Benefit Cards Coming

From American Banker, although I do not have a link to the article:

The Treasury Department wants to convert millions of Social Security benefit payments currently made by checks into prepaid debit cards.The department's Financial Management Service began soliciting bids Sept. 4 from banks to administer the prepaid card program, which would begin in January and take no more than six months to roll out nationwide. ...

The cards would act like a typical debit card with PIN and signature capacities. They would carry a Visa or MasterCard logo on the front and the bank's logo likely on the back. The payments would occur automatically each month, and recipients could access their funds through automated teller machines and point of sale terminals.

The recipients would decide for themselves whether to shift their payments from checks to cards. "Since we're just introducing this product we don't want to make it mandatory right away," she said. "We don't necessarily want people to use a card if they don't want a bank account." ...

$120.4 Million In Underpayments To SSI Claimants

From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) (emphasis added):

The majority of SSI underpayments occur because of changes in recipients' non-medical eligibility factors such as income (earned or unearned) or living arrangements. As changes in these factors occur, recipients' SSI eligibility and payment amounts can change from month-to-month. An underpayment occurs when the amount due to a recipient is greater than the amount paid to a recipient during a period of eligibility. ...

When a claimant files for SSI, a supplemental security income record (SSR) is created. The SSR typically remains open as long as the claimant is in current pay status and for up to 12 months when in nonpayment status. SSA terminates SSRs for a variety of reasons such as after the recipient has been ineligible to receive payments for over 12 months or when changes in the recipient's eligibility factors require a new SSR to be established. These terminated SSRs are considered current until a new SSR is established. Once a new SSR is established, the terminated SSR is considered a prior SSR. ...

We reviewed a random sample of 250 SSRs that contained underpayments between $250 and $24,999. In addition, we reviewed a random sample of 33 SSRs with underpayments $25,000 and greater. ...

We found SSA's internal control of relying on FO staff to manually identify and resolve SSI underpayments on prior SSRs is not adequate. The control is not adequate because FO staff did not always perform the necessary actions to identify and resolve the underpayments. Specifically, for our population of 90,497 prior SSRs that contained underpayments between $250 and $24,999 totaling $120.4 million, we project:

79.3 percent of prior SSRs have underpayments totaling $92.3 million that should have been paid to recipients or offset to existing overpayments, and

23.1 percent of prior SSRs have underpayments totaling $27.9 million that are not due to the recipients and need to be removed from the prior SSRs to avoid improper payments or improper offsets to recipients' overpayments.

Fraud Alleged In Pennsylvania

From the Associated Press:

Authorities say a Berks County [PA] man illegally received nearly $40,000 in Social Security disability payments since 2001.

Berks County detectives and Social Security Administration investigators have accused 46-year-old Heriberto Pagan, of Reading, of working at five different companies and three temporary employment agencies during that time, using stolen identities for which he obtained papers including state ID cards and a Social Security card.

Bill Introduced On Five Month Waiting Period

Thanks to My Disability Blog for alerting me to this article in Ohio.com:

Even though Arthur Woolweaver Jr. contributed to Social Security his whole life, when he became terminally ill with metastatic lung cancer, he was unable to receive any disability benefits.

Three months after the death of the Cuyahoga Falls man, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, has introduced a bill named for Woolweaver that aims to solve the problem encountered by the 58-year-old in his final months.

The Arthur Woolweaver Jr. Social Security Improvements For the Terminally Ill Act would waive the five-month waiting period in the Social Security Disability program (SSD) [for those who are terminally ill], Brown said.

"Social Security" Sues, But Who Is Social Security?

Can someone explain this one to me? From the Alice Echo-News Journal:

The Alice Social Security Administration has filed a lawsuit against the Jim Wells County [Texas] Appraisal District, alleging the district set unreasonably high property valuations for the administration’s Alice facility. The lawsuit, which was made public Tuesday, was filed by the Alice Social Security Administration, L.L.C and Ronel, L.L.C., a Delaware company against the appraisal district. ... "The fair market value of the plaintiff’s property, as described above on Jan. 1, 2006 is $600,000," the lawsuit states. "The fair market value of the plaintiff’s property as described above on Jan. 1, 2007 was $620,000. The levying of a tax on plaintiff’s property based on a higher valuation is an unlawful levy, creates an illegal lien on plaintiff’s property, and is a cloud on plaintiff’s title to the property." The SSA and Ronel seek through the lawsuit that the court assess the value of the property at $600,000 for the 2006 calendar year and $620,000 for the 2007 calendar year, and that the district be required to pay all attorneys fees incurred while filing the suit. The SSA and Ronel are represented by attorney Christopher Smitherman of Bryan, Texas.

Is this a private company named the Alice Social Security Administration, L.L.C.? If so, I think the Social Security Administration that is a federal agency might have something to say about the use of that name.

New Psychiatric Listings In The Works

Shrinkrap on the Social Security Perspectives blog associated with this blog is reporting that the Social Security Administration is hard at work on new psychiatric Listings. Shrinkrap should know since he is part of the group working on the new Listings. Any hints you can give us, Shrinkrap?

By the way, Social Security Perspectives is supposed to be a group blog, but so far it is a group of one. Use the feedback button on the right to let me know if you want to join.

Witness List For Senate Finance Committee Hearing

For the Senate Finance Committee Hearing on September 20 on "Frozen Out: A Review of Bank Treatment of Social Security Benefits":

Waverly Taliaferro, Social Security beneficiary, New York, NY

Sara Kelsey, General Counsel, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Washington, DC

Montrice Goddard Yakimov, Managing Director of Compliance and Consumer Protection, Office of Thrift Supervision, Department of the Treasury, Washington, DC

Julie L. Williams, First Senior Deputy Comptroller and Chief Counsel, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Department of the Treasury, Washington, DC

Margot Saunders, Counsel, National Consumer Law Center, Washington, DC

Social Security Treaty With Czech Republic

The Prague Post reports that the United States and the Czech Republic have signed a Social Security treaty. The treaty does not come into effect until ratified by both countries.

OIG Report On Assignment Of Cases At Ft. Lauderdale ODAR

From a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

We found that over a 6-year period, the Fort Lauderdale HOCALJ [Hearing Office Chief Administrative Law Judge] did not follow ODAR's [Office of Disability Adjudication and Review's] policy of assigning claims to ALJs on a rotational basis. Instead, the HOCALJ has operated a "pilot" program (Pilot) that has allowed him to hear claims from selected representatives. We found the Pilot had no documented goals, objectives or measures for success. In addition, the HOCALJ has operated the Pilot without approval or knowledge of its existence by ODAR's Headquarters and Region IV managers. Moreover, only a few representatives participate in the Pilot and the HOCALJ heard most of the Pilot claims. Consequently, four representatives had over 50 percent of their caseloads with the HOCALJ, far beyond the anticipated rate under a rotational policy. An independent assessment of the Pilot will be necessary to determine its role in the Fort Lauderdale Hearing Office's productivity and overall merit. ...

Representative Number of Approvals by HOCALJ Number of Disallowances by HOCALJ
HOCALJ's Approval Rate by Representative
Representative #1 95 42 69.3
Representative #2 219 62 77.9
Representative #3 79 17 82.3
Representative #4 79 30 72.5
Total 472 151 75.8%

Social Security Wasting Money On Beltway Bandits With Conflict Of Interest

The results of a study commissioned by Social Security and done by Webility.md and SSDC on "Use of Functional/Vocational Expertise" is now available. Like almost every one of these studies done by the so-called "beltway bandits"it is stunningly vague and presents no workable ideas, much less any practical plan.

What is particularly galling about this report is the involvement of SSDC, a company which is involved in representing disability claimants before the Social Security Administration, an obvious conflict of interest. Why would SSDC seek this contract? Why would Social Security give them a contract when they have an obvious conflict of interest?

Undoubtedly, Social Security would have liked some idea of how they can cope with the fact that disability determination at Social Security is based upon the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), yet the DOT is hopelessly outdated and its replacement, the O*NET, is completely unworkable for Social Security. Probably, this was the main reason this study was commissioned. This study hardly discusses this issue. Here is what it does recommend:

Make a gradual and orderly retreat from relying exclusively on the Dictionary of Occupational titles (DOT) and DOT-based methods and tools for addressing the questions of Step 5. Allow both internal and community-based mFV experts to use (and defend the use of) supplementary or alternative approaches to describing functional job requirements, determining feasible occupations, and estimating job prevalence when they believe that the DOT information is either obsolete, incomplete, not applicable, or missing. Require that such methods and tools be based on the most solid evidence practically available and widely accepted by organizations nationally-recognized in their field. For example, utilize tools currently in wide use by vocational experts such as The Occupational Assessor by Economics Research Institute (www.erieri.com) or Choices by Bridges (www.bridges.com). Fund the development of specialized tools that will (a) support comparisons of non-exertional functional limitations with job demands, and (b) more fully describe the nature and prevalence of sedentary and light occupations and actual jobs in today’s economy.

If you are a Social Security official, how do you implement this nonsense? How do you make a "gradual and orderly" retreat from the DOT when you have nowhere else to go? Where are the other sources of information on the availability of sedentary and light occupations in the economy? The sources they suggest are completely unworkable and they know it. The only way to support the current method of disability determination at Social Security is to completely redo the DOT from scratch, which might cost more than a billion dollars and, even then, a new DOT would probably demonstrate the near complete disappearance of unskilled sedentary employment and a dramatic reduction in unskilled light employment in the United States, a result which would result in dramatically more claimants being approved for Social Security disability benefits. The authors of this study did not want to recommend this, nor did they want to recommend that Social Security go back to Congress or completely rethink disability determination, so they come up with this nonsense, collected their money and walked away.

I can suggest only one reason why Social Security keeps wasting money on this sort of study. Social Security officials order these studies when they do not know what to do and just want to put off making a decision.