Individual Representative Payees Who Do Not Have a Social Security Number in the Social Security Administration’s Payment Records
Thursday, March 23rd, 2017 @ 3:12PM
OIG – Office of the Inspector General, Social Security Administration
Audit Report February, 2017
Individual Representative Payees Who Do Not Have a Social Security Number in the Social Security Administration’s Payment Records
CFEG reports that the Office of the Inspector General, Social Security Administration, prepared an audit report in February, 2017 in which it identified 224,264 beneficiaries in current pay status who had an individual representative payee who did not have his/her SSN recorded in SSA’s payment records. You may review the entire report by clicking the link below.
SSA is required to obtain the SSNs of representative payee applicants. SSA uses the representative payee’s SSN to (1) verify the payee’s identifying information; (2) determine whether the payee applicant is receiving Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income; (3) determine whether the applicant is a convicted felon; and (4) determine whether the applicant previously served as a representative payee and has a history of poor payee performance or misuse.
CFEG reports that the Inspector General found that SSA needs to improve controls to ensure it (a) records individual representative payees’ SSNs in its payment records and (b) retains the application for representative payees who do not have an SSN.
CFEG reports that 26,912 beneficiaries had representative payees whom SSA had terminated or not selected and from October 2004 to September 2016, SSA paid these representative payees about $853.1 million. The Inspector General further found that unless SSA takes corrective action, it is estimated that SSA will pay these representative payees about $189.6 million in benefits annually.
The Inspector General also estimated that 22,426 beneficiaries had an individual representative payee who did not have an SSN, and SSA had not followed its policy to retain the paper application. These representative payees were not in the payment records system. From April 2006 to September 2016, SSA paid these representative payees about $1 billion. Unless it takes corrective action, the Inspector General estimated that SSA will pay these representative payees about $182.5 million in benefits annually.
Posted by cfegov
Categories: Fraud, Waste and Abuse
