Improving the Social Security Representative Payee Program Serving Beneficiaries and Minimizing Misuse (2007) / Chapter Skim
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5 New Approaches to Detect Misuse
5 New Approaches to Detect Misuse
Pages 66-80
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From page 66... ...
policies that would not be classified as misuse by the current definitions but raise questions about whether they mask misuse. The third section examines the annual accounting form and its possible role in better protecting beneficiaries.
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From page 67... ...
The goal in this phase of the project was to determine if the committee could find a method to enable SSA to efficiently select individual representative payees for audit to detect misuse of beneficiary funds. Determining Possible Indicators of Misuse The committee began by looking at the available administrative data, analyzing our in-depth study of misusers (see Appendix D)
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From page 68... ...
The process began with a certified letter signed by an SSA official notifying the representative payee of the location and time of the reinterview. Because the letters were certified, the payees had to sign for them.
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In reviewing the data on those 76 cases, we looked separately at two particular groups of representative payees: 36 people appointed by courts in some guardianship position and 17 people who ran group homes. Table 5-1 shows the results of the reinterview study by type of payee.
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From page 70... ...
For the second group, 17 people who ran group homes, SSA is often unaware that payees run such homes. The differences among states concerning regulation of these group homes accounted for much of the misuse found among these payees: For example, Oregon and Florida appear to have fairly rigorous standards for group homes (see Chapter 6)
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The committee's analysis of the 76 payees who were reinterviewed cannot be used as a basis for determining what percentage of representative payees as a whole are misusers, because we did not include representative payees with low scores on the 15 variables in the reinterview sample. If the IG selected a sample for audit that included cases from all sampled domain groups identified in Chapter 2, an overall estimate of misuse could be made.
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failure to maintain clear and separate accounts, and (4) failure to make financial records available when requested by SSA.
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should use probability sampling with targeted sample selection, using criteria associated with misuse of funds such as those suggested in this report, to audit representative payees who are more likely to be misusers. RECOMMENDATION 5.2 The Social Security Administration should develop criteria associated with misuse of funds, such as those sug gested in this report, to select and monitor representative payees.
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From page 74... ...
Pooling of SSA benefits by a representative payee, either with his or her own funds or with the funds of others, made it extremely difficult to determine whether the SSA benefits were used solely for the specified beneficiary. Failure to Notify SSA of Changes in a Beneficiary's Situation SSA rules about the role of representative payees state that a payee must notify SSA when there are changes in the beneficiary's status that might affect benefit levels.
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These same representative payees suggested that since most of the monthly income was going to pay for some kind of institutional care (nursing home or assisted living) and the costs of this care were greater than the benefit amount, a separate account was not needed.
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The committee concurs with the information it received from SSA staff and representative payees that the current annual accounting form is a useless, expensive administrative tool that does not yield the sort of data that is necessary to uncover misuse. Beyond meeting a 20-year-old court mandate to monitor all representative payees, in its present format the accounting form provides a very limited return for the time and money invested in handling the paperwork.
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BANK-ACCOuNT-LINKED DEBIT CARDS In 2002 the Social Security Advisory Board asked SSA's IG to develop an issue paper on the use of stored value cards (SVC) by representative payees.
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Bank-account-linked debit cards can clearly provide protections and ease for representative payees for Social Security beneficiaries. In addition, legislation adopted in 1996 provides that low-income recipients of federal payments should be able to easily open and maintain bank accounts through direct deposits, and limits charges that the bank could impose.2 Although there are numerous types of stored value cards available in the market place (e.g., gift cards)
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RECOMMENDATION 5.5 The Social Security Administration should conduct a test of bank-account-linked debit cards for representative payees.
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If the identification of misuse is made easier -- with a revised annual accounting form that helps identify misuse, or by bank-account-linked debit cards, program quality and cost-effectiveness would be enhanced. RECOMMENDATION 5.6 The Social Security Administration should initiate a research, development, and support function for the Repre sentative Payee Program to promote quality and cost-effectiveness in its operations.
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