SSA Confirms New Office Hours

Last Wednesday, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has confirmed that it will be closing to the public 30 minutes earlier each day beginning on November 19.

According to a press release posted on the agency’s official web page, if a certain field office usually opens on weekdays at 9 o’clock in the morning and closes at 3:30 in the afternoon, it will be closing at 3 o’clock in the afternoon starting November 19.

Moreover, on January 2 next year, offices will be closed to the public at noon every Wednesday.

It could be remembered that it was last month when rumors regarding the agency’s plan to cut 30 minutes from the usual office hours surfaced. However, nothing about the agency’s plan to close at noon on every Wednesday broke out.

Accordingly, although office hours will be reduced, employees will still continue to work their regular hours. The shortened office hours was said to allow employees to complete face-to-face interviews and process claims work without going for overtime work.

Incidentally, the agency’s employees usually extend their regular office hours to handle service to the public. However, this year’s significantly reduced funding from the Congress makes it far possible for the agency to incur some more costs on overtime pays.

Furthermore, talking about backlogs, beginning November 23, all Social Security field offices will be close to public so that employees will have the whole day to focus on reducing backlogs. Actually, the same effort was also done by the agency last year.

On the other hand, several labor groups, applicants, and recipients are quite disappointed with the agency’s idea of reducing office hours. According to them, it could probably mean lesser chances for them to apply and qualify for benefits.

Meanwhile, some Los Angeles social security claim lawyers herein reminded that the agency’s recently launched online service would play a major role in replacing the field offices’ lost office hours since it is always available for applicants and members at any given time. Also, the same is perfectly customized for everyone, including those that are mute and hearing impaired. In addition, it likewise provides a Spanish version.

Frauds Target Seniors’ Social Security Disability Benefits

According to recent reports, senior citizens’ social security disability benefits are the latest targets of scams after the Social Security Administration (SSA) redirected the recipients’ payments to their electronic accounts to abide by the agency’s new regulation to stop sending paper checks, according to the agency’s Inspector General, Patrick O’Caroll.

During a Congressional hearing last week, O’Caroll explained how frauds make their way in stealing the recipients’ disability payments. He said that frauds usually get the victim’s personal information and bank account details by luring seniors to lottery scams that ask victims to spill out such personal details in order to claim big prizes.

Subsequently, upon getting the victim’s bank account number and other personal information, frauds, pretending as the account owner, will then contact the SSA and request their payments to be rerouted into another bank account number.

Incidentally, as of August 31, the agency’s inspector general office received more than 19,000 reports of questionable changes or attempted changes to a beneficiary‘s direct deposit information and each day, it still continues to receive 50 similar reports.

However, in a statement released by the SSA’s spokesman, Mark Hinkle, the said figure only accounts for only a tiny proportion of the 711 million payments that the agency made electronically over the same period. In fact, many of the said reports are a result of typing errors and not scams, Hinkle added.

Fortunately, Hinkle’s statement was backed by Identity Theft 911, a company helping identity theft victims. According to the company’s investigators, they started hearing about the reports of this kind of scam only recently. So far, there are only six instances of frauds rerouting social security disability benefits onto prepaid cards, according to Identity Theft 911.

Nevertheless, the SSA should be more vigilant when verifying a recipient’s identity when making changes to his or her electronic account, suggested by a Los Angeles social security claim lawyers.

People with Serious Mental Illnesses Have Increased Risk of Cancer Resulting to Disability

In a recent report released by the Medline Plus, it stated that a new study suggested that people with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have increased risk of cancer, which could eventually lead to permanent disability.

The research found out that the risk of cancer for those people with severe mental disorder is 2.6 times higher than those mentally healthy people. However, the study also noted that the condition could be a result of any of the following:

•    Not receiving preventive care;
•    Not reducing or totally cutting out cancer risk practices like smoking; and
•    Not undergoing regular cancer screenings.

According to the said research, people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder were 3 times more possible to have breast cancer, 3.5 times more possible to have colon cancer, and more than 4.5 times possible to have lung cancer in the future.

The researchers likewise speculated that the increased risk of breast cancer to women with severe mental illnesses could be linked to the fact of not having children since childbearing is believed to be a factor that reduces the risk of breast cancer. Meanwhile, those with an increased risk of lung cancer are believed to be attributed to unhealthy lifestyle like smoking, lack of exercise, and poor diet.

Such poor habits can often set hurdles to challenging financial situations requiring social security disability benefits. Although there are lots of Los Angeles social security claim lawyers who are ready for the challenge of filing for a disability claim, the same could be complicated and time consuming. Therefore, it would still be best if people would try to avoid such improper practices and unhealthy lifestyle to avoid possible future disabling conditions.

Social Security No Longer Seeks Information from the Internet in Deciding for Disability Benefits

Last month, the Social Security Administration announced that its disability benefit claim judges will no longer be looking out for information from any website when deciding disability cases.

Some of those judges claimed that taking such significant tool would help in exposing fraud. Meanwhile, several of the agency’s officials said that reviewers cannot rely on information posted online and that the simple act of typing in queries could put the protected private information at risk. Therefore, judges shouldn’t even try accessing SSA claim applicants’ personal information online.

The agency’s ban covers all websites, including social media particularly Facebook and Twitter.

On the other hand, Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican and a major taxpayer watchdog, said that avoiding online provided information could possibly meant giving up a very important weapon in detecting fraudulent claims. Sen. Coburn added that even federal courts are relying on the Internet in handling some disability cases.

In his letter to the Social Security Administration’s commissioner, Michael J. Astrue, Sen. Coburn explained that when a person claiming to be disabled publicly posts his or her own picture participating in any sport or strenuous activity, such information can be used by adjudicators to know whether the claimant is indeed disabled, or just feigning it.

The debate mounted modern-age questions regarding the personal information that people make publicly available on the Internet, and how careful government agencies should be in gathering information when it comes to granting disability benefits.

Social security officials said that they don’t oppose using the Internet in gathering important information, but simply want judges to go out and conduct an actual inspection. The agency further affirmed that determining frauds is a job for fraud investigators that would be given proper attention later in the process.

Several Los Angeles social security claim lawyers agreed with the agency’s spokesperson, Kia S. Green, in her message suggesting that adjudicators should stick with their time-tested ways of investigating disability benefit claims.

Years ago, adjudicators were used to decide on cases effectively even before the advent of social media sites and other websites that are providing personal profile. Therefore, the agency officials believed that adjudicators can still perform their jobs quite efficiently even without relying on the internet while investigators can effectively perform fraud tracking.