Lexis Nexis Falls Afoul Of OIG

     From a press release:

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and LexisNexis Risk Solutions (LNRS), a LexisNexis Group subsidiary, entered into a settlement agreement to resolve the Government’s claim that LNRS violated Section 1140 of the Social Security Act by publishing misleading online advertising regarding “SSA Verify.”

 

LNRS had marketed “SSA Verify” for its access to the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Consent Based Social Security Number Verification (CBSV) service. LNRS cooperated with the OIG inquiry; the firm immediately discontinued the at-issue advertising upon receiving notice of the Government’s allegation and subsequently discontinued offering the CBSV service to its customers. In the settlement agreement, LNRS did not admit violating the law but agreed to comply with Section 1140 and pay a civil monetary penalty of $54,000.

 

SSA makes CBSV available to companies for a fee; the service is typically used by companies that provide financial services, provide background checks, and satisfy licensing requirements. With the consent of a Social Security number (SSN) holder, CBSV verifies whether the SSN holder’s information matches SSA’s records. CBSV does not verify an individual’s identity or provide a participant’s customers with a direct link to Social Security records. Participant companies agree not to use the words Social Security or other CBSV program-related words, acronyms, emblems and symbols in connection with an advertisement for identity verification. LNRS marketed CBSV as “SSA Verify,” suggesting the product offered SSA identify verification, while also asserting that the service provided LNRS customers with a direct link to Social Security records.

 

Section 1140, a consumer protection law, establishes two broad prohibited activities:

• Prohibits people and companies from misleading consumers through various communications by giving a false impression of association with or endorsement by SSA; and
• Prohibits reproducing and selling Social Security publications and forms without authorization, as well as charging for services SSA provides free without providing proper notices. ...

Scare In Springfield

     From MassLive, which is apparently the screen name for The Republican, a Massachusetts newspaper:

The Social Security Administration office on Bond Street in Springfield was evacuated on Tuesday following a report of a suspicious package. 

Just before 10:30 a.m., the city fire department was called to investigate after someone opened a suspicious package and an unidentified white powder was discovered.

According to Dennis Leger, aide to Commissioner Bernard J. Calvi, three employees were potentially exposed to the powder. They didn't appear to be injured, he said, but they were being kept from the public until the regional hazmat team conducted an on-site test of the substance. ...

Social Security Administration employees were sent home for the day just before 11 a.m. Minutes later, Department of Homeland Security officials showed up in a marked SUV. ...

Remember That Anyone Approved For SSI Is Desperately Poor

     Below is a note in my firm's database concerning a telephone conversation with a client whose claim for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) was recently approved. We had told him to contact the District Office (DO) since it had been a couple of weeks since he had been approved and the DO had not yet contacted him to begin processing him onto benefits, as would be normal:

DO told him it would be 60 days from when he received his decision before he hears from them - So not to expect to hear from them until ~ Nov 20th.

Why Not Show It Again? With Elections And A New Commissioner Both Coming Soon, Social Security Isn't Making Any News!

All Part Of The Plan

     From Paul Krugman’s column in the New York Times:

When the Trump tax cut was on the verge of being enacted, I called it “the biggest tax scam in history,” and made a prediction: deficits would soar, and when they did, Republicans would once again pretend to care about debt and demand cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. 

Sure enough, the deficit is soaring. And this week Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, after declaring the surge in red ink “very disturbing,” called for, you guessed it, cuts in “Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.” He also suggested that Republicans might repeal the Affordable Care Act — taking away health care from tens of millions — if they do well in the midterm elections. 

Any political analyst who didn’t see this coming should find a different profession. After all, “starve the beast” — cut taxes on the rich, then use the resulting deficits as an excuse to hack away at the safety net — has been G.O.P. strategy for decades. ...

DOT Replacement Coming Soon?

     The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE) has posted its most recent newsletter. NADE members make determinations on disability claims for Social Security at the initial and reconsideration level. Here’s an excerpt from a write up on a talk by Gina Clemons, Social Security’s Associate Commissioner for Disability Policy:

... Gina also updated the NADE audience on work underway in the agency’s Vocational Regulations Modernization (VRM) and Occupational Information Systems (OIS) projects. These companion projects have been ongoing for several years. Key to the OIS project is an ongoing effort (since 2012) with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to collect updated occupational information through the Occupational Requirements Survey (ORS) that we will use in adjudication. The good news here is that, after three years of testing and three years of data collection, BLS will publish a complete data set documenting requirements of work in the U.S. economy sometime this winter. BLS is committed to regularly updating occupational information moving forward on a 5-year refresh cycle and has already started collecting updated occupational data to refresh the ORS data set by 2024. BLS will document some of the basic mental demands of jobs in the 2024 ORS refreshed data.

The ORS data set will replace the Dictionary of Occupational Titles in adjudication. SSA has adopted an evidence-based, data-driven approach to modernizing the vocational regulations. The scope of the VRM project includes policy considerations in step 4 and 5 of the sequential evaluation process. Gina explained that several internal teams involving representatives from across SSA have been working on policy development for VRM.

 

Positions Of The Two Parties On Social Security

     The New York Times summarizes the positions of the two major parties on Social Security as we approach an election. Simply put, Democrats want to enhance Social Security and Republicans want to cut it. Given the extent to which Americans rely upon Social Security, it’s hard to comprehend why voters haven’t emphatically rejected the Republican Party.

Received Appointed For Conn Files

     A receiver has finally been appointed to handle the thousands of case files left behind by Eric Conn. No one knows how long it will be before his former clients get access to their files. Hearings are ongoing in these cases. From what I've seen and heard, Administrative Law Judges have been told to barge forward and wait for almost nothing, including these files which may contain medical evidence. Of course, there are hundreds of Conn's clients who have already lost benefits who never knew that these files still existed.