Customer Satisfaction At Social Security: Average By Federal Government Standards; Deficient By Private Sector Standards

From a Federal Times report. ACSI stands for American Customer Satisfaction Index

Same Sex Marriage And Social Security

     The Supreme Court's decision that there is a constitutional right to same sex marriage mostly settles the issue as far as Social Security is concerned. However, there may still be a few issues. Social Security has deferred decisions on most claims based upon same sex marriages. Those can now be processed. However, I suspect that some claims based upon same sex marriages were denied in the past. There may still be issues about back benefits in these cases. I expect that Social Security management is happy that this issue is being put to rest.

Not Keeping Up

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

4% Error Rate In Computing SSI Attorney Fees

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

For the 250 randomly sampled Title XVI claims involving claimant representative fees, SSA withheld fee s from claimants’ past-due benefits and paid the fees directly to the claimant representative. However, our review found that SSA did not always pay the appropriate amount when it paid the claimant representative fee on concurrent Title II and XVI claims. As a result, when SSA overpaid the claimant representative, it generally underpaid the claimant. Similarly, when SSA underpaid the claimant representative, it generally overpaid the claimant. 

Of the 250 sample claimant representative fees, 10 (4 percent) had claimant fee payment errors totaling $13,020: $12,479 in overpayments and $541 in underpayments. The payments ranged from a $3,062 overpayment to a $484 underpayment. Based on our results, we estimate that 15,200 claimant representative fee payments had about $19.8 million in payment errors for Calendar Years 2011 and 2012.

We acknowledge that computing past-due benefits and the related claimant representative fees may be complex, as staff is required to analyze a multitude of factors and make various decisions to pay the past-due benefits and fee. ...

Shouldn't They Ask What The Claimants Want?

     I find Larry Kotlikoff's pieces on Social Security to be ridiculously sensationalized. I rarely link to them. However, even though he's hyping this one too much, I still think he's onto something:

Despite our best efforts, we continue to be shocked by new horror stories about the Social Security Administration (SSA) that our readers bring to our attention. The latest galling example is one of the worst we've ever seen, and involves how the agency decides what to do when someone wants to defer benefits. 

Readers of our book know that we are big believers in delaying benefits where possible. If someone delays claiming their retirement benefit until it reaches its maximum value at age 70, their monthly benefit will be 76-percent higher — in inflation-adjusted terms — than if they claim at age 62, which is the earliest age at which normal retirement benefits may be taken. 

 Now, we've just learned, to our amazement, that Social Security is denying the delayed benefit wishes of some applicants and is instead forcing them to accept six months of retroactive benefits and a lifetime of lower benefits thereafter. Some beneficiaries may not even be aware that this is being done to them. This is a colossal injustice. ...
 Say someone comes in to their local Social Security office a few months shy of their 70th birthday and, as we're all told to do, gives the agency a head's up on their filing intentions....

 Instead of accepting their application for benefits to begin at age 70, the agency's representative instead gives the person a six-month retroactive payment! This act resets the person's entitlement back to what it was six months prior and wipes out half a year of Delayed Retirement Credits (DRCs). ...

We brought this to the attention of Jerry Lutz, the former Social Security technical expert who has reviewed nearly everything Larry has ever written about Social Security. Jerry consulted the SSA operations manual that sets forth agency policies and came back as amazed as we were.

"Based on SSA regulations, retroactivity is automatically applied to applications filed after FRA unless retroactivity is expressly restricted by the claimant," he wrote.

Some Technical Questions

     At one time if a document was scanned in color and submitted to Social Security's Electronic Records Express (ERE) system the document would remain in color in ERE. When medical records arrive in my office in a fuzzy state I have been scanning them in color not because the documents were in color but to try to make them more legible once uploaded to ERE. Documents scanned in color have a higher resolution than documents scanned in black and white. Does ERE still retain documents scanned in color in their native format or does it now degrade them to black and white? 

     While I'm at it, has the resolution ERE is using changed? Maybe it's my eyes but it seems like ERE records have gotten more difficult to read. I'm wondering if documents I'm uploading in a normal black and white resolution are being degraded to a lower resolution. 

     You might ask why Social Security would intentionally degrade documents uploaded to ERE. The answer is that higher resolution documents take up more storage space. When they're transmitted they take up more bandwidth. Storage space and bandwidth are important to network managers. Document legibility isn't of so much concern to them since they don't have to read the documents.

It's Only Fiction

     A recent Orange Is The New Black episode featured a misleading segment touching on Supplemental Security Income for children. I've been around long enough to know that it was never easy to get a child on benefits due to Attention Deficit Disorder-Hyperactivity (ADHD). It's now impossible. Sure, there are children with ADHD who get on benefits now but they're not getting on due to ADHD. They're getting on due to other problems.

IRS Proposes ABLE Regulations

     The Internal Revenue Service has issued a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) on ABLE accounts. ABLE accounts will allow contributions to accounts to help disabled individuals drawing Supplemental Security Income, which is administered by the Social Security Administration. These regulations as well as new state statutes are needed so that ABLE accounts can be established.