The stress on Social Security employees isn't going away. They will remain overburdened indefinitely. My firm asks them to straighten out their mistakes but they don't have time to do it. It's getting to the point that I think the work isn't going to get done now. It's not going to get done later. It's never going to get done, at least not in the foreseeable future.
What kinds of mistakes or omissions am I seeing? Let me list a few:
- Claimant's monthly benefits are authorized but nothing is done about paying the back benefits or attorney fees.
- Claimant receives a small payment that is apparently their back benefits but it seems far too low. No award certificate is issued so the claimant and attorney can't figure out whether there has been a mistake.
- There's
what I call a phantom windfall offset. Claimant filed an SSI claim
which was quickly denied on income or resources. When the Title II claim
is approved, no back benefits are paid because they're waiting on
payment of the SSI benefits so they can do the windfall offset.
Meanwhile, no back benefits or attorney fees are paid.
- A field office employee makes one telephone call to a claimant about implementing SSI benefits. They can't leave a message so they immediately deny the claim for failure to cooperate. (They're supposed to make repeated efforts to contact the claimant and those who may be able to help, such as the claimant's attorney but that takes time, so they just get the claim off their desk by denying it.)
- A fee petition is approved. That's a little unusual so it doesn't get paid.
This is a depressing, discouraging situation for an attorney like me who wants to help his clients and who wants to receive the fees he's entitled to for helping them.
Social
Security is undergoing enormous stress. I think it's fair to say it's
falling apart. Asking employees to work harder isn't going to solve the
problem. The systems updates and IT changes the agency is making hardly
help at all. Making employees come into the office every day would make
little or no difference. The only solution is a lot more employees, like
10,000 more, but that might cost another billion dollars or so a year
so it's out of the question now.
I don't think the message is getting through to the public or members of Congress about just how bad things are.
If you're in NC and want help with your Social Security disability claim, call Hall & Rouse, P.C. at 1-844-425-5347
2 comments:
Add in all the different ways each state DDS handles claims to the list. Ohio likes to boast how their DDS leaders beat expectations, but it’s because DCAs are pushed to rush through claims. And those that can do that become supervisors, and less than standard quality is explained away by highlighting the quantity of closed cases. No joke, it’s all in state public records.
Claim adjudication in Ohio is heavily made up of copy/pasted material: for evaluation of medical opinions, symptom evaluations, denial reasons, etc. Personal determination notices? Hardly! Just change a couple of words and voila! Done, next case! And as for failure to cooperate, that’s interpreted in Ohio a little differently than what is shown for DCPS. The reason? DCPS is a national program and Ohio decided to make their own adjustments. Which is confusing to new DCAs who are trained for DCPS, and then move to a unit with a supervisor who’s never
worked in DCPS.
The take away is simply: re-apply and hopefully someone will actually
follow up on those doctor letters instead of canceling them as non critical. Really think people should be able to request copies of the FOFAE for their case along with the Question and Answer dialogue between the supervisor and DCA. Then you could see all the problems encountered on the case! That is before they delete it, although it may be possible to request it to be recovered in DCPS??
Although you are correct about what you call phantom windfall offset, there is a system to control and resolve those cases. A diary is set and the SSI staff makes an appropriate system input which sends a notice to the payment center and the windfall hold is removed. So yes, the hold is established, but it can be removed. But it does take extra time and waiting for another backlog to be addressed.
Occasionally, the systems input does not work (if the SSI systems record is terminated) and it does take a different method of notifying Payment Center and does take even longer.
Yes, it adds time. But it is all solvable, if the employees have and spend the time to do the work. And that is the problem.
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