Social Security was improperly killing off people

In September 2006, the inspector general’s office tried to get a fix on how many people Social Security was improperly killing off by reviewing updates to the agency’s Death Master File. In all, Social Security officials had to “resurrect” 23,366 people from January 2004 to September 2005. In other words, over a period of 21 months, Social Security was presented with irrefutable evidence that it had been “killing” more than 1,100 people a month, or more than 35 a day. Two months later, in November 2006, the  inspector general looked specifically at 251 cases of people to whom the agency continued to issue checks even though Medicare records said they were dead. “Of the 251 individuals in our population, 86 are deceased and their SSI payments should be terminated,” the audit said. “The remaining 165 beneficiaries were actually alive and their Medicare benefits—and, in some cases, their SSI payments—were incorrectly terminated.” That’s 65 percent, which the audit said “can cause undue hardship for the individual(s) and create public relations problems.” Furthermore, it said, erroneous death terminations “also create additional workloads for Agency staff, who must take action to correct the benefit records and resume payments. According to SSA, these cases are ‘... very time sensitive and require immediate action.’” But one thing Social Security doesn’t do well is immediacy. The agency processed more than a half-million requests for hearings in fiscal year 2006 of all types, not just those involving wrongful death terminations — the inspector general reported in yet another audit last May. The average processing time for a Social Security hearing in general: 483 days. If a ruling goes to an appeal, tack on another 203 days.Apart from the horror stories that sometimes pop up in the media, the inspector general’s office offered some of its own. It said, for example, that in November 2005, an 81-year old woman contacted Social Security to report that her Medicare claims were being denied. After the woman made several more attempts to prove she was alive, the agency finally reinstated her benefits in July 2006, eight months after the error was discovered. A hard problem to fix Social Security concedes there’s a problem. “The accuracy of death information is critical to SSA and its beneficiaries, as well as other federal, state and local government agencies,” it said in a 2006 report. “Input of an erroneous death entry can lead to benefit termination and result in financial hardship for a beneficiary.” That isn’t as easy as showing up at the Social Security office and saying, “Hi.”  Social Security says an erroneous death record can be removed only when it is presented with proof that the original record was entered in error. The original error must be documented, and the deletion must be approved by a supervisor after “pertinent facts supporting reinstatement” are available in the system. In several audits, Social Security’s inspector general found that while documentation was required to delete a death record — “resurrecting” it, in Social Security’s language — people could be recorded as dead with much less paperwork. For one thing, the agency said it “found that deaths were not always verified before SSI payments were stopped.” For another, “we found it was not necessary to enter a date of death in CPMS to close a case based on death,” it said. “This created the potential for open cases to be improperly classified as processed due to death in CPMS.” Moreover, until recently, too many people had open access to death records, which are supposed to be protected by “top secret” restrictions. That door has since been closed, but the inspector general said the government can’t ensure the accuracy of records before mid-2009.