Social Security Enters Into Agreement With Kaiser Permanente

     From a Social Security press release:

The Social Security Administration announced today that Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest healthcare providers, will electronically transmit complete medical records for its patients to the agency with the appropriate consent.  Social Security requests about 70,000 patient files from Kaiser Permanente each year so this seamless new system will save time and money for both partners as well as allow Social Security to make faster and more accurate decisions.

Over the last few years, Social Security had entered into similar agreements with several smaller providers to exchange medical records electronically over the Nationwide Health Information Network.  Today’s agreement marks the agency’s first move into using health information technology on a large-scale basis.

Don't Have Much Choice But To Use Webinars

     From an e-mail I received from Social Security:

Social Security’s National Work Incentives Seminar Event (WISE) Webinar is this Wednesday, June 27, 2012, 3:00 p.m., EDT
Register online or call 1-866-968-7842 (V) or 1-866-833-2967 (TTY/TDD).
You will receive a registration confirmation letter with instructions on how to log in to the webinar. Please be sure to check your spam folder. Registration information will also be available online the day of the webinar.

If you plan to attend Wednesday’s national WISE webinar at 3:00 p.m., EDT, you can download the presentation in an accessible PDF via the link below:

Link to Presentation Materials: http://cl.ly/3u2U3g0l2W2a0M183C3z 

     Social Security recently sent out Emergency Message EM-12029 to its staff reminding them that "Current funding for the Work Incentive Planning and Assistance (WIPA) program grantees, provided from SSA’s FY [Fiscal Year] 2011 appropriation, is coming to a close." Apart from telling its employees that they may refer callers to Ticket to Work, which would be useless for most of them, Social Security management has no help to offer its beleaguered field offices who are now saddled with an increased workload for which they are ill-prepared. 

     The work incentives in the Social Security Act are byzantine in their complexity. Few Social Security employees understand them. No webinar is going to be enough help for the average disability recipient contemplating a return to work. Ticket to Work is virtually worthless.

Republicans Don't Want To Cut Social Security To Balance The Budget -- Actually, They're Not Interested In Doing Anything To Balance The Budget

     From a YouGov poll taken in late April and early May:

     Note that only 13.5% of Republicans are willing to accept major cuts in Social Security to reduce the budget deficit. Twice as many Republicans are willing to accept increases in taxes on higher-income Americans. Note also that 53.3% of Republicans are unwilling to accept either tax increases or major cuts in spending in order to balance the budget.

Evidence Of Early Problems With Misidentification Of Social Security Numberholders

 "Baltimore, MD. Strange as it may seem, many persons misspell or change the spelling of their names, from time to time. To forestall the difficulties which would ensue when Baer subsequently spelled his name Bear, the Social Security Board Records Office has set up several varieties of indexes for reference and to insure accuracy. One of these is the alphabetic code index. This is printed on flexible strips, each just wide enough for one line of type. They are printed automatically from the employee master card. The strips are in partially perforated rolls when they first are printed, as shown in the above photograph taken in the Records Office. The perforations allow strips to be separated at any point so that, for example, Abraham Abel's name may be inserted in proper alphabetic sequence between Aaron Abel and Adam Abel"

Do You Blame Him?

     From the Los Angeles Times:

Ron Paul, a staunch opponent of federal welfare programs, acknowledged Wednesday that he receives Social Security checks, shortly after advocating that younger generations opt out of the program. ...

“Just as I use the post office, I use government highways, I use the banks, I use the federal reserve system, but that doesn’t mean you can’t work to remove this in the same way on Social Security,” the Texas congressman said. “In the same way with Social Security, I am trying to make a transition.

Congressional Hearing Scheduled

     From a press release:

U.S. Congressman Sam Johnson (R-TX), Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security today announced the fourth hearing in the series entitled, “Securing the Future of the Disability Insurance Program.”  This hearing will focus on the disability appeals process. The hearing will take place on Wednesday, June 27, 2012, in room B-318 Rayburn House Office Building, beginning at 2:00 p.m. ...

Applications for disability benefits have reached historic levels resulting from more women in the workforce, the recession and slow recovery, and baby boomers reaching their disability-prone years.  The 2012 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees projects that the Disability Insurance (DI) program will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2016. ...

In announcing the hearing, Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) said, “Those sidelined from working because of a disability must be able to count on a fair and timely hearing by a Social Security judge.  Americans need to know that the same rules apply to everyone.  This hearing will tell us whether the appeals process we have today works and if not, what changes ought to be made.” 

Creating Two, Three, Many Katrinas?

     From the Federal Times:

The Social Security Administration — which saw its staff shrink 6 percent last year — warned Congress last month it cannot keep up with swelling workloads as baby boomers retire and more Americans file for benefits. ...

With the White House and Congress facing increasing pressure to cut the deficit — and steep cuts looming in January as part of the sequestration process — budgets are certain to get even tighter. And some experts fear Congress will continue cutting budgets without scaling back agencies’ missions, which will force some agencies to cut staffing to dangerous levels. ...

“If you keep ratcheting down, at some point something breaks,” said John Palguta, vice president for policy at the Partnership for Public Service....

“Unfortunately, it keeps going until we run into a [Federal Emergency Management Agency] that can’t respond to [Hurricane] Katrina, or the 9/11 Commission says part of the problem was that we didn’t have enough people in intelligence agencies to pick up on the 9/11 threat,” Palguta said. ...

SSA Commissioner Michael Astrue told the Senate Finance Committee on May 17 that staffing cuts are already hurting his agency’s ability to serve the public. To deal with a nearly 4,500-employee decline in 2011, SSA had been relying on overtime and having employees stay late to interview and help members of the public.

But budget cuts have forced SSA to cut out most overtime. SSA’s $11.5 billion fiscal 2012 budget is about $1 billion less than Obama requested, and about $400 million less than the agency had in fiscal 2010. As a result, Astrue said, SSA began closing field offices to the public a half-hour early each day to make sure employees finish up their interviews during their regular work hours.

And Astrue fears he may be forced to cut staffing even further — between 2,500 and 3,000 employees this year and another 2,000 or more in fiscal 2013. That would force SSA to close its offices even earlier next year, he said.

“I recently visited our Springfield, Mass., office, and the waiting room was filled to capacity,” Astrue said. “The office has lost 11 employees, 19 percent of its staff, in the last few years. We are doing what we can to assist this office, including implementing a video connection with another office, but few offices have excess capacity to help.”

How Much Would It Cost Social Security To Give All Disability Claimants The Assistance They Need?

      From the San Francisco Chronicle:

In a legal settlement that advocates described as the first of its kind, Social Security has agreed to provide staff training and assistance to two mentally disabled San Francisco men who said they lost benefits because they couldn't understand the rules.

The settlement, approved Tuesday by a federal judge, requires the Social Security Administration to assign a staff expert to meet regularly with each man, explain the agency's forms and requirements, and help them respond in ways that protect their rights.

The agency also agreed to pay $900,000 in fees for the two men's lawyers, who have worked on the case for five years. ...

The agency offers no such assistance to at least 2 million Social Security recipients, and an undetermined number of applicants, who have mental or learning disabilities and have to decipher the complex eligibility requirements on their own, Bruce [the attorney for the plaintiffs] said.