"Dumb Ass Stupid Management"

     Alan Weiss believes his local Social Security field office has "dumb ass stupid management."

Big Dual Benefit Overpayment Problem

     A recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that "Of the 50 sample Title II beneficiaries who were receiving benefits on 2 Social Security records, we determined that SSA incorrectly paid 29 (58 percent) beneficiaries full benefits on both records." 

     Let me give an example of how this happens. A woman goes on Social Security disability benefits at age 50. A couple of years later, her husband dies. She files a claim for Disabled Widows benefits. What's supposed to happen is that the widows benefit is reduced by the amount of benefits she's already receiving on her own account. The OIG report, which is based on a fairly small sample, suggests that more than half the time, Social Security is paying the full widows benefit. That would quickly cause a large overpayment. There are many, many cases along these lines.

     OIG estimated that there were over $6 million in potentially recoverable overpayments in just the 29 cases identified in their small sample, over $200,000 per case, and that there were more overpayments that would not be potentially recoverable.

     You can look at this report and say that Social Security is run by a bunch of incompetents. Maybe. What I see here is a demonstration of how completely inadequate Social Security's data system is. Why didn't the computers stop these overpayments before they ever happened? How can anyone think that Social Security's data systems are so wonderful that the agency can dispense with field offices?

     Note that these overpayments are entirely due to agency error. The claimants would have no idea they're being overpaid. They'll be very unhappy when they're told of the large overpayments. It's not just the Social Security trust funds that are the victim here. These claimants are victims also.
     In any case, the OIG report has identified a problem that will have to be addressed. This data system problem must be definitively resolved quickly.

More From Patricia Wen On Child SSI

     Patricia Wen at the Boston Globe has written a new piece on children's disability benefits under Supplemental Security Income. The piece contains words and phrases such as "controversial", "dramatic growth" and "replaced welfare." The piece seems to have little if any new information.

    The hard numbers show that 1,083,874 children received SSI in July 2013 and 1,074,908 received the benefits in July 2014. That's not dramatic growth. That's a modest decline. Ms. Wen doesn't report this.

     Ms. Wen got a lot of attention for her original series of articles on SSI child's disability. She doesn't seem to have anything new to report on the subject but she keeps repeating what she originally wrote.

An Overpayment Story

     From WNYT in Albany, NY:

Life was complicated enough for Bruce and Sarah Whaley. they're raising three children in their Corinth home, one of them disabled, Sarah works full time, but Bruce is also disabled and has been out of work for a couple of years.

Monthly workers compensation and social security checks enable the Whaley's to make ends meet, which helps explain why, just over four months ago, Sarah thought a miracle occurred.

"When I woke up Monday morning, April 14th, I looked in my bank account and saw over $33,000 in our checking account," Sarah recalls. ...

"Social security said it's your money, take it," Sarah says. ...

"Every human being I speak to in social security has a different story on what's going on," Bruce says.

What the Whaley's eventually found out however was that someone at social security didn't realize Bruce was also receiving workers compensation from the state, and if he wasn't collecting that money, he would have been entitled to collect more money from the federal government. That misunderstanding also affected the amount being paid to the Whaley's children.

Even though the Whaley's told social security to stop sending them the money, the money kept coming.

"It all added up before they got it fixed back to his regular pay to $38,124," Sarah says.
And the plot thickens. After initially refusing any repayment, social security finally sent the Whaley's a letter now demanding the $38,000 be paid back or else Bruce's monthly checks would be cut off. ...

Finding themselves in sort of a bizzaro web of bungled burocracy, the Whaley's sent all of the money back by certified check. They have the receipt that someone at Social Security initialed, indicating social security received the checks in early August. Social Security's demand for repayment came just before the Labor Day weekend.

On Labor Day Remember How Far We've Come

Social Security Not Faring Well In 7th Circuit

     From the online American Bar Association Journal:

In a published opinion issued two weeks after oral argument, the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned the denial of disability benefits to a woman who claimed severe pain because of a herniated disc.

The two-week turnaround by the author of the opinion (PDF), Judge Richard Posner, is quick even by his speedy standards, according to Illinois lawyer Barry Schultz, who represented the claimant. The 7th Circuit has been reversing a lot of adverse determinations in disability cases, particularly in the last year, he tells the ABA Journal. ...

The claimant in Goins v. Colvin had testified that the incessant pain, along with drowsiness caused by medication, limited her daily activities to eating, caring for her dogs, watching TV and sleeping. An MRI taken in 2010 after she applied for disability benefits revealed she had degenerative disc disease, stenosis, and a condition in which her brain tissue extends into the spinal canal. At an evidentiary hearing, the 250-pound woman said she had to quit a cafeteria job in 2008 because it was too strenuous, and she rated her pain an 8.5. An administrative law judge concluded she was exaggerating and denied benefits. The appeals court reversed. Posner took issue with the ALJ's conclusion and with two doctors who evaluated the claimant's medical records for the Social Security Administration ...

Posner said the ALJ should not have drawn adverse inferences based on the fact that the claimant had not sought frequent medical treatment. The claimant was indigent, Posner said, and had no health insurance....

Posner also criticized Social Security Administration lawyers for arguing the ALJ had accommodated the claimant's obesity by providing that her work duties could not require her to climb ladders, ropes, or scaffolds and only occasionally require her to climb stairs, balance, kneel, crawl, stoop, or crouch. "Does the SSA think that if only the plaintiff were thin, she could climb ropes?" Posner asked.

"If we thought the Social Security Administration and its lawyers had a sense of humor, we would think [the argument] a joke," Posner said.

     By the way, if you read the actual opinion, the woman had a Chiari malformation. That's what Judge Posner was writing about when he used the phrase, "a condition in which her brain tissue extends into the spinal canal." That's not just a routine herniated disk or spinal stenosis problem, although those can be bad enough. A Chiari malformation is a serious congenital problem at the base of the brain. If you know anything about the base of the brain, you know it is absolutely the last place in your body that you want any kind of problem.

Senator Wants Public Notice And Comment On Office Closures

     From The Hill:

A bill awaiting Congress when it returns from its August recess would attempt to slow field office closures at the Social Security Administration, an agency that has shuttered more than 60 facilities in recent years.

The 2014 Social Security Access Act, introduced by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., aims to bring more community input into the closure process. The bill would require SSA to provide 180 days’ notice to “all individuals residing in areas serviced” by any field office subject to any “reduction in access.” ...

Schumer’s bill would create a public comment period and require SSA to hold at least one public hearing a month after disseminating information to constituents about an upcoming closure. The agency would have to post online and provide in writing to local members of Congress and other elected officials a range of information about the decision, including the number of SSA employees affected, the number of people who visit the office, Internet access in the region, transportation options to the next closest facility, projected cost savings and the estimated cost of co-locating with another federal agency instead of the proposed closure.

The SSA commissioner would also have to submit a report to Congress justifying the closure, and findings made as a result of the public comments or meeting.

Growing Opioid Issue

     From Health Day:

A growing number of Americans on work disability chronically use powerful prescription painkillers, according to a new study.

Researchers found that between 2007 and 2011, about 44 percent of people receiving Social Security Disability Insurance benefits were prescribed narcotic painkillers each year. And the percentage using the drugs long-term rose from 21 percent in 2007 to 23 percent in 2011. ...

The findings, reported in the September issue of the journal Medical Care, aren't surprising, [a researcher] noted. Nationwide, prescriptions for narcotic painkillers -- also known as opioids -- surged 300 percent after 1999, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). ...

"In the short term, people get some relief," said Dr. Eric Collins, physician-in-chief at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Conn., which specializes in psychiatric and addiction treatment.

"But there's no good evidence that long-term use is effective for non-cancer pain," Collins said. ...

The truth is, Meara said, treating chronic pain is difficult. Common problems such as low back pain have no one-size-fits-all therapy, but a number of non-drug options exist, such as exercise, over-the-counter pain medications, acupuncture and biofeedback.

     To be clear here, the dispute is over whether the expanded use of opioids that has been seen over the last 20 years or so is a problem or simply necessary treatment for chronic pain. No one is suggesting that those on Social Security disability benefits abuse opioids any more than any other group. A very significant percentage of those on Social Security disability benefits suffer from conditions which produce chronic, severe pain. It's a question of how you treat that pain.
     I've long noted that anyone experiencing severe pain regards their pain as an emergency which requires urgent treatment. However, when it's someone else's pain, especially if that person is a stranger, people regard pain as merely "subjective" and possibly feigned. If you want additional restrictions on prescriptions of opioids, remember that someday, perhaps soon, you may be in severe pain and desperate for relief.