SSA Could Use CMS Data To Help Select Some Rep Payees

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

CMS [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services]data could help SSA determine the suitability of organizational payee applicants and existing organizational payees that are nursing homes. Generally, the Agency relies on information provided by organizational payees and monitoring reviews to assess 15 suitability factors. However, these sources were not sufficient in providing the Agency with reliable information to assess four of these factors. However, CMS’ nursing home data could provide SSA with useful, relevant, timely, and independent information related to 11 of the 15 suitability factors, including the 4 factors for which the Agency did not have a reliable source for evaluation. 

SSA determined that 38 organizational payees were suitable and qualified to serve beneficiaries even though CMS deemed them as chronically underperforming or assessed them the highest fines because of serious and uncorrected deficiencies. From 2012 to 2016, CMS assessed the organizational payees 1,675 deficiencies and issued them $9.5 million in penalties. Further, CMS terminated six of the organizational payees from Medicare /Medicaid for providing substandard quality care; four subsequently closed. SSA conducts monitoring reviews for organizational payees that meet certain criteria. Since 2012, SSA had reviewed 3 of the 38 organizational payees and did not identify any issues that affected their suitability. One of the organizational payees had since closed.

Funding Bill Passes -- Will Trump Sign It?

     Congress has passed and sent to the President an omnibus appropriations bill that will finally fund the Social Security Administration and other federal agencies through the end of the federal fiscal year, September 30, 2018. 

     The bill contained a last minute addition pertaining to Social Security. The agency was instructed not to close or, perhaps I should say, to reopen a Milwaukee field office that it had recently closed.

     Gun nuts are concerned that the bill would allow Social Security to again adopt regulations that would prevent seriously mentally ill Social Security recipients with representative payees from purchasing firearms. The Obama Administration had adopted that set of regulations but Congress blocked them early last year. Readoption of those regulations wouldn't happen until there's a change in the White House.

     Update: Yesterday, Donald Trump said he would sign the omnibus appropriations bill. Today, after it passes, he's threatening to veto it. There's a government shutdown beginning at midnight tonight if he vetoes it.

     Further update: Yes, Trump did sign it.

Omnibus Funding Bill Out

     The Omnibus Appropriations bill is out. The Social Security portion gives the agency an additional $480 million but earmarks $280 million of this for IT. Social Security certainly needs IT but this sounds more like an attempt to make sure that politically connected contractors get theirs before agency operations. There is a $100 million earmark for the hearing backlog but what about the agency's field offices, payment centers and teleservice centers? Good luck. Sounds like they don't get enough to even keep up with inflation.

Women And Social Security Disability

     Some charts prepared by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) on women and Social Security disability benefits:

On this one, I think it's important to note that a big part of this is that women are much more likely to have knee problems than men. For reasons having to do with anatomy and physiology women are generally more susceptible to other joint problems as well.

Nobody In Charge To Even Complain To

     Politicians in Milwaukee are fighting to reopen the Social Security field office that closed there recently. Their effort is unlikely to work but it may deter other closings.

She Was Only Kidding

     From some television station that wants to be known as "TV6":

A 50-year-old woman may be facing criminal charges after threatening to blow up the Social Security Administration building in Escanaba [MI], according to Escanaba Public Safety. The woman told police she was kidding but that she was upset with a disputed benefit issue.

     I guess she should get off. All it takes for Donald Trump to get out of a jam he's created by saying something stupid or insulting or criminal is to say that he was just kidding.

Central Offices Closed By Snowstorm

     Social Security's central offices in the Baltimore-Washington area are closed today because of a large snowstorm.

Why Did It Take Four Trips To A Field Office To Straighten This Out?

     From the Albuquerque Journal:

“I was dumbfounded.”

That was James Shambo’s reaction when he got a letter from the Social Security Administration congratulating him on starting up his benefits.

Problem was, the 67-year-old retired certified public accountant had decided not to start collecting benefits until he was 70 ...

Just to rub salt in the wound, Shambo later got an IRS form in the mail so he could pay taxes on the money he had never received and did not want.

What was clear was that someone had stolen Shambo’s identity and made off with nearly $20,000 of his Social Security benefits. It’s a frightening tale of identity theft by a sophisticated criminal in what might be an unfolding consequence of last year’s Equifax breach.

“If you … are at or nearing retirement age, you need to know that hackers are targeting Social Security accounts,” said Shambo, a former chairman of the CPA institute’s Personal Financial Planning Executive Committee. “I found out the hard way.”

In the end, it took him a total of 11 hours and four separate visits to his local Social Security office to straighten the whole mess out. ...

Shambo said in a phone interview that his imposter applied for the benefits online, entering a fake email address and a phone number that had been changed by one digit. The thief arranged for the Social Security money to be deposited on a prepaid debit card. ...

     Members of Congress keep pressing Social Security to move all of its operations online. They just don't understand why the agency needs all of those field offices and tens of thousands of employees. Just let the computers do the work. They don't understand or care about the considerable risks. This man's story isn't unusual. This happens thousands of times a year. It's probably going to become more common.