Senators Object To Ending Telework

     From Government Executive:

A group of 44 Democratic senators on Monday urged Social Security Administration Commissioner Andrew Saul to reverse his decision to cancel telework for nearly 12,000 employees. ...

In a letter Monday, 44 Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., urged Saul to “reconsider” the decision to end the telework program.

“We understand that SSA’s new contract with the American Federation of Government Employees has just come into effect, and that this contract conferred some degree of discretion to SSA management to set new rules for teleworking,” the lawmakers wrote. “We do not believe, however, that this justifies management’s unilateral decision to rescind telework entirely for the 12,000 affected employees . . . We are concerned that SSA is not providing sufficient time for workers to alter their arrangements to account for this policy change.”

The senators wrote that while improving customer service for Social Security beneficiaries is a laudable goal, killing telework is not the way to go about it. ...

Merry Christmas

Artificial Intelligence Sought

     From a "Sources Sought" notice posted by the Social Security Administration:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is conducting market research/sources sought to help determine the availability and technical capability of qualified businesses providing an artificial intelligence interface that can provide customer service in a conversational manner. This is not a request for quotations or proposals, and we do not guarantee the issuance of a solicitation as a result of this notice.  We will use the information we obtained from this research for planning purposes only. ...

SSA needs to incorporate technology to supplement our first level customer support interactions with automated and intelligent self-serve options our customers expect. We want to go beyond a static FAQs knowledge base, and interact with customers in a conversational manner using Artificial Intelligence (AI).

This technology should be capable of undergoing both supervised and unsupervised learning for continuously improving its support capability.

The technology should be able to remember actions and contextual details during conversations, and leverage the captured information for suitable responses to other users, as appropriate.

A suitable, user-friendly interface for business experts who will be involved in supervised learning is essential. The interface should allow the experts to define and refine business rules, responses and response patterns, for example.

The technology should include tools that allow testing of user inputs and intent as well as conversation flow.

The new technology cannot require extensive training for proficiency. It must provide flexibility in offering technicians with a broad range of skillsets the opportunity to successfully share and complete tasks for the public.

This technology should support seamless transition of conversation history of authenticated users across channels and sessions.

The technology should recognize when it has reached its limitations with customer support, and offer transferring the customer to a live agent.

The technology should provide appropriate administrative functions to manage users and access for testing, refinements and deployment. In addition, it should include a comprehensive analytics capability.

The technology must continue to give our customers the service they have come to expect to complete business with SSA accurately and quickly, at any time, in any location, and on any platform. ...

 

Merry Christmas?

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Bill Seeks Annual Social Security Statements

     From a press release issued yesterday:

Today, House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman John Larson (D-CT), Ways and Means Committee Member Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Finance Committee Member Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) introduced the Know Your Social Security Act.

The legislation will clarify the requirement for the Social Security Administration (SSA) to mail an annual Social Security Statement to all workers ages 25 and older with covered earnings, who are not receiving Social Security benefits. Since Fiscal Year 2011 SSA has failed to mail annual Statements to these Americans, citing limited operating budgets, even though in 1989 and 1990 Congress enacted requirements for SSA to provide a Statement annually. ...

The bill has been endorsed by:
AARP
Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC)
Coalition for Paper Options
Justice in Aging
National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
Paralyzed Veterans of America
Social Security Works
The Arc of the United States
The Senior Citizens League

Can They Do This?

     On November 4 my firm received a Title XVI fee by direct deposit. On November 22, Social Security reached back into our bank account and took the money back without any prior notice. We've received no written notice from Social Security about this event.

     Fee overpayments happen from time to time. Typically, we get a notice to return the money. We do. In fact, we’ve generally returned the money even before receiving a notice. I've never seen Social Security just grab the money. Has anyone else seen this? Can they do this?