Report Summary

Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General

August 2010

Supplemental Security Income Overpayment Notices Not Sent
(A-01-09-19037)

 

Objective

To assess the Social Security Administration's (SSA) efforts to recover overpayments from Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients.

Background

In Fiscal Year 2009, SSA paid nearly 7.7 million SSI recipients over $48 billion in Federal benefits and State supplementary payments and identified approximately $4 billion in SSI overpayments. 

In our September 2003 audit, Assessment of the Supplemental Security Income Fugitive Felon Project, we identified 23 individuals with overpayments totaling approximately $85,800 for which SSA had not initiated recovery efforts. 

To determine the extent of this issue nationwide, we initiated this review.  

To view the full report, visit http://www.ssa.gov/oig/ADOBEPDF/A-01-09-19037.pdf

Our Findings

Of the 200 SSI recipients in our population, 91 were not sent overpayment notices.  Without these notices, SSA was unable to initiate recovery of $218,536.  The age range of these overpayments is shown in the table below.

Age of Overpayments

Age

Number of Cases

Overpayment Amount

Percent

More than 5 years

3

$21,012

3%

4 to 5 years

1

$252

1%

3 to 4 years

9

$28,191

10%

2 to 3 years

17

$61,353

19%

1 to 2 years

57

$102,793

63%

1 year or less

4

$4,935

4%

  Total

91

$218,536

100%

SSA determined these overpayment notices were not sent because of system and/or manual errors. 

Our Recommendations

  1. Remind management and staff to send overpayment notices as soon as possible and monitor and process diary alerts for unresolved overpayment notices.
  2. Issue an overpayment notice for the remaining 13 cases in the population.

 

SSA agreed with the recommendations.