Benefits restored

After four months, newspaper story gets quick action from the SSA on Alison's withheld benefit payments  

By David Baker

   One day after a story was published in the Albany Times Union - and four months after the Social Security Administration was told that it had incorrectly reduced Alison's SSI to $30 a month - the agency said the error had been fixed, and a deposit of some of the withheld money was in her bank account.

   The reduction in the benefit amount apparently was made because the SSA somehow believed that Alison was still in a nursing home, where she had been following a hospitalization, for physical rehab. And despite a letter sent by Alison to the agency's Hudson office in early August saying that she had moved into an apartment, the benefit payment remained at $30 on Sept. 1; the letter did not get a response.

   A copy of the letter was set on Oct. 1.  That too was ignored, as was a third letter sent via certified mail on Oct 18. 

   Then last week, the Times Union published a story about the SSA's non-response.  And with 24 hours the agency had emailed a letter detailing the new monthly amount.  By that afternoon, part of the withheld money was in Alison's bank account. 

    Missing from the SSA letter was any apology or even an explanation for the agency's failure to respond to the three letters from Alison.  The letters said Alison was in an apartment, not in the nursing home; a simple phone call to the nursing home would have confirmed that she was no longer there.

  But that call was evidently never made; Alison's letters - three of them - were ignored.

  The question now is was it just Alison's statement about her residency that repeatedly was ignored? And if so, why? 

  Or are there dozen's of other people out there, who don't have a famous sibling and someone to assist them in presenting the situation to a newspaper, whose protests about incorrect cuts in benefits are dismissed?

   One day after her benefit was restored, Alison received a call from the office of the SSA's inspector general. The caller wanted to know if Alison's matter had been resolved. She said it had.

    The hope now is that the AG will also investigate what happened in Alison's case, and take steps to see that other claimants' communications are not also routinely and callously ignored. 

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Read the second Times Union story here: https://bit.ly/3DCdk58

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