We realize it may be a stretch for ordinary people to want to keep up with the comings and goings of the Social Security Administration, but sometimes circumstances permit where someone does want to follow the latest news regarding the agency due to a possible retirement or disability interest. This blog is an ongoing piecemeal of recent stories that have involved Social Security. Some are tidbits and some are important things that should be known in the world of retirement or disability and others are just interesting stories and nothing more.
Progress Being Made With New Processing System
By the end of 2019, Social Security expects that a majority of its Disability Determination Service offices will be utilizing the agency’s disability case processing system (DCPS), a system Social Security has been working on for years in an attempt to improve efficiency and to save money. According to a story from Federal News Radio, “one year into its five-year IT modernization roadmap, the Social Security Administration has found better success with its second attempt at overhauling its disability case processing system.”
The bottom line is Social Security needs this new processing system to work. The agency has already spent over $100 million on implementing it and plans to spend another $76 million over the next four years.
Gale Stallworth, Social Security’s acting inspector general, said that it appears progress is being made and the program is going in the right direction.
“This year we received feedback from 120 users, and found that they generally liked working with the new system, but they would like to see some additional functionality,” Stone was quoted in the story by Federal News Radio.
Payment Mistakes For People Who Receive Worker’s Compensation Benefits
A recent report from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) showed that many people who qualified for Social Security disability benefits, and who were eligible for worker’s compensation benefits, were improperly paid by Social Security. When someone is eligible for both benefits during the same period of time, Social Security disability benefits must be reduced, or offset, to ensure that their combined worker’s compensation and Social Security disability benefit does not exceed 80 percent of their average current earnings. Unfortunately, many times Social Security is not accurately determining the proper payment amount, which can cause hardship for beneficiaries in the future. Here is what the OIG found after taking a look at a random sample of 200 cases.
SSA did not always accurately determine WC/PDB offset during DI claims processing. Of the 200 cases in our review, SSA
- did not obtain sufficient information for 60 beneficiaries’ WC/PDB claims and/or payments before it processed their DI claims ;
- obtained sufficient WC/PDB information for 43 beneficiaries but did not accurately enter it into SSA’ s records ; and
- did not retain the documents that supported the WC/PDB information entered for 6 beneficiaries.
Additionally, SSA did not always provide required printed reminders to beneficiaries of their responsibility to report changes to their WC/PDB payments to SSA.
