Improving the Social Security Representative Payee Program Serving Beneficiaries and Minimizing Misuse (2007) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-14
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More than half of the beneficiaries with a representative payee are minor children; the rest are adults, often elderly, whose mental or physical incapacity prevents them from acting on their own behalf, and people who have been deemed incapable under state guardianship laws. The funds are managed through the Representative Payee Program of the Social Security Administration (SSA)
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As mandated by Congress, the committee restricted the national survey to individual payees serving fewer than 15 beneficiaries and non-feefor-service organizational payees serving fewer than 50 beneficiaries. The sample included payees and beneficiaries from the 48 contiguous states for representative payees managing at least $50.
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CONCLuSION As a practical matter, the Social Security Administra tion does not require representative payees to carefully account for dollars spent in each category on the annual accounting form as long as the total amount spent is approximately the same or greater than the total amount of benefits received. CONCLuSION The Social Security Administration does not apply special monitoring to payees of beneficiaries who receive lump-sum payments.
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CONCLuSION The Social Security Administration does not discover misuse by using the annual accounting form. CONCLuSION The characteristics identified in the committee's in depth study of misuse are effective in targeting representative payees for auditing for the purpose of detecting misuse.
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RECOMMENDATION 5.3 The Social Security Administration should establish a team of experts, such as the audit teams used in the commit tee's study, to audit those payees who are suspected of misuse or who have been included in a targeted sample of potential misusers. RECOMMENDATION 5. The Social Security Administration should redesign the annual accounting form to obtain meaningful accounting data and payee characteristics that would facilitate evaluation of risk factors and payee performance.
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If such a program is authorized, the Social Security Administration should work with and obtain help from the courts and volunteer organizations in designing it. RECOMMENDATION 6.2 Congress should authorize the Social Se curity Administration to expand the fee-for-service part of the program to include appropriate small organizations and individuals who are willing to serve as payees for at-risk beneficiaries: people with mental illness, alcohol or substance abuse problems, severe disabilities, and those who are homeless.
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CONCLuSION The Social Security Administration appoints some payees with characteristics that raise questions about their suitability as payees. RECOMMENDATION 6.3 The Social Security Administration should screen potential payees (including organizational payees)
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CONCLuSION There is a lack of communication between the Social Security Administration and state courts with regard to beneficiaries who might have both a guardian and a representative payee. This lack of communication has led to misunderstandings as to the authority, or lack thereof, for paying fees for representative payee services.
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] that requires the commis sioner of the Social Security Administration to establish and implement statistically valid procedures for reviewing the annual accounting forms creates a concomitant obligation to provide information for under standing and monitoring the performance of representative payees.
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RECOMMENDATION 6.11 The Social Security Administration should reengineer the annual accounting form to ensure the usefulness of the data and their transferability into the Representative Payee System and other Social Security Administration information systems. RECOMMENDATION 6.12 The Social Security Administration should store data from the annual accounting forms in an electronic database suitable for analysis.
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In addition, data quality concerns and incompleteness compromise the potential for the Representative Payee System to be used for research and analysis with aggregate data, such as summarizing characteristics of the payee population, investigating factors associated with misuse, and drawing samples for monitoring payees. RECOMMENDATION 6.1 The Social Security Administration should establish mandatory protocols for payee replacement when misuse is suspected.
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RECOMMENDATION 6.16 The Social Security Administration should implement a process that regularly updates information in the Representative Payee System, both by field office staff and through the annual accounting form. The Social Security Administration should also implement a quality control program that periodically checks the integrity of the information in the Representative Payee System.
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For example, benefit funds are used to pay fees for representative payee services without regard for federal legislative limitations because of the way in which the SSA defers to state court oversight of guardianship and conservatorship financial reporting. State court guardianship and conservatorship programs operate totally independently from the SSA Representative Payee Program even though the program requires any beneficiary who has a guardian or conservator to also have a payee appointed by SSA.
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IMPROVING THE SOCIAL SECURITY REPRESENTATIVE PAYEE PROGRAM The committee was impressed by the dedication of the SSA headquarters staff who administer the program, the claims representatives in the field offices, and the great majority of representative payees. The committee is confident that adoption of the 28 recommendations in this report will correct the deficiencies found in our review.
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