That's A Lot Of EEO Complaints

      From a Request for Information recently posted by Social Security:

... The Social Security Administration (SSA) is seeking a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software and modules in support of the agency’s existing Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) enterprise case management solution. ...

Social Security Administration with its 65,000 employees currently processes approximately 1,000 EEO counseling, 500 formal complaints of discrimination, 550 hearings and 300 appeals per year.  A Case Management Information System is required for collection of information on nationwide performance of SSA in counseling, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), investigation, hearings, final agency decisions, appeals and compliance. ...

SSA Employee Sentenced For Taking Bribe

      From a press release:

... Kurt Walter was sentenced in the Northern District of Illinois for accepting a bribe in the course of his official duties as an SSA employee. Walter, who worked as a service representative in the Elgin, Illinois SSA office, received a total of $8,400 to access SSA databases and provide individuals’ earnings information to another defendant in the case, Joshua Hughes, without the individuals’ authorization. Hughes, who operated a process server company and a company providing consumer installment loans, then used the earnings information in wage garnishment actions against those individuals. 

On Wednesday, September 30, Walter was sentenced for his role in the bribery scheme, receiving 2 years of probation. ...

Almost A Caricature Of Republican Priorities

      A press release:

The Inspector General for the Social Security Administration, Gail S. Ennis, announces the addition of four new investigative units to the Cooperative Disability Investigations (CDI) program. CDI is a nationwide joint effort between the Social Security Administration and its Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to fight disability fraud and save money for taxpayers. The four investigative units recently opened offices in Omaha, Nebraska; Las Vegas, Nevada; Manchester, New Hampshire; and Cheyenne, Wyoming. ...

     Just how much fraud are you expecting to find in New Hampshire and Wyoming? Do they really need their own dedicated offices? And why are you saying this is directed at "disability fraud"? I think that most fraud cases detected at Social Security involve retirement benefits.

     Social Security is closing down field offices which provide service to the public while opening new offices to hunt for fraud even in low population areas. What does that tell us about the priorities contained in Social Security's operating budget?

Requirement To Submit Medical Records Electronically To Go Into Effect Next Month

      The Social Security Administration has posted a notice in the Federal Register that the requirement to submit medical records electronically officially goes into effect on November 4.

A Real Charmer

 

    A Texas man has pleaded guilty to communicating threats after saying he would kill “every black person at the Social Security office” if he didn’t get his benefits. And that’s not all he said. Not by a long shot! 

Four Years For $700,000 Identify Theft

 

    From the Daily Herald of Chicago:

A 42-year-old woman who used to work in the Social Security Administration's Aurora office was sentenced to four years in prison for stealing more than $700,000 in fake benefits.

Federal prosecutors said Anne Aroste, 42, of Montgomery, worked in the federal agency's Aurora field office between 2013 and 2018 and pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

She admitted that she used the identities of dead workers to create new applications for Social Security benefits and used her credentials to approve the applications and funnel the benefits to bank accounts she controlled. ... 

Allsup Got Almost $4.5 Million In Ticket To Work Money In 2019

      Social Security has made a proactive disclosure of recipients of money under the Ticket To Work (TTW) program, which pays for rehabilitation to enables Social Security disability recipients to return to work. A rehabilitation provider gets paid based upon claimants returning to work. 

     Ranked in third place on the list of largest recipients of TTW money in 2019, at $4,467,810, is Allsup Employment Services, LLC. Yep, that's part of the Allsup non-attorney group that represents Social Security disability claimants before the agency.

     Doing this actually occurred to me years ago. Sometimes you help a claimant get on benefits but you know from their medical records that they're getting better and have a realistic chance of returning to work. It doesn't happen much but it does happen. Since you already have their medical records, you're in a great place to spot these cases and to profit from providing "rehabilitation" to people who need little help anyway. I never did it because it seemed like a conflict of interest or at least it didn't seem to smell quite right. It's not illegal, though, as far as I know. Of course, I don’t know how Allsup is coming by its TTW cases.

     I wonder if there are other affiliates of entities representing Social Security claimants on the TTW list, perhaps with names that can't be so easily connected.

More On The New 1696

Memo

     To: Social Security:

     From: Charles T. Hall

     Would you please quit encrypting the damned SSA-1696! You don't need to do it. To simplify matters, attorneys representing claimants typically combine the forms to be signed by new clients into one PDF. We want to make it so that we only have to enter the claimant's name, address, telephone number and Social Security number once and the data propagates to all the documents in the PDF. When you encrypt the SSA-1696, we have no choice but to print out the 1696, scan it and then laboriously re-enter the fields so they'll line up with the fields in the rest of the packet of forms. This is pointless and should be unnecessary. The encryption serves no legitimate purpose. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, just forward this to the people who design forms for you. I assure you that they'll understand what I'm talking about.

     Thank you!