Based on an Emergency Message that the Social Security Administration has sent out to its staff, it looks as if between September 2016 and March 2017 the agency failed to notify some or all beneficiaries in the following situations:
- Beneficiary is no longer disabled (cessation).
- Beneficiary is no longer entitled to disability benefits or payments on the current application (adverse reopening).
- Beneficiary received erroneous payments after a decision of denial (overpayment).
- Social Security changes the onset date to a later date.
- Social Security changes the cessation date to an earlier date.
Failure to send notice means that the beneficiaries had no idea why their benefits had stopped or that they could appeal.
The Emergency Message tells Social Security staff that "If the beneficiary alleges he or she did not receive a
notice during the relevant period, technicians should take the
allegations seriously, carefully review the case and provide due process
as required by existing regulations and agency policy."
The Emergency Message says nothing about the agency sending belated notices to the beneficiaries affected. Maybe, they're going to send out the notices. They certainly should.
By the way, I saw instances of this happening. I thought it was isolated errors rather than a systems problems. I expect that many thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of claimants were affected.
