The Social Safety Administration stated Wednesday it could evaluation its overpayment procedures and insurance policies, and should claw again any overpayments discovered.
Throughout the 2022 fiscal yr, the company recovered $4.7 billion of overpayments, in response to a report by the SSA’s Workplace of the Inspector Common.
Whereas cost accuracy charges are excessive, overpayments do occur given the variety of individuals the company serves, the variety of modifications of their circumstances and the complexity of the packages, the SSA stated.
“Regardless of our excessive accuracy charges, I’m placing collectively a staff to evaluation our overpayment insurance policies and procedures to additional enhance how we serve our clients,” stated Kilolo Kijakazi, performing commissioner of Social Safety.
“There may be misinformation within the media claiming that the Social Safety Administration is trying to gather $21 billion. This determine was derived from the full quantity of overpayments which have occurred over the historical past of the packages,” the SSA stated in a press release.
The announcement comes the week earlier than Social Safety’s cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, is predicted to be launched.
The 2024 COLA for Social Safety is predicted to rise about 3.2%, in response to estimates from the Senior Residents League, a pro-senior assume tank. That’s in contrast with an 8.7% enhance for 2023, which was the best COLA in additional than 40 years amid excessive inflation.
Social Safety is a vital profit for many Individuals. Half of the inhabitants age 65 or older reside in households that obtain a minimum of 50% of their household revenue from Social Safety advantages, in response to SSA knowledge, and about 25% of senior households depend on Social Safety advantages for a minimum of 90% of their revenue.
“The federal government’s obtained to repair this,” Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat who chairs a Senate panel that oversees Social Safety, lately informed KFF Well being Information with reference to overpayments. In the meantime, Rep. Mike Carey of Ohio, the No. 2 Republican on a Home panel that oversees Social Safety, has referred to as for a congressional listening to to evaluation the issue, in response to the KFF Well being Information report.
Social Safety pays $1.4 trillion in advantages to greater than 71 million individuals annually. Solely round 0.5% of Social Safety funds are overpayments, the SSA stated.
“For the Supplemental Safety Revenue (SSI) program, overpayments additionally characterize a small proportion of funds — about 8% — however are larger as a result of complexity in administering statutory revenue and useful resource limits and asset evaluations,” the company stated within the announcement.
If an individual doesn’t agree that they’ve been overpaid, or believes the quantity is inaccurate, they will enchantment. In the event that they consider they shouldn’t need to pay the cash again, they will request that the company waive assortment of the overpayment. There’s no time restrict for submitting a waiver.
The SSA stated it’s required by legislation to regulate advantages or get better money owed when overpayments happen. The legislation permits Social Safety to waive restoration in some instances.
