SSA Can’t Collect Overpayments Without Wasting Money

The Social Security Administration (SSA) spends more money than it collects when trying to recover payments to individuals who received benefits for which they were not eligible.

According to the Office of Inspector General (OIG), the SSA issued $128.3 million in “low-dollar” overpayments between 2008 and 2013, and then spent $323 million to collect them. The agency ultimately recovered only $109.4 million.

“This resulted in SSA spending over $213.6 million more than it collected,” the OIG said, in an audit released Wednesday.

The OIG defines an overpayment as “benefit payments greater than the amount to which individuals are entitled.”

The overpayments were distributed through the SSA’s Retirement and Survivors Insurance (RSI), Disability Insurance (DI), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs. The SSA issued approximately $16.8 billion in disability insurance overpayments alone in the past decade.

“Generally, SSA attempted to collect overpayments regardless of the amount,” the OIG said. “In some cases, the value of the overpayment was less than what SSA spent to collect the overpayment. Therefore, for some overpayments, collection was not always cost-beneficial.”

A “low-dollar” overpayment is less than or equal to the agency’s average cost to retrieve an overpayment.

It cost the SSA an average $164.11 to collect each RSI overpayment, $268.32 for each disability insurance overpayment, and $56.63 for each SSI overpayment in 2013, according to the agency’s Cost Analysis System (CAS).

However, the OIG found errors within the accounting system. The CAS was not able to take into account SSI overpayments that took more than one step to recover. Some overpayments can take as many as five actions by the agency in order to get the money back, costing $283.15 for a single overpayment.

“Therefore, it is not possible to determine how much the average cost to collect an SSI overpayment in CAS is understated when multiple actions are required to collect an SSI overpayment,” the OIG said.

“The time and effort involved to identify an overpayment can vary greatly. Several factors affect how long it can take to identify the correct overpayment amount, such as the reason for the overpayment, how long the overpayment spanned, and whether there are auxiliary beneficiaries eligible on the record that may be affected,” they said.

The audit suggested the SSA could potentially have saved up to $3.2 billion if it was able to divert the millions it spent collecting low-dollar overpayments elsewhere, the OIG said.

The agency uses full medical Continuing Disability Reviews (CDRs) to determine if beneficiaries are in fact still disabled and eligible to receive benefits. By putting the $323 million into processing additional CDRs, the SSA could have reduced its backlog of 1.3 million beneficiaries awaiting reviews in 2013. Each review has a return on investment of $10 for the agency.

“However, the Budget Control Act of 2011 capped the amount of additional new budget authority SSA could use for CDRs and SSI redeterminations for FYs 2012 through 2021,” the OIG said. “Therefore, SSA had limited authority to use these resources for other workloads.”

Via: WFB

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SSA Paid the Dead $46.8 Million Audit:

 Feds paid disability beneficiary representatives long after they died

The Social Security Administration (SSA) paid individuals acting as representatives for disabled beneficiaries nearly $50 million even though they were dead.

An audit from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) is just the latest example of the SSA’s inability to figure out who on their rolls is still alive.

The audit focused on “representative payees,” or a person who manages another’s finances due to mental or physical limitations. The OIG found that many payees acting on behalf of disability beneficiaries had died.

“SSA did not ensure new representative payees were selected when current payees died,” the OIG said. “Based on our sample results, we estimated 2,548 deceased payees received approximately $46.8 million in [Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance] OASDI benefits and [Supplemental Security Income] SSI payments.”

The total amount estimated to be “managed by deceased payees” was $46,886,205.

The majority of payments were made to dead payees who controlled payments to OASDI recipients, which receive an average $1,182.24 per month.

The OIG based its results on a sample of 200 representative payees, finding that 109 were deceased. The average total benefit payment to deceased payees was $15,762. Many received payments more than 2 years after their death.

The SSA is more likely to continue payments to dead payees than to cut them off, according to the OIG estimates. A total of 2,548 deceased payees received payments, while only 2,014 payees were not issued benefit funds after their death.

Though the OIG said a majority of payments to the dead did not show signs of fraud, the report highlights continuing problems with the SSA’s record keeping methods.

Via: WFB

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Nearly $17 billion overpaid in Social Security disability payments

A record number of Americans are receiving Social Security disability benefits and it appears that a lot of the beneficiaries are either ineligible or received overpayments by SSA.
Washington Free Beacon:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) made nearly $17 billion in disability overpayments in the last decade, according to an audit by the Office of Inspector General (OIG).
Some beneficiaries were able to receive disability benefits for 10 years, even though they were ineligible. The OIG based its estimate of $16.8 billion overpayments on a sample of more than 1,500 Americans who received benefits since 2003, finding nearly half were overpaid.
“Our review of 1,532 beneficiaries in current pay status as of October 2003 found that over a 10-year period (from October 2003 through February 2014), SSA assessed overpayments for 44.5 percent of sampled beneficiaries,” the audit said.
“SSA assessed overpayments totaling about $16.8 billion between October 2003 and February 2014 for approximately 4 million beneficiaries who were in current payment status in October 2003,” it said.
The agency was able to recover approximately $8.1 billion, though it is still trying to retrieve $6.3 billion in benefits.
The average beneficiary in the OIG’s sample received improper payments for 14 months. Most earned too much or were able to work, making them ineligible for disability.
The findings included 216,070 payments to fugitives or prisoners, and 209,643 payments to dead people.
Responding to the audit on behalf of the agency, Frank Cristaudo, counselor to SSA Commissioner Carolyn Colvin, disputed that all payments were improper. He said federal law requires the agency to continue paying beneficiaries who may be medically ineligible until after they appeal, a process that can take years.
“We appreciate OIG’s follow-up work from the previous review,” Cristaudo said. “While the report does not contain any recommendations, we suggest some further clarification of the text of the report.”

Via: American Thinker

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ECONOMIST: GOVERNMENT PREPARING TO SEIZE 401(K) PENSIONS

Supreme Court ruling sets the stage for "economic totalitarianism"

Economist Martin Armstrong warns that a Supreme Court ruling last week has set the stage for the federal government to begin seizing private pension funds.

According to Armstrong, the outcome of Tibble v. Edison, which found that employers have a duty to protect their workers’ 401(k) plans from mutual funds that perform poorly, will grease the skids for the feds to seize private funds and prosecute companies who manage mutual funds badly.

“Between the court ruling and the Obama administration’s push for stronger fiduciary rules,” the developments send a, “strong message that government can much easier seize the pension fund management industry of course to “protect the consumer,” writes Armstrong, warning that the ruling, “sets the stage to JUSTIFY government seizure of private pension funds to protect pensioners,” when the economy gets “messy”.

“This fits perfectly just in time for the Obama administration’s next assault as they prepare a landmark change of its own by issuing rules requiring that financial advisers put the interest of customers ahead of their own,” writes Armstrong. “This creates a very gray area wide enough to justify public seizure of pension funds under management.”

Following the 2008 financial collapse, reports emerged that the federal government was planning to seize the private 401(k) pensions of millions of Americans while enforcing an additional 5 per cent payroll tax as part of a new bailout program that would empower the Social Security Administration to redistribute pension funds “fairly” amongst citizens.

Armstrong warns that the development is part of a wider move towards “economic totalitarianism,” which is also characterized by efforts to eliminate physical cash altogether in the name of giving central banks more power.

Numerous prominent individuals have called for hard currency to be banned in recent months, including former Bank of England economist Jim Leaviss, who wrote a piece for the Telegraph which argued that, “Forcing everyone to spend only by electronic means from an account held at a government-run bank would give the authorities far better tools to deal with recessions and economic booms.”

Earlier this month, German Council Of Economic expert Peter Bofinger also said that imposing a cashless society would make it easier for central banks to enforce their economic policy.

As we have covered at length, commercial banks are beginning to impose more draconian controls on the withdrawal and depositing of cash, with the practice being treated as a suspicious activity even for relatively modest sums.

Armstrong, who correctly predicted the 1987 Black Monday crash as well as the 1998 Russian financial collapse, also warned last year that a coming financial collapse will cause widespread riots to erupt in America by 2016.

Via: Inforwars.com

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Feds Paid Prisoners $1 million in Disability Payments

The Social Security Administration (SSA) gave more than $1 million in improper disability benefits to 440 prisoners, according to the inspector general.

The Inspector General for the SSA (IG) based its report on a sample of 100 beneficiaries, and found that one-fourth had improperly received disability while they were incarcerated.

“SSA issued improper DI benefit payments to beneficiaries for periods they were in correctional institutions,” the report said. “Of the 100 sample cases we reviewed, SSA appropriately took action to suspend DI benefit payments for 75 beneficiaries who had periods of conviction and incarceration, but overpaid DI benefits to the remaining 25 sample beneficiaries.”

“Based on this sample, we estimate SSA overpaid about $1 million to 440 beneficiaries,” the IG said.

Roughly 317 prisoners received $879,000 in disability insurance, and 123 more were paid $143,000 despite the SSA having suspended their benefits. A total of $1,022,000 erroneous payments were made.

One man was able to collect $22,056 in disability benefits while he was imprisoned in Staten Island, N.Y. from February 2009 to November 2010. Overall, the 440 prisoners received an average of $2,322 in payments.

Via: WFB

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Social Security Administration instructs employees to warn recipients about debt ceiling

Social Security Administration employees are being instructed to tell people who ask that if the debt ceiling is not raised, their social security benefits could be in danger.

In an email sent Friday, obtained by The Daily Caller, employees are instructed:

“If a member of the public asks whether their Social Security payment will be affected if the federal debt ceiling is not raised, you may give the following response:
‘Unlike a federal shutdown which has no impact on the payment of Social Security benefits, failure to raise the debt ceiling puts Social Security benefits at risk.’

“Direct all program–related and technical questions to your supervisor.”

According to the Treasury, the U.S. will reach its borrowing limit on October 17, and if the debt ceiling is not raised before then, the country will default on its debt.

“In a government shutdown, Social Security checks still go out on time,” President Barack Obama said Thursday, the Huffington Post reported. “In an economic shutdown, if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, they don’t go out on time.”

Via: Daily Caller

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