How Field Offices Waste Their Time

     From a "Dear Colleague" letter from Dawn Bystry, Deputy Associate Commissioner, Office of Strategic and Digital Communications, Social Security Administration:

Recently, we notified you that we are no longer accepting faxed applications. We appreciate the feedback we received on the notification and want to provide clarifying information. ...

As you know, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted our services and the public’s ability to apply for benefits in person. In response, we implemented various temporary flexibilities – temporary changes to our policies and business processes. These flexibilities included accepting faxed applications as validly signed applications if they contained a legible, handwritten signature.  ...

With the end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency as of May 11, 2023, we evaluated our temporary flexibilities and decided to discontinue accepting faxed applications. Since we have reopened our offices to walk-in traffic and expanded in-person services, we determined that continuing to accept signatures on faxed applications was no longer justified given the risk that bad actors could use faxed applications to commit fraud. However, you can still use a fax to help your clients. Although we will no longer accept faxed, signed applications as valid applications, a claimant can still submit a faxed application to establish a protective filing date. Upon receiving the faxed application, we will contact the claimant or a proper applicant, go over the information provided, and obtain a signature to validate the application. ...

    I've got a few questions:

• What degree of problem has there ever been with faxed claims?
• Why is a faxed claim more subject to fraud than a mailed claim or any other type of claim?
• How does a fraudulent filed disability claim actually get approved? They don't just look at the form and put someone on benefits. (I know there's presumptive disability but that really wouldn't get you very far with a fraudulent scheme.) Disability claims have to proceed through disability determination. That usually involves phone calls with the claimant. Medical evidence is gathered. There is at least one internal level of review after a determination that someone is disabled. Don't you think there would be problems getting a phony claim through all this without anyone noticing that something looks fishy? I'm no expert on fraud but I'm pretty sure that there are easier ways to commit fraud than submitting a fraudulent disability claim by fax.
  
• Does Ms. Bystry have any clue about the degree of stress that the field offices are under? Maybe she should work in one for a month or two.
  
• Why does Ms. Bystry think it important to waste field office time with such obsessive concerns?
• If she's so concerned about security, maybe she should just force claimants to show up in the office with three types of identification? (I hope I'm not giving her ideas.)
• Is there anyone over Ms. Bystry who can ask whether this emphasis on security is a bit too much?

Sanctioned Representatives

     The Social Security Administration has posted an updated list of "Registered and Unregistered Sanctioned Representatives."

    The list has never seemed that interesting to me but it always draws a good deal of attention whenever I post about an update which isn't often, even though they release an update almost every month.

Government Shutdown Looms

    The federal fiscal year (FY) ends on September 30. Social Security, as well as other agencies, will lack operating funds after that date unless Congress acts. At the moment, appropriations bills are being held up because of disagreements within the Republican Party over what to do. Republicans have a paper thin majority in the House of Representatives. A small group of ultra right wing Republicans is refusing to join the bulk of their colleagues to pass bills that would serve as vehicles for negotiations with Democrats in the Senate, even though anything they pass would be so slanted that Democrats in the House would never vote for those bills. Lacking a functioning majority, the Republicans who have the majority in the House, if not actual control, cannot move forward.

    When Congress is delayed in passing appropriations bills, in the end, they always vote for continuing resolutions (CRs) that allow agencies to continue spending money at basically the same rate as in the just concluded FY.

    House Republicans are working on a one month CR. The Washington Post reports that the CR they're working on would cut expenditures for FY 2024 by 1%. However, this pain would not be spread evenly. The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs would be excluded from the 1% cut. After these exclusions, the cut for other agencies, including the Social Security Administration, would be 8%. That would result in massive layoffs at Social Security. The agency would be largely incapable of functioning.

    It's not completely clear that the votes are there for this draft CR in the House. It would certainly not pass the Senate or be signed by the President. It's not even a starting point for negotiations.

    We're likely to see a government shutdown at the end of the month. This is actually the result desired by the small group of ultra right wing Republicans holding up things in the House. If your mindset is basically anarchist -- that government is so evil that we would be better off with no government -- then government shutdowns are a good thing.

    If there is a government shutdown at the beginning of next month, most of the Social Security Administration will continue to function. The field offices, teleservice centers, payment centers, OHO offices, and the Appeals Council will not be affected.

Another Golden Oldie — Many Vets With 100% VA Ratings Get Turned Down When They Apply For Social Security Disability

     A post on this blog on August 7, 2014:

Below is a chart labeled "Allowance rates for first DI applications filed by veterans after receiving VA disability ratings of 100% or IU during fiscal years 2000–2006, by VA rating and SSA primary diagnosis body system and selected diagnostic categories." This appears in Veterans Who Apply for Social Security Disabled-Worker Benefits After Receiving a Department of Veterans Affairs Rating of “Total Disability” for Service-Connected Impairments: Characteristics and Outcomes by L. Scott Muller, Nancy Early, and Justin Ronca published in the Social Security Bulletin, the agency's research journal. DI refers to Social Security Disability Insurance Benefits. IU refers to Individual Unemployability. Veterans may be approved for 100% VA disability benefits either with or without consideration of IU.

          Overall, Social Security is denying about 31% of disability claims filed by veterans with a 100% VA rating. Social Security approves only 43.5% of these 100% disabled veterans claims at the initial level and 13.8% at reconsideration but 70.8% at the Administrative Law Judge level. Social Security is turning down 25.3% of the claims filed by veterans determined 100% disabled by VA due to traumatic brain injury and 34.8% of those found 100% disabled by VA due to dementia associated with brain trauma.

Click on image to view full size

 

Variance By Race In Applying For Social Security Disability Benefits

     From How Does the Social Security Claiming Process Vary by Race?, a report by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:

Stats From The Only Part Of SSA Working Down Its Backlog

      Recently released report on Social Security's Office of Hearings Operations:

Click on image to view full size

 

Should State Agencies Serving As Rep Payees For Children Be Allowed To Seize The Children's Social Security Benefits To Pay For Their Care?

     From WUNC, an NPR station

To Teresa Casados, who runs the department in charge of child welfare in New Mexico, it seemed like an odd question. At a legislative hearing in July, a lawmaker asked her if the state was taking the Social Security checks of kids in foster care — the checks intended for orphans and disabled children.

"My reaction really was: That can't be right," said Casados, who in the spring took over as acting secretary of New Mexico's Children, Youth & Families Department. "That can't be a practice that we're doing." ...

Casados and her chief legal counsel drove back to the office. "When we got back, we looked into it and found out it was a practice that the agency had for using those benefits — and had been going on for quite some time." ...

[L]ast month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Social Security Administration sent a letter to state and local child welfare agencies to encourage these changes.

The NPR/Marshall Project investigation found that in at least 49 states and the District of Columbia, when young people go into foster care child, welfare agencies routinely look for which ones come with Social Security checks. Or, if the children are eligible, agencies sign them up for benefits. Then state agencies cash those checks — usually without telling the child or their family, the investigation found. ...

Just days after that legislative hearing in New Mexico, Casados says her department "sent out a directive to cease using those funds for care and support." It pledged to start putting aside the Social Security benefits checks for foster children to have when they go back to their families or age out of foster care. ...

Bipartisan SSI Bill

     From a press release:

Today U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) announced the first bipartisan, bicameral push in decades to reform the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which has not been updated in nearly 40 years and currently punishes older and disabled Americans for saving for emergencies and their futures. The senators’ bipartisan SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act would update SSI’s asset limits for the first time since the 1980s to ensure disabled and elderly Americans are able to prepare themselves for a financial emergency without putting the benefits they rely on to live at risk.  

In addition to Brown and Cassidy, U.S. Representatives Brian Higgins (D-NY-26) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA-1) will introduce companion legislation in the House. U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Susan Collins (R-ME), Bob Casey (D-PA), and James Lankford (R-OK) are original Senate cosponsors. ...

    Of course, the bill stands no chance in this Congress. The GOP controls the House and the GOP would filibuster in the Senate. Sorry, but there's nowhere near enough Republican support in Congress for this to advance. Maybe, maybe, I can squint at it and imagine the bill progressing after the 2024 election, but only if the Democrats have an overwhelming victory.