Is It OK To Cut Someone Off Benefits Because They Are "Likely" To Be Dead?

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

SSA suspends benefit payments for a variety of reasons. Suspending benefits stops ongoing monthly payments, and SSA technicians receive alerts to resolve the reason for the suspension. However, SSA does not initiate actions to recover payments made after a beneficiary’s death until technicians add death information and terminate the payment record.

 We identified three populations of beneficiaries who were in suspended payment status as of December 2019. We used death data from 24 States to identify approximately 5,000 beneficiaries in suspended payment status who were deceased according to State death records. We then identified about 6,000 beneficiaries suspended for development of unverified death reports. Finally, we used data analytics to identify approximately 23,000 beneficiaries suspended for address development who we determined were likely deceased. We randomly selected and reviewed 100 beneficiaries from each of the three populations (300 total).

Findings

We determined 263 (88 percent) of the 300 sampled beneficiaries in suspended payment status had died before December 2019. These deceased beneficiaries remained in suspended payment status because SSA (1) technicians did not follow existing policy for beneficiaries suspended for death development, (2) did not have adequate controls to identify beneficiaries suspended for address development who were likely deceased, and (3) policy does not consistently instruct technicians to search for or recognize all available sources of death information. Additionally, SSA policy does not provide sufficient information to guide technicians when they post a beneficiary’s unverified death based on a returned payment from Treasury, which results in erroneous dates of death on SSA records.

Because of these control weaknesses, we estimate SSA issued approximately $298 million in payments to about 24,000 deceased beneficiaries in suspended payment status. SSA did not initiate actions to recover these payments, but it did receive approximately $84 million in recovered funds. SSA erroneously recorded about $33 million of the returned funds as underpayments. We estimate SSA has neither recovered approximately $214 million of the payments nor recorded approximately 24,000 beneficiaries’ death information in the Numident. ...

      Note that there is literally zero concern expressed over the fact that Social Security suspended payments to people who were still alive based upon unverified death reports. In fact, OIG is eager to have Social Security cut off benefits to many more people whom they regard as "likely" dead even though some of them are certainly alive. Would "likely" be a high enough standard for you if one of your loved ones got cut off benefits because some bureaucrat thought they were "likely" dead even though they were very much alive?  Remember that when Social Security decides you’re dead, you don’t just lose your cash benefits, you lose your Medicare and all your bank accounts and credit cards are frozen.

Fraud Scheme Included Hundreds Of Phony Applications For Social Security Retirement Benefits

      From a press release:

Ivie Shevon Sajere pled guilty to a money laundering conspiracy that defrauded the Social Security Administration (“SSA”) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) out of nearly $1,000,000.  The conspiracy involved the false filing of thousands of online applications for SSA retirement benefits and FEMA disaster benefits using stolen personal information.  ...

Beginning in approximately June 2017 until September 2018, the defendant and her husband, Neville Sajere, both Nigerian nationals who engaged in marriage fraud in an unsuccessful attempt to become US citizens, participated in a money laundering scheme that defrauded nearly a million dollars from SSA and FEMA.

The scheme involved unknown individuals filing applications for Social Security retirement benefits and/or FEMA disaster relief benefits using stolen personal information.  The individual victims whose personal information was stolen were often individuals highly acclaimed in their fields.  It appears that these individuals were targeted because, even though they were of retirement age, they had not filed for SSA retirement benefits and did not need disaster benefit relief.  Thus, the criminals had a better chance of getting the applications approved.  Specifically, the victims included a movie directo r, an award-winning journalist, the daughter of a legendary movie director, and a highly esteemed academic. 

Once an application was approved, the fraudsters directed that the funds be deposited onto a Green Dot debit card opened using other stolen personal information.  As soon as the money was credited to the Green Dot debit card, the defendant generated payments through Square, Stripe and Paypal to Nevada Bridge TV, a Nigerian streaming service/television production company owned by the defendant’s husband; BAGMA, an African gospel award show business owned by the defendant’s husband; and Shevonz, a clothing store owned by the defendant. ...

Why Is Your Chance Of Winning At The Initial Level On A Social Security Disability Claim 61% If You Live In Kansas But 38% If You Live In Missouri?

      From the Social Security Administration (click on each image to view full size):

Just How Bad Is Telephone Service At Social Security?

     From WHEC:

One of the remnants of the COVID pandemic is that Social Security offices are still closed. You have to set up an appointment to get in.  But people are telling News10NBC that the phone system to do that doesn't work. ...

Farrah Ritter demonstrated the problem. From Pittsford Canal park, she called the Social Security 800 number to set up an appointment.

After a long message, 14 rings and some dead air, the call just ended. Ritter has a log of how often that's happened.    

Here is just one day. ...

Farrah Ritter: "The longest was five minutes. The shortest was two minutes."
[Reporter]: "And that's before you get cut off?"
Ritter: "That's when I get cut off. I never get to anyone." ...

I asked the SSA if it was aware of the phone issue and if it has a date when the offices will re-open for walk-in appointments.

So far - no answer to those questions. ...

     What is described here is no fluke. This is the sort of "service" that claimants normally receive. It's scandalous but there's no great outcry over it. I don't understand why. Why do we put up with this?

A First

     A Tennessee woman is claiming that she's the first in her state to be approved for Social Security disability benefits based upon Covid-19. Perhaps someone at the state Disability Determination Service told her?

Social Security Subcommittee Hearing

 

     Social Security 2100 is the pet bill of the Chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee. The bill has no hope of passage in the Senate in this Congress.

How Social Security Administration Employee Vaccination Rates Compare

 

From Government Executive

Long Covid And Disability Claims

      From Bloomberg Law:

The Social Security Administration said it’s received 16,000 claims for disability insurance since December where the person’s medical evidence supports identifying Covid-19 as one of their impairments. That’s far from an exact number, and the agency wouldn’t say how many of those claims have been approved. 

That doesn’t mean Covid-19 was necessarily the primary reason for applying, or that it’s the impairment that will determine if disability benefits are approved, an agency spokesperson said in an email. …

In a statement to Bloomberg Law, the SSA said its rules allow it to evaluate Covid-19 cases. A person who has limitations resulting from long Covid, who’s met or is expected to meet the duration requirement, “could be found disabled if their limitations equal a medical listing or if the combination of those limitations and vocational factors prevent them from performing substantial gainful activity,” the agency said. …

Barbara Comerford’s law firm in New Jersey has about 100 clients who can’t work due to long Covid but have been denied disability benefits. 

Most of them have extreme fatigue presenting like myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, a condition that doesn’t show up on routine tests even though it can leave its victims bedridden.

“It’s amazing how indifferent they are to these claims,” Comerford said of the insurance companies she’s fighting. 

Unum Group, one of the leading carriers of long-term disability, told Bloomberg Law that disability and leave claims connected to Covid-19 are primarily a short-term event. Most claimants recover before completing the normal qualification period of 90 or 180 days for long-term disability insurance, Natalie Godwin, a company spokesperson, said in an email. …

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was recently asked to present data to the SSA on the number of people expected to have myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome as a result of Covid-19.

The SSA is doing its “due diligence and gathering data from all sources that they possibly can to understand and be prepared,”Elizabeth Unger, chief of the Chronic Viral Diseases Branch at the CDC, said in an interview. …

     All I can say is that my firm has not been getting calls about long Covid.