meet office goals. It’s always been quantity over quality. More interview and case audits need to be done by supervisors in order alleviate the problem.
As a former SSI CR and manager, it comes as no surprise to those involved in taking claims that applicants/recipients sometimes do not tell the truth. Even at RZ limited issue reviews with proof of resources/income some continue to deny or be evasive.
OIG says they underreported by $100 or more. How much more, because if we are speaking of a few hundreds of dollars, we are actually pointing out just how ludicrous the resource limits are in teh 21st century.
Where is the time to do these case reviews? As a DM who left the agency a couple of years ago, there was no time. The seven hours when the office was open was spent answering phones, working up front, helping my staff with problem cases and working on PR issues. After the office closed, I would occasionally do my DM duties, but often it was cleaning up lists or the remains from when the office was open. There was little time for supervisory duties. Staffing has only gotten worse since then.
It's constant damage control, all day, every day...
25 people in the 140-person sample were ultimately assessed overpayments. Whether those overpayments were correct (i.e., were tax refunds and retroactive benefits and the like properly excluded from countable resources) was not addressed in the audit report. The report also didn't say how far above the resource limit these folks were. Could have been $2001 in the bank or $2 mil.
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