A Time To Remember: Social Security In The Aftermath Of The 9/11 Attacks

From the testimony of Larry Massinari, then Commissioner of Social Security before the House Social Security Subcommittee on November 1, 2001:

In the aftermath of the attacks, SSA [Social Security Administration] took immediate steps to ensure that we stayed open for business, for routine business as well as for those who lost family members or were injured that day. All Social Security offices in New York City and the Washington D.C. area were immediately closed on September 11 to protect both the public and our employees, while SSA assessed the severity of the situation and the need for increased security.

The next day, all Social Security offices and the national 800 number were open, with the exception of field offices in New York City, the Northeastern Program Service Center in Jamaica, and the hearing office and the Disability Determination Services (DDS) office in lower Manhattan. The New York Regional Office also remained closed, but we opened a command center in the Grand Central field office. All of our offices-except for those in lower Manhattan-reopened on September 13. We redeployed employees from the closed offices to offices that were open.

We immediately worked with the Treasury Department and the Postal Service to make sure that, where normal processes remained in place, benefit checks and electronic funds transfer payments continued to be sent. Where service was disrupted, we tried to find ways to mitigate delays. ...

By September 24, all of our offices were open, with the exception of the Manhattan DDS, which had been located near the World Trade Center. Some of the DDS staff is being temporarily housed in the Northeastern Program Service Center in Jamaica. Others have been sent to work in other offices.

All 15,000 claims that had been pending in the DDS were removed from the building and sent to a contractor for cleaning and decontamination. All cases have been cleaned and sent back to the DDS. The DDS personnel are in the process of recontacting claimants to update the medical evidence and explain the delay in processing.

I would add that Social Security never stopped opening its mail despite a serious threat of a mail-borne anthrax attack. I know that the Department of Justice and many other agencies did stop opening their mail for a considerable time. I have always thought that those Social Security employees involved in opening and distributing the mail never got the recognition they deserved.

Update: The photo that I had posted earlier that appeared to be the dead body of Bin Laden turned out to have been a hoax.

Video Hearing Usage Varies Widely

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

The number of hearings increased by 260 percent over a 4-year period, from 23,418 in Fiscal Year (FY) 2005 to 84,121 in FY 2009. Approximately 18 percent of all hearings was conducted by video in FY 2009. Video usage varied from 34.8 percent of all hearings in the Boston Region to 9 percent in the New York Region. Moreover, the Atlanta Region held approximately 26 percent of all video hearings held nationwide in FY 2009, double the next highest Region, Dallas, at 13 percent.

Hearing office video usage varied widely, with approximately 22 percent of the hearing offices using video equipment for less than 1 percent of their hearings. We also found that 19 percent of ALJs did not use the equipment at all in FY 2009. In our discussions with ALJs, we learned that low video use related to factors such as workloads, preferred work styles, equipment problems, and lack of training.

The link to the full report is not working.

One thing to keep in mind is that video hearings are more likely in less urban areas where a hearing office covers a territory that extends out for a hundred miles or more. This sort of hearing office is likely to have remote video sites and lots of video hearings while a hearing office in New York City will be conducting virtually no video hearings since the claimants it serves will all live within a few miles of the hearing office.

Fayetteville Gets New Hearing Office

Since I have posted in the past about the delays in opening a new Social Security hearing office in Fayetteville, NC, I must now post the fact that the new permanent hearing office in Fayetteville opened on May 16.

Local attorneys had concerns when we were told in early 2010 that the new office would be opening in August 2010 but the location at which it was to be opened was a burned out shell of a building. The hearing office opened in a temporary location last Fall and has just moved to its permanent location in what had been the burned out building. The contractor made quick progress.

Ten Million To Be Converted To Direct Deposit In Less Than Two Years

From USA Today:

If you sign up for Social Security benefits after April 30, be advised: The check won't be in the mail.

Starting May 1, everyone who applies for Social Security or other federal government benefits will be required to arrange for direct deposit of their payments. The government plans to phase out paper checks entirely by 2013. ...

Seniors who are already receiving paper checks have until March 1, 2013, to switch to direct deposit. To avoid delays, though, individuals shouldn't wait until the last minute to sign up, Gregg [a spokesman for the Department of the Treasury] says.

"We do get surges of calls, and we have about 10 million people who are getting checks who need to be converted" to direct deposit, he says.

Raborg Receives Presidential Award

Ronald Raborg of the Social Security Administration received the Presidential Distinguished Rank Award at a black tie banquet at the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the State Department this past Thursday. Raborg is the Deputy Commissioner for the Office of Quality Performance.

Social Security Timing Software

A press release:

Senior Market Sales, Inc. today announced the launch of its new patent-pending Social Security Timing™ software, which helps married retirees uncover tens of thousands in additional Social Security benefits they may have otherwise left on the table.

“Whether to elect Social Security early or late is a decision virtually every retiree is faced with,” said Joe Elsasser CFP, Director of Advisory Services for Senior Market Sales and the software’s creator. “Social Security Timing™ is the only software in the marketplace that simultaneously calculates all whole year election age combinations across nine possible election strategies in order to identify the strategy that offers the highest lifetime benefit.”

Social Security Timing™ has two components that help retirees make better choices. One is the free “What’s at Stake?” consumer calculator, which allows married couples to find out in real dollars the difference between their best and worst possible Social Security election decision. The calculator also shows their top three election strategies and gives them the option to consult an advisor for further guidance. The second component is the Social Security Timing™ software that financial advisors can purchase to use with their clients.

Good Report On iClaims For Retirement Cases

From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (footnotes omitted):

At an April 15, 2010 hearing before the House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Social Security, Congressman Xavier Becerra asked the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to review the iClaim application to ensure individuals filing for benefits using the iClaim application were receiving an appropriate level of service from SSA.

To address Congressman Becerra’s request, we selected a random sample of 250 RIB [Retirement Insurance Benefits] iClaim applications filed in May 2010.

We surveyed the SSA [Social Security Administration] employees who processed the RIB iClaim applications to determine the number of times the Agency had to re-contact individuals for additional information or clarification and the reasons for the re-contacts. We also obtained the employees’ perceptions of the iClaim application process. Finally, we reviewed 50 of the RIB iClaim applications from our sample to determine whether the information provided by the individuals in their iClaim applications corresponded with the information recorded in SSA’s system that was used to determine individuals’ eligibility for benefits and their benefit amounts. ...

SSA employees were generally positive regarding the amount of time it took to process an iClaim application. However, employees expressed concerns about the difficulty in re-contacting individuals.

In addition, we found that the information provided by individuals in their iClaim applications corresponded with the information recorded in SSA’s system. ...

Re-contacts with individuals are a necessary and important part of processing some iClaim applications. In fact, of the 245 individuals in our review who filed a RIB iClaim application, SSA re-contacted 144 individuals (59 percent) to obtain additional information or clarification. ...

While SSA employees had both positive and negative comments about the iClaim application, employees were generally positive about the amount of time it took to process an iClaim application. ... In fact, most employees responded iClaim applications were faster to process than in-person or telephone applications. Specifically, 62 percent of employees in our review stated iClaim applications were typically the fastest application type to process. ...

Although iClaim applications generally take the least amount of time to process, employees were concerned about the difficulty with re-contacting individuals. To fully develop the claim, we found employees had to re-contact individuals in our sample up to five times, for an average of two times per individual. ...

During our review of RIB iClaim applications, there were no indications that individuals filing for RIB using the iClaim application did not receive an appropriate level of service from SSA. In fact, SSA employees re-contacted more than half the individuals in our sample to obtain additional information or clarification. While employees raised concerns regarding some difficulty in re-contacting individuals, they also recognized that iClaim applications were typically faster to process than in-person or telephone applications. In addition, we found that the information individuals provide on their iClaim applications corresponded with the information in SSA’s system used to determine benefit eligibility and amount.

Note carefully that this was a study of the retirement claims, which are, by far, the easiest claims to take. The report would be far more mixed if it were talking about survivor claims or disability claims. Supplemental Security Income claims cannot even be taken over the internet.

Maybe I Need To Set Up An Office In Britain

From the Daily Mail, a British newspaper:

More than a million people have failed to qualify for state sick benefits since tough fitness tests were brought in.

The million – around three quarters of all new disability benefit claims – were found fit to work or have dropped their claims after doctors examined whether they were really disabled. ...

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith now plans to reassess the existing 2.6 million long-term claimants on IB [Incapacity Benefit].