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Mar 30, 2026

New POMS Section On Relations With Attorneys

Poms

      Social Security has issued an amended section in its POMS manual dealing with disclosures of information to attorneys and others representing claimants before the agency. I see nothing really new here but it certainly deserves close scrutiny. The section still says “Entities may not be appointed as representatives.” This causes severe problems for law firms representing claimants. I don’t think the agency appreciates how difficult the problems are. Perhaps they do and are happy to cause the problems. At least they realize that it’s normal for attorneys to have legal assistants and paralegals working with them.

5 comments:

  1. Dude. All that is being asked is that you have a headline representative. As you know we can pay the entity on their behalf.

    By the by, you might wish to spread amongst your profession colleagues that programming AI bots to call the #800 and FO GI lines has gone over like a lead balloon.

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  2. I don’t think you understand that sending a million duplicate 1696s isn’t helpful.

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    Replies
    1. When they go unprocessed for months and you can't get the field office on the phone, what might you suggest be done? Does the twiddling of thumbs suffice?

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    2. It's actually very helpful and it's necessary. If we need to escalate something to the area director or regional office, the first thing they will ask is how many attempts we made to get listed as the rep. The field offices tell us not to fax more than once, and the regional offices tell us to make multiple attempts.

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  3. Doesnt matter if we send 1 or 100 1696s its not like you are going to process any of them

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