This comment was posted in response to my post about a representative payee problem in one case:
SSA has not even been reviewing the payee cases since at least January. I am one of the contractors that does payee reviews per the congressional mandate and SSA is not reviewing anything right now because they re-assigned all our people that review the payee cases. Our cases of misuse that we have done and our corrective action plans we've issued have thus far just been sitting there ignored.
Is this true? If so, this is a big problem brewing.
19 comments:
Absolutely 100% true! Not to mention thousands of unworked misuse allegations dating back a decade due to staffing and other workload priorities. SSA is absolutely not addressing representatibe payee reviews. This is hillarious to me as DOGE has ignored the actual SSA workload that combats fraud, waste, and abuse. There simply aren’t enough FO staff to address this workload.
Frank is waiting for the agency AI chat bot agent to learn how to do the workload. First Frank needs to be briefed on the function of representatives payees serve. He comes from a payments company and representative payees were not a issue.
Misuse of SSA benefits sitting there ignored? Wasn't DOGE supposed to be doing something about that?
We have an ad hoc workload that apparently came about because Frank wanted some scalps on the misuse side. So they took a sampling of existing misuse cases that have basically been abandoned (largely because eRPS is such a piece of shit program, triply so on the misuse side of things) and gave us a month to develop them.
All of them are from allegations made pre-COVID. Almost half of the cases have either a deceased claimant, or a deceased alleged misuser. It's been a giant waste of our time, especially now that they stole basically our entire CSR unit to chase 1-800 call percentage numbers.
So yes, they are still doing misuse development, just in the dumbest and most wasteful manner possible.
There may be a slow down but some are still moving.
This is absolutely true. With the policy expert positions being eliminated, no one has been preparing and controling this workload to address where actusl potential fraud waste and abuse is due to payee performance. Not to mention all of the unworked rep payee misuse allegations piling up for at least a decade, due to staffing and workloaf prorities. Great job missing this DOGE in your quest to hollow out the agency while claiming to actually care about real potential fraud, waste, and abuse!
I’m fairly certain big trouble is brewed. My office is now closing early daily due to 2 1/2 hour waits . We have more work accumulating than ever before . No appointments for the public. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I thought Covid and Reentry were bad , but this is the first worst ever
Watch the Trump admin spin this into a big fraud story of their own making.
Misuse allegations are a waste of time. Nothing ever comes of it and it is impossible to collect anyway. SSA should eliminate payees, except for individuals who are clearly incapacitated, and just issue the benefits directly.
Lol
I can’t speak to this specifically, but stewardship efforts are typically the first to go when we’re in a budget and/or resource crunch. It happens frequently with SSI redeterminations and medical continuing disability reviews.
I’m wondering what other workloads are being overlooked due to the smaller workforce at SSA.
11:41. I am sorry but you are incorrect, at least as it relates to SSI Redeterminations. That is a “must do” activity. We HAVE to hit 100%. Year after year we are told to stop paying allowance. Stop taking initial claims. So we can meet the RZ/LI target. That is congressionally mandated activity.
We got a whole bunch of Ad hoc cases sent for my office to do. That's cute and all. No clue who would be able to do them. We're strapped with intake alone. There is little PE workload occurring. I hope the COSS had some magical AI planned because otherwise we're going to need many more people to make a dent. Also setting completion goals of 9/30/2025 doesn't actually address the how it's supposed to get done with no staff.
Some of these OIG ad hoc cases are the result of chronic understaffing. It's not going to work to just say here's your list of crap we found, now fix it. Some of those cases were created when we were healthier but by no means healthy. Now the agency wants to say fix this stuff, and we are in a gutted status. That isn't going to work.
There are numerous workloads and operations that SSA has not processed since January. We are not receiving correct technical operational guidance on how to handle these issues. There is no coherent policy coming from anyone since the responsible Regional Offices and HQ components were disbanded and employees scattered to the winds. System programs and system up times are in shatters. Programs that once reliably worked are no longer available or fail after inputting all of the required information resulting in data being input several times, thus wasting valuable time. SSA is a complex agency that deals with legal technicalities every day. SSA employees administer different facets of SSA operations and are not at all similarly trained and can not be readily expected to assume duties they are not equipped for handling. My hope and prayer is POTUS becomes aware of the created SSA disaster, and how it will reflect badly on him, and returns to the pre-February operational SSA internal organizational structure.
“They are in a deep hole of their own creation on staffing and so you just don't have enough people to go around to serve the public," said Kathleen Romig, a former SSA official who's now director of Social Security and disability policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). "And so all you can really do at this point is rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic."
Frankie makes a statement…
The agency told NPR that Bisignano has been "visiting field offices and processing centers to hear directly from front-line employees," since his confirmation hearing.
"He is committed to giving SSA employees the tools they need to provide best-in-class customer service to the American public and succeed in their roles," the agency said in a statement. "SSA monitors all workload measures in the field offices that are helping answer the 800 Number calls. In addition, we have established field office support units to assist with critical workloads and demands."
@11:52, there is a list someplace... Operations doesn't do anything without assessing the workload implications of playing whack-a-mole.
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