Social Security

The agency announced this week that Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients will receive automatic Economic Impact Payments directly from the Treasury Department.

SSI recipients with no qualifying children do not need to take any action in order to receive their $1,200 economic impact payment.

SSI recipients who have qualifying children under age 17, however, should now go to the IRS’s webpage at www.irs.gov/coronavirus/non-filers-enter-payment-info-here and visit the Non-Filers: Enter Your Payment Info section to enter their information. By doing so, they may receive the $500 per dependent child payment in addition to their $1,200 individual payment.

For more information on this additional guidance, read the latest press release.

We updated our Representative Payee Program offering an option to beneficiaries and applicants for Social Security benefits to provide Advance Designation. Advance Designation allows beneficiaries and claimants to designate preferred individual(s) to serve as payee should the need arise, and requires SSA to select the designated individual with certain exemptions.

Advance Designation allows all capable Title II, Title VIII, and Title XVI adult and emancipated minor applicants and beneficiaries to designate a representative payee in advance when applying for benefits or with their my Social Security account.

Advance Designation provides beneficiaries more control over their financial future, reduces instances of elder abuse, and will help SSA find qualified representative payee candidates more quickly. Learn more about this update here.

As you know, as of March 17, 2020 we closed all local Social Security offices to the public for in-person service due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  We understand that due to current circumstances, beneficiaries may have difficulties submitting their Medicare enrollment forms by mail.

To assist beneficiaries who have stopped working and are seeking immediate enrollment into Medicare Part B, we have developed a method for beneficiaries to fax their enrollment forms.

Now Medicare beneficiaries can fax Medicare Part B form, CMS-40B and CMS L564- Request for Employment Information, along with proof of employment, Group Health Plan (GHP), or Large Group Health Plan (LGHP) to 1-833-914-2016, if unable to mail the forms directly to your local Social Security office. To find your local office mailing address, please use our Social Security Office Locator.

Please visit our Social Security & Coronavirus information page to get updates on the latest, including how to get help from the Social Security Administration by phone and online.

We updated our Representative Payee Program offering an option to beneficiaries and applicants for Social Security benefits to provide Advance Designation. Advance Designation allows beneficiaries and claimants to designate preferred individual(s) to serve as payee should the need arise, and requires SSA to select the designated individual with certain exemptions.

Advance Designation allows all capable Title II, Title VIII, and Title XVI adult and emancipated minor applicants and beneficiaries to designate a representative payee in advance when applying for benefits or with their my Social Security account.

Advance Designation provides beneficiaries more control over their financial future, reduces instances of elder abuse, and will help SSA find qualified representative payee candidates more quickly. Learn more about this update here.

SSA’s Office of the Inspector General has received reports of Social Security beneficiaries receiving letters through the U.S. Mail stating their payments will be suspended or discontinued unless they call a phone number referenced in the letter.

Unfortunately, this is the latest twist on the ongoing scams affecting the American public. The scammers are misleading beneficiaries into providing personal information or payment via retail gift cards, wire transfers, internet currency, or by mailing cash, to maintain regular benefit payments during this period of COVID-19 office closures.

For more information, we encourage you to read this blog from our Inspector General. And as always, please report Social Security scams using our dedicated online form. Please share this information with your friends and family, to help spread awareness about Social Security scams.

All local Social Security offices are closed to the public for in-person service as of Tuesday, March 17, 2020. This decision protects the populations we serve—older Americans and people with underlying medical conditions—and our employees during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. However, we are still able to provide critical services.

Please visit our Social Security & Coronavirus webpage to get updates on the latest, including how to get help from the Social Security Administration by phone and online.

We are making it easier for those serving as a representative payee to conduct business with us! We have launched our new centralized Representative Payee Portal where individual representative payees with a my Social Security account can:

Select “my Social Security” to use the Representative Payee Portal for your own business:

• Estimate your future benefits
• Print your online Social Security statement
• Request a replacement Social Security card (in qualifying states)
• Get a proof of income letter
• Change your address, if you receive benefits

Select “Representative Payee Services” to conduct business for your beneficiaries:

• View current benefit details
• Update or enroll in direct deposit
• Complete annual accounting
• Report wages

If you serve as a Representative Payee, we encourage you to check out the new Representative Payee Portal.

Learn about becoming a representative payee and all the requirements by:

• Visiting our representative payee website;
• Watching our training videos on the duties of a representative payee;
• Reading our representative payee library.

Your clients deserve a timely and accurate decision regarding their disability claim. To help us do that, we must modernize the rules and standards we use to evaluate how we determine disability benefits.

We updated a rule that has been in the works for a number of years and updates an outdated policy that made the inability to communicate in English a factor in awarding disability benefits. Learn more on our blog about why we are making this much-needed change.

In the last year, Social Security phone scams have skyrocketed, becoming the #1 type of fraud reported to the Federal Trade Commission and Social Security.

To help reduce these types of fraud, Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul and SSA Inspector General Gail Ennis have announced the launch of a new online form to report Social Security phone scams.

Please help us raise awareness about the scam and reporting suspicious phone calls to the online form. You can find more information on this important topic by visiting our Social Security Matters Blog.