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Hey, a thread about my area of work! So I work with people who have mental illnesses in an outpatient setting as a social worker and nearly all of them have disability, or are in the process of trying to get it. I think this is a greatly neglected area of law, and one that most people from middle income brackets don't know a lot about. Some of the issues that I have seen: SSA is slow as all hell, it's kind of expected, but if I try to call the local office during some times of the months their automated phone system will just tell me to call later and hang up on me. Causing me to call the national office which increases the wait times. The wait to get on Disability is brutal for the poor people and I see a lot of suffering caused by it. Regarding speaking to SSA over the phone: there should be some type of system where I can enter in a verification ID number that states that I am a government worker speaking on behalf of my clients. Because as it is now, the worker at the Social Security Office has to verify the name, SS# date of birth, address and some other identifying information to confirm that I'm with the person and that I have their permission to talk to them. Which for some people isn't an issue. The problem becomes when you are representing people who are mentally ill/mentally retarded they have a hard time just giving this basic info, or speaking coherently at all for that matter. I've had SSA employees get indignant with me at first only to be totally perplexed that the client can barely speak. Any type of system that would keep track of a database of employees that already had permission to speak with them would save everyone involved a lot of time and effort. The post earlier about representative payee abuse was spot on. I see it so often, and there's not a lot that can be done about it, because it can be hard to prove. I had a client who's payee was locked in jail for cocaine possession, getting it changed over was impossible over the phone. Which required a half day visit to the local office to address. Another issue that I've seen is that when a person is committed for a longer term stay in the hospital (doesn't happen that much anymore, was more common years ago) if the payee doesn't tell the office that the disabled person has been institutionalized the. They will apply an overpayment. Also appealing an overpayment decision has been like pissing into the wind so far. Even when it was easily provable that the person in question had no control over it, or wasn't responsible for it to begin with. The SSA has never taken it off their account that I've seen. A recent change made that has irked the poo poo out of me: they moved away from paper checks to Direct Deposit or Direct Express cards. I can understand why, it makes a lot of things easier. But, the problem comes when you have people with little to no financial education using ATMs that charge huge fees for taking their money out the way that many spend, a little at a time. You have people spending a portion of their tiny incomes on service fees to banks and financial service companies, it's sick. Anyone who claims that it's easy to stay on disability has never spent much time around those who get it. People are reevaluated all the time, especially if you're young. Then there's the fact that there's simply no way to live independently on that income solely. Even where I work in Mississippi where the cost of living is very low compared to other places. Most everyone lives with at least 3-4 family members or roommates. The lucky ones have a supportive family that doesn't just take their entire check at the beginning of every month, but there's plenty in that situation. Also the group homes and personal care homes for people with mental disabilities are quite limited, and the ones that are worth a drat are often full. Regarding the debate being had regarding incentives to work/treating disability as unemployment. It's so hosed, the people who try to work their way off of disability are not encouraged by SSA nearly enough. And with wages at low skill jobs being so low in rural high poverty areas with lots of people on disability it's easy to see why. Yes, there are free riders in the system but look at it from their perspective, They could get at most 35 hours a week at most big chains who do part time employment only. That works out to like $800 a month after taxes with no health insurance. Whereas, staying on disability you get nearly that much, the lowest cost health insurance in the country, and access to other benefits like food stamps or HUD if they're really patient. So which is the better deal? Until you can make working low skilled service sector jobs more profitable by raising the minimum wage, universal health insurance, and providing child care expenses you'll continue to see free riders because it makes economic sense to do it. (I say all that not to denigrate all people on disability, simply to address the overhyped free rider problem from their perspective) There's lots more I could talk about but I'm getting tired. I hope this actually generates some interest.
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Sep 6, 2014 07:05
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 08:14 |
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