Will The Last One Out Turn Off The Lights

From the Baltimore Business Journal:

The U.S. Social Security Administration is looking to move workers from its Metro West campus in downtown Baltimore to a smaller office elsewhere in the city due to cutbacks in its work force.

As many as 5,000 people once worked in the pair of connected buildings at 300 Greene St., but that number is below 2,000 now, said Mark Lassiter, spokesman for the Social Security Administration. In contrast to the 900,000-square-foot Metro West, the administration is now looking for property in the range of 525,000 square feet, with a capacity of about 1,900 workers.

New Forms For Direct Deposit Of Attorney Fees

Social Security has posted two new forms to be used in its upcoming system for direct deposit of attorney fees. The first is SSA-1694, which is used to supply a taxpayer identification number for a business entity. The second is SSA-1699, by which an attorney would supply information about a professional association and provide direct deposit information. It is unclear whether the SSA-1699 would have to be filled just once or filed separately for each client.

The SSA-1699 has one obvious problem. For the direct deposit information, the form says that "You must be the owner or co-owner of the account" and asks that you check to indicate whether you are. This is a problem for any attorney who works for a professional corporation or who works as an associate attorney anywhere. An associate attorney is an employee of a law firm, rather than a partner or princilpe who has an ownership interest. The form, as currently set up, would probably exclude most attorneys representing Social Security claimants, since most of them are either associate attorneys or attorneys who work for professional corporations. There are other places on the form that suggest confusion about law firm organization. The person filling out the form is asked to check one of two blocks. One is labeled "Sole proprietor or Single-Member LLC/LLP" and the other is "Partner or Salaried Employee." It makes no sense to distinguish between Single-Member and non-Single-Member professional corporations and there are many more designations for professional corporations than LLC and LLP. Also, partners and salaried employees are lumped together, but are rather different ecenomically. This form will have to be redone. Fortunately, this system will not be mandatory for some time.

No Hiring Freeze At SSA -- At Least Not Yet

Jo Anne Barnhart, Social Security's Commissioner until January 2007, has made it clear that she expects major budget problems in the next fiscal year, which begins on October 1. She has predicted a hiring freeze plus the possibility of staff furloughs. Consistent with this has been a dramatic downturn in the number of open jobs advertised at SSA. The number of jobs advertised by SSA has been steadily decreasing in September and none had a closing date after the end of September -- until today. I had expected that SSA would soon be advertising no openings. However, Social Security has now advertised two jobs with a closing date in October. This may indicate a slight improvement in the budget picture or perhaps all it indicates is that even under a hiring freeze there will be a few critical positions filled. The two jobs advertised are for an air conditioner mechanic in California and an administrative specialist in Illinois.

A Nomination Not Made

The position of Deputy Commissioner of Social Security is a presidential appointment that must be confirmed by the Senate. The job has been vacant since James Lockhart quit the job in April 2006 to go to OFHEO. President Bush has recently nominated a new Social Security Commissioner and new members to the Social Security Advisory Board, but not a new Deputy Commissioner for Social Security. Perhaps, Bush intends to allow Mike Astrue to pick his own Deputy Commissioner. Perhaps, Bush intends to put a career SSA employee in the job, which was the practice before Lockhart. Perhaps, Bush will use the Deputy job as a negotiating point in the Astrue confirmation process. In any case, the failure to nominate a Deputy Commissioner is interesting.

Monthly Social Security Stats

Social Security has released its monthly statistical package for Title II and Title XVI.

SSA-Medicare Tangle

The New York Times is reporting on the problems between Social Security and Medicare that lie behind all the mistakes in the implementation of the Medicare prescription drug benefit. Here is an excerpt from the Robert Pear article (registration required):

When Medicare mistakenly sent premium refunds to 230,000 people who had signed up for prescription drug coverage, the Bush administration said the error had resulted from a rare “computer glitch.” But government records and interviews with federal officials show it was the latest example of a strained, often dysfunctional relationship between two of the government’s biggest programs.

For more than a year, officials who run the two programs, Social Security and Medicare, have struggled to mesh their computer systems so that Medicare premiums are correctly withheld from Social Security checks, and low-income people get the extra help to which they are entitled. The problems are compounded because this information is collected and used by scores of private Medicare drug plans, each with its own procedures and computer systems. ...

Since the drug program began on Jan. 1, hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries have reported problems in getting the government to carry out their instructions to start or stop the withholding of premiums. Drug plans have repeatedly complained to Medicare officials that premiums have not been properly withheld and that beneficiaries have been upset.

Medicare officials say Social Security and its computer systems bear much of the responsibility. And Social Security says the data it receives from Medicare is often full of errors and does not match the information it already has. Without a perfect match, Social Security officials say they cannot order the Treasury to change the amount of a person’s Social Security payment. ...

OIG Report On SSA's Response To Hurricane Katrina

Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a mostly complimentary report on Social Security's response to Hurricane Katrina..

Social Security Disability Problems In Tennessee

The Nashville Scene has a long article on the state of Social Security disability determination in the state of Tennessee and it is not a pretty picture. A few extracts:

In 2003, the state of Tennessee denied more initial requests for Social Security disability benefits than any other state, according to the most recent numbers from the Social Security Advisory Board, a bipartisan commission appointed by Congress. In fact, statistics indicate Tennessee consistently has one of the lowest allowance rates year after year. ...

Critics say that Tennessee’s examiners have consistently been among the lowest paid in the country, and that the state has one of the highest attrition rates among examiners nationwide, suggesting inexperienced employees and frequent turnover might be to blame for the state’s high rate of rejections. ...

Last year in Tennessee, it took an average of 128 days from the time a claim was received by DDS to the time an examiner made a determination, according to the Social Security Administration. That’s compared to the national average of 87 days. ...

In many ways, Social Security’s disability program is the epitome of bureaucracy. The sheer size, coupled with a complicated process and funding shortfalls, create what many applicants refer to as “a nightmare.” But even its harshest critics admit the system is struggling in part because of limited resources.