The hearing, which is set for 10:30, will be available for viewing online.
Social Security Commissioner Martin O'Malley today announced he is taking four vital steps to immediately address overpayment issues customers and the agency have experienced. ...
Our deeper understanding of the complexities of this problem has set us on the following course of action:
- Starting next Monday, March 25, we will be ceasing the heavy-handed practice of intercepting 100 percent of an overpaid beneficiary's monthly Social Security benefit by default if they fail to respond to our demand for repayment. Moving forward, we will now use a much more reasonable default withholding rate of 10 percent of monthly benefits — similar to the current rate in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.
- We will be reframing our guidance and procedures so that the burden of proof shifts away from the claimant in determining whether there is any evidence that the claimant was at fault in causing the overpayment.
- For the vast majority of beneficiaries who request to work out a repayment plan, we recently changed our policy so that we will approve repayment plans of up to 60 months. To qualify, Social Security beneficiaries would only need to provide a verbal summary of their income, resources, and expenses, and recipients of the means-tested SSI program would not need to provide even this summary. This change extended this easier repayment option by an additional two years (from 36 to 60 months).
- And finally, we will be making it much easier for overpaid beneficiaries to request a waiver of repayment, in the event they believe themselves to have been without any fault and/or without the ability to repay.
This has all been implemented via an Emergency Message and changes in the agency's POMS manual. Social Security says it has reduced the number of people affected by withholding the entire monthly check from 46,000 to 7,000. The problem is that none of these changes have the force and effect of law, as a regulation would. Everything O'Malley has done on overpayments could be easily undone by a simple memo. Regulations can be amended but the process takes time. It's much less likely to be done. Maybe the agency was working on regs and didn't get finished. Maybe it was thought that a subsequent administration wouldn't change this. Maybe they won't but I wouldn't be surprised if this one does. Have you noticed that the incoming administration seems a little bloody-minded?
One other thing that O'Malley talked about was a statute of limitations on the collection of overpayments. I thought he could have done this by a regulation but, apparently, his agency eventually decided that Congress would have to amend the statutes, which, of course, is impossible.
Martin O'Malley is resigning as Commissioner of Social Security effective on November 29.
Update: NBC News reports that O'Malley is seeking to become the Chair of the Democratic National Committee.
An e-mail I received from Social Security:
The Office of Hearings Operations (OHO) is pleased to announce the release of the Representative Availability Portal (Portal) as part of the Enhanced Representative Availability Process (ERAP). The Portal is a dynamic, modern, and user-friendly website that allows representatives, through their Designated Scheduling Groups (DSGs), to provide us their availability for hearings. While you can still email your monthly availability to us if you choose, the Portal is a simpler and more convenient way to provide us your availability.
We plan to register Portal users over the next several months as part of a phased national rollout, ultimately offering the Portal as an option for all representatives in 2025. If you are interested in registering individuals to submit availability through the Portal on behalf of your DSG, please send an email ... to ...
Anything would be an improvement over the mess we've got now, both for attorneys and Social Security.
Here's a note intended only for one person. You're trying to post comments under the name "Admin." You're pretending to be me but you're not me. I'm not going to allow any comment you try to post to ever appear, you jackass!
Social Security has asked for Office of Management and Budget approval to publish final rules on "Use of Electronic Payroll Data To Improve Program Administration." This has not been controversial. It is the only Social Security regulatory package awaiting OMB approval. Without OMB approval before the change of administration, this one could languish for months if not years.
It happened quietly but the bill to end the Govern Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision passed in the House of Representives Tuesday night. Its fate in the Senate is uncertain.
If you're a Social Security employee who thinks this is great, remember that there is little efficiency gained here. You'll feel less harried mainly because workloads are reduced by discouraging the public from doing business with Social Security in the first place and by extending time frames for service out potentially by months. There is a significant percentage of the population who aren't capable of jumping through even a few hoops. They'll wait in your waiting room to see someone but they won't call repeatedly trying to make an appointment only to get frustrated after 30 minutes or more and hang up. Yes, you can go to the field office and make an appointment there to come back in a month or two but many people won't keep that appointment. They've got problems that keep them from working and from keeping appointments. That's frustrating but those people are a significant percentage of the population the agency is supposed to be serving.
Imagine this. Your Social Security checks suddenly end. Your Medicare is terminated. All of your bank accounts and credit cards are frozen. You have no way of paying your bills or even buying food. Someone tells you that the problem is that you're been declared dead. You have no idea who decided you were dead After a month of desperation, someone tells you that the problem is at Social Security. You immediately go down to the local Social Security field office hoping for a quick resolution of the problem but all that happens is that you have to make an appointment two months out into the future. How would you feel?
