NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 1
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
September 20, 2012
1:00 p.m. ET
Operator:
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is (Alan) and I will be your
conference operator today. At this time, I’d like to welcome everyone to the
Wage Reporting Conference. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent
any background noise.
During the conference, there will be some – there will be a Q&A session. If
you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star, and then
the number one on your telephone keypad. And if you’d like to withdraw
your question, please press the pound key. Thank you very much.
Miss Miller, please go ahead.
Lucy Miller:
Thank you, (Alan). Hello, everyone. Today’s subject, as (Alan) announced
and hopefully you’ve gotten all the materials, is wage reporting for
beneficiaries of the Social Security Disability Program.
Hopefully, everyone on the call has the PowerPoint presentation either on
their screen or printed out in front of them. And there were a (flu) of handouts
that came with the PowerPoint presentation that I’ll be alluding to periodically
throughout the presentation today.
And as I do most of the time when I do these calls, I’m not going to wait until
the very end to take questions. I’m going to try to stop where there’s a break
in information and take questions related to whatever information we’ve
covered thus far. People get – you know, you could forget your question or
the opportunity to ask kind of passes by if we don’t take some questions
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 2
periodically. So, hopefully, everybody’s got the materials in front of them
and let’s get started.
The first subject is to reiterate to everybody the importance of wage reporting.
You know, it never cease to amaze me, I’ve worked with so many
beneficiaries and their families, how often people don’t understand that
they’re required to tell Social Security when they go to work. You know, the
Social Security Benefit Programs really are wage-replacement programs,
particularly the title two program, and you would think people would
understand that that, working, as a form of income, would possibly affect your
benefit.
But I have found that for many years you absolutely cannot assume that
beneficiaries know what they’re supposed to tell Social Security. And so,
unfortunately, a lot of the beneficiaries give work, I try after they’ve gotten on
benefit, they don’t think to tell Social Security and then end up with these
horrific issues with overpayments where they owe Social Security money that
they got in benefits but they weren’t due.
And the single big problem any of (the two) benefits counseling have is
unreported wages or past wages that Social Security’s not aware of and it’s
like the proverbial iceberg under the water and we’re the little Titanic just
chugging away towards it. Not reporting wages causes beneficiaries more
problems than really anything else. So we have a big role to play here.
And that notion – the second bullet here, don’t ever assume Social Security
tells people even, “Here’s what you’re supposed to report.” “Here’s a nice
little list. Go put it on your refrigerator and don’t forget.” They really don’t
do sort of a debriefing with beneficiaries once the benefits are received to
explain what the beneficiary responsibility is.
At best, you might expect maybe the beneficiary will have been given a
brochure that will offer very general information about their responsibilities.
But, you know, like most of us, when we get brochures, that may never have
been read. It may have been read and not understood. It may have gotten
lost.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 3
You just cannot assume that the individual has any idea what they’re supposed
to tell Social Security. And, you know, even the people who have an
understanding of, “Gee whiz, I think I’m supposed to report wages,” they
might go about it all the wrong way. So they kind of waste their time; the
information isn’t heard by the claims rep at Social Security.
Thirdly, even when the stars are in alignment, the beneficiary reports, the
claims rep actually, you know, enters the information into the data system for
Social Security, that doesn’t guarantee that the claims rep acts on the
information in a timely fashion.
And there’s differences and how this can mess people up in the SSDI side of
things and the SSI side of things, both of them are different. But you can’t
assume that just because the information was properly reported, even that you
gave it to a claims rep, that actually is going to be looked at or evaluated. And
so you have to follow up.
And I think everyone who has worked with any beneficiary understand the
consequences of not reporting wages can be pretty serious. In the years that
I’ve worked with beneficiaries, I think the biggest overpayment I’ve ever seen
– the biggest ones always are on the title two side.
And the biggest one I’ve ever personally helped with, with someone who
owed more over $75,000 to the Social Security Administration and that’s
pretty scary. I mean, that’s a lot of money. And it can really cause long-term
kinds of financial stresses for beneficiaries with, you know, having to pay
back little by little on a payment system for many years.
So what’s the moral of this story? Well, it’s on the next slide – the old ounce
of prevention being worth a pound of cure. And I know everyone is busy but
if we can invest a little bit of time upfront with every beneficiary that we
touch and doing some education with them about, “Let’s talk about what
needs to be reported, let’s talk about how – specifically, step by step – how we
go about reporting, and let’s make sure the beneficiary understands the work
incentive counselors’ role,” that you do assist but you don’t actually do the
wage reporting for people.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 4
And I want to drill into that because I think it’s really important that those of
us who work as benefits counselors understand you are not ever to be
gathering the pay stub of a beneficiary and taking the responsibility of then
submitting those pay stub to Social Security and assuming all responsibility
for reporting.
That is not what we are suggesting. You’re there to offer education, support,
assistance, monitoring. But you should not be taking over that role. If you do
take over that role, you’re putting yourself into a position of liability and
that’s just not what we want you to do.
Heaven forbid that you put yourself in that role, you became ill, you took
another job, those wages were not reported – now, a very vulnerable
beneficiary is suffering because you promised you were going to do
something and you didn’t do it. So don’t promise that.
Don’t ever tell a claims rep at Social Security, a (rep TA) agency personnel, a
(inaudible) of counselor, a beneficiary – don’t ever promise that you will
handle it – you will take responsibility. That’s not your role. And you really,
really, really should never do that.
All right. So what is your role? You’re the teacher. You need to be very
upfront and overt in teaching beneficiaries proper wage reporting procedures.
It is so important as a part of your job to the extent that you teach people how
to stay out of trouble, you’re going to be spending a lot less time bailing
people out when they’ve made a big mess.
So it truly is prevention and it is a very important way for you to be investing
in your time. And I know it is time-consuming but it is incredibly important
in terms of avoiding time being spent in other areas later on.
Reporting the usage of work incentives is an essential part of wage reporting.
And, again, that really is kind of value added. So if you’re interviewing a
beneficiary and it looks like a possible (ERWIS) impairment-related work
expenses are involved, we want to assist in the documentation of those
(ERWIS).
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 5
We want to make sure the beneficiary understands, “Here’s how you
communicate with Social Security so they get this information.” And we
want to see you using a structured approach where you’re verbally explaining
or you’re providing maybe written prompting, handouts and that you’re
following up by phone to make sure that everything is going OK. And that’s
the last bullet.
You – don’t ever assume, “Well, I told him. I told him how to report his
wages.” And don’t assume it gets done because a lot of time beneficiaries
forget. They’re human like all of us or they get intimidated or they think they
did it right but they didn’t do it right.
So you have to explain it again and again and again and then you got to follow
up to make sure that the make sure that the beneficiary is following the
instructions that you provided. OK? And remember that by following up, if
you do catch an overpayment, you’re going to catch it a lot earlier, so it hasn’t
gotten to the $75,000 level.
And I know a lot of people think, “Well, in the SSI program, aren’t they
checking in on them every year, so do I really need to follow up?” Yes, you
really do because an SSI recipient can get themselves into a pretty significant
problem if at the beginning of the year they make a mistake and it isn’t caught
until the next redetermination.
And, remember, the way redeterminations work, they happen once every
calendar year, so it’s quite possible that almost two years could go between
redeterminations. If the first one occurred in January and then the next year
the redetermination got delayed and was not done until December. So don’t
assume. Following up is really important; it pays off.
All right. That’s preaching to the choir there probably but we’re going to
jump into the specific information that we need to understand when we’re
working with the title two disability benefits. So we’re going to – we’re going
to talk about the title two people first and, remember, those include people
who get SSDI and Social Security Disability Insurance; people who get CDB,
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 6
Childhood Disability Benefits, formerly known as DAC. OK? And then rare
folks, the disabled widow or widower, but there are some out there.
So all of those people are under the umbrella of the title two disability
program and they’re all treated the same in terms of how work would affect
their benefits. We’re going to cover that first, then I’ll going to call for
questions, we’ll close the door on title two and then we’ll pick up on title 16,
the SSI program.
All right. So let’s start. All right. Lots of people think that reporting is
reporting is reporting. And that no matter what flavor of a beneficiary I have,
whether it’s SSI, SSDI or concurrent, it’s all the same. That’s not true.
The programs are really different, and in the title two program, since your
check is not reduced, you need to get your full check or no check, this idea
that I need to be obsessively reporting wages every single month and requiring
some feedback from the claims rep, that’s not true – that’s not true.
Reporting in the title two program really needs to be focused and be done
when there is a change in the status of the beneficiary that would require a
decision by the Social Security Administration. And you’ll see some bullets
here where these are points in time when a decision is needed.
First, a change in earnings status, that means when someone starts a job
initially or stops a job, OK, gets hired or fired or quits or when there’s a
significant change in the person’s wages – they get a big raise or they’re
hours. You don’t want to reporting tiny little incremental changes. It’s just an
annoyance.
You want to focus your reporting effort at a point in time when there needs to
be a decision by Social Security and it’s starting employment, stopping
employment and then a wage or hour change. Those are all the events that
would require reporting and I’ll even tell you – we’ll give you tips on the next
slide I believe for how to do that.
The second bullet, completion of the trial work period. Now, remember, in
2012, a trial work period month is only used when the wages go over $720 in
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 7
a calendar month. If you have a client, and we’ve all worked with folks like
this that are, you know, the little greeter job at Walmart or something, they’re
earning $300 a month.
What you do initially is report, “I’ve got a job.” So an initial report of wages
and you want to do that in writing. But if that person is never using trial work
period months, there really isn’t a need for you to be spending (paste ups) in
constantly. You’re actually being annoying when you do that.
What will happen is that Social Security will send the beneficiary an 821.
Once they – once the big sleeping giant is aware that someone is working in
the title two program – that’s how you know they’re aware. They’re going to
send the person an 821, you complete it and the benefits specialist should help
the beneficiary because the 821 is really important. You keep a copy of that,
you mail the original to Social Security and then the work incident counselor
starts monitoring the wages.
There is really nothing further that needs to be done for a beneficiary who is
working at a very low level. If Social Security wants additional information,
they will ask for it. Trust they really will.
Now, you have to be monitoring because if that person’s wages suddenly blew
up and, let’s say, they get a whole bunch of hours in a month, it’s right about
Christmas or something and, suddenly, they’ve earned $800, that’s trial work
month. And you need to be monitoring that. OK? But you can do that
yourself and it doesn’t require that you continuously send (paste ups) in on a
month-by-month basis. So that’s one example.
This third bullet. Another major change is when Social Security needs to
make a continuing work disability review – a work CDR. OK? After the end
of the trial work period, if the person’s wages are substantial, Social Security
should make a determination.
And even if they look substantial but there are work incentives at play that we
want that determination done and we want it done on time, even if the
determination is, “Jim is not working at SGA.” OK? But especially if the
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 8
determination looks like it should be a cessation month where SGA is
inevident and cessation should be determined.
Remember that cessation is the first month where that pattern of SGA-level
work is established. The beneficiary would need to be told. You get a check
in that month and the following two months. Everybody should know about
that – the grace period. And then if earnings are – remain over the SGA level,
then the check would need to be suspended.
So always, that – probably the third bullet is the most critical time when we
would want to make sure that Social Security is completely up to speed on
what an individual is working at – what their pay looks like – any
documentation of a work incentive.
Fourth bullet. Remember, that once Social Security has determined a person
is engaging in SGA, as long as they’re in their extended period of eligibility,
they’re provided a wonderful protection. Any month that those wages fall
below – just mathematically countable wages are below that SGA guideline.
And, remember, this year, that’s $1010 for disabled individual and $1690 for
a statutorily blind individual.
Any month those wages are mathematically under the guideline, a check is
due to that person. Any month where the wages are over the guideline, a
check is not due. Now, because of this up and down and you’re in and you’re
out and you’re on and you’re off, some people with highly variable work
schedules, you’re really need going to need to stay on the ball. You need to
be tracking the wages on a monthly basis. OK?
So that you know this month you should have gotten a payment; this month,
you shouldn’t have. So that you’re clear – you’re clear, the beneficiary is
clear and what you’re doing is helping Social Security stay on top of a fairly
complicated employment scenario.
Remember too that, you know, sometimes people are at SGA and they’re
doing great, earning, you know, $2,000 a month; no work incentives; happy,
happy, happy, happy, happy. Let’s say the disability becomes exacerbated
and they have to either resign from their position or pull back on their hours,
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 9
you want to make sure that you are then reporting that to Social Security so
that the checks be reinstated and if it had gone to zero. And then that person
would stay in cash payment status during the EPE as long as wages are under
SGA. That’s a major change.
So all of these points in time are critically important. Now, there’s another
one that’s not on here but that’s really important. Every once in a while,
you’ll find a person who burned up all of their work incentives sometime ago
– trial work period got used up; they did engage in SGA, so their cessation
month was established; grace period was used; they lived through their EPE,
and remember that EPE, if you finished your trial work period, it just goes.
I mean, it’s going to start and it’s going to go, you know, and stop it. And
let’s say that person did quit their job towards the end of the EPE and they
came back into cash payment status and they didn’t work anymore for a
couple of years.
Once – when – you have to be able to recognize a person like that because a
person like that who has one month – one month – of SGA-level employment
will terminate. And I would say that is a pretty important transition stage for
that person. So that is another – rather obscure – but it does happen – instance
in which reporting wages would be critically important because if you don’t
report that return to work and that first month of wages goes over SGA, that is
a termination month – termination of cash payments – not termination of
Medicare – and that person would not be entitled to payments beyond that and
they could get severely overpaid if they’re not careful.
All right. Let’s take a look at the – at the next slide. All right. Challenges.
What are the challenges? Well, where do you begin?
The title two beneficiaries are the ones who really get themselves in problems
far more so than the SSR recipient. The wages that are under the trial work
period guideline, even though they don’t cause any changes in a person’s
benefits, they still are required to be reported.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 10
So, you, benefits specialists, we want you to help with that. We want you to
make sure that that start to employment is documented in writing, submitted
to Social Security and that an 821 is completed and mailed in.
The trial work period in SGA determinations require the review of a pattern of
past work. Remember that you can’t always tell when you’re in a trial work
month when you’re in the middle of the trial work month. You have to wait
until the end of that month to see what those gross wages really were before
you know that.
And for an SGA determination, you know, you really have to see a pattern. It
isn’t a single month of SGA-level work when Social Security is first trying to
make a determination about whether that human being is capable of
substantial (gainful) activity. They have to see a couple of months.
What if the person work three months and then got fired because they were
unable to perform the job function? That might be an unsuccessful work
attempt. OK?
So one of the things that beneficiaries want to do is they want to report month
by month and they expect immediate responses from Social Security. And in
the title two program that wouldn’t be a good thing. I mean, you really have
to sometimes give it some time so that the claims rep could really evaluate
how that person is working, what their ability is, how many months were they
able to sustain that. And if the claims rep washed, they might make an
improper determination.
Third, and this is something people just struggle with, in the title two program,
they are concerned with when the income from the job was earned not when it
was paid. And this creates all kinds of confusion for beneficiaries.
There’s several examples that I’ll use. Many of you may have encountered
these. If you (look at) schools – I did that a long time ago – most school
systems allow you to choose between two different payment mechanisms.
You’re going to be on a salary, but you can choose to have your salary
dispensed to you in the 10-month school-year period or over a full 12-month
period.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 11
Social Security doesn’t care whether you got it to 12 months or the 10 months.
They’re still going to take your salary and they’re going to attribute it to the
month in which you actually work. So if you opt for a 12-month period of
payment and your monthly check is $1,005 a month, and the beneficiary’s
thinking, “Oh, good. I’m not going to be determined engaging in SGA,” you
know, “That’s awesome.”
Well, you probably will. That person probably will because Social Security is
not going to look at when the check was received. They’re going to look at
when was the work done.
This also causes problems with beneficiaries who, and this is very common in
the service industry where you’re paid hourly and you have pay periods that
aren’t the first and the 15th of every month. They – sometimes you can get
three paychecks in a single month and it will cause your wages to spike in that
month.
Well, beneficiaries get horrified about that. They think, “Oh, my goodness.
It’s above SGA. I’m going to get terminated.” No, no, no. It isn’t when you
got paid. It’s when did you do that work.
So as long as you didn’t have – did a whole lot more hours in that month,
Social Security is not going to look at that one month when you got an extra
paycheck and boot you out of the program. And, you know, we could all do a
big service of working with beneficiaries and explaining that because you see
them do all sorts of silly things like, “I’m going to call in sick.”
Or, “I’m going to take unpaid leave so that I can bring my wages down.” And
they don’t need to do that. They are misunderstanding how Social Security
looks at the wages.
But it does cause confusion; it causes complication. It causes us to sometimes
have to look at a pay stubs and you can’t just take what’s on the pay stub; you
have to look at the hours worked in and kind of extrapolate from there.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 12
And remember that if you report to the Social Security administration, just
reporting isn’t enough. You have to follow along and make sure that the
claims rep has acted on the information that you’ve provided. You can’t
assume that they’re going to do that.
So many beneficiaries, (they will have) reported, “I went to Social Security, I
told Mrs. Smith I was working, she wrote something down. I assumed if I
was continuing to get my DI check that I was entitled to it even though I was
earning $4,000 in a month.”
Well that is assumption is deaf. Don’t ever assume anything. And what
happened was Mr. Smith either lost the data or she entered it but nobody ever
looked at it and claims reps are very busy and it got away from them. And
this is exactly how people end up getting overpaid.
They report, they think that’s the end of their responsibility. They assume that
if they’re getting a check that someone at Social Security has determined that
they were entitled to that. And that is a very dangerous assumption. So there
– these are some really challenging issues in the title two program.
OK. So what can you do to help? What can you do to help these poor title
two people and make sure that if they go to work they don’t get all screwed up
and have all these undeveloped past work?
All right. First and foremost, you need to get to know your local office. I’m
assuming that all of you are actually doing some benefits counseling work
with beneficiaries. You’re going to have specific field offices that you work
with and you need to not assume that every field office operates the same. It
never ceases to amaze me how varied they are.
You need to talk with the (will) or the manager in each office and ask how
would you prefer to have beneficiaries report their wages when they go to
work and particularly the title two – how do you want us to do this?
You need to work with beneficiaries and make sure they understand their
responsibility to report. That they understand you are required to report. “It’s
your job, not mine and these are the things you need to report.”
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 13
You should literally give them something to put on the refrigerator to remind
them and you need to offer specific advice. I mean, just telling people, “Hey,
dude. You need to report.” That doesn’t provide enough support to a
beneficiary. You have to explain exactly how.
And you need to offer assistance because to the extent that (you’re just)
(inaudible) (as they fair) about this, the beneficiary is not going to do it
correctly and then they’re going to come back to you to fix the mess when
things haven’t been done. So, again, a little ounce of prevention at the
beginning can really avoid a big cure at the end.
Teach beneficiaries to store pay records and receipts. Tell – give them a
strategy. Give them a folder, give them a shoebox. One of the handouts that I
attached in the materials is a little sheet – a little very simple sheet of paper
that beneficiaries can use to write down the hours that they’re working and the
pay that they receive and they should retain the documentation from the
employer with that.
When you’re writing the benefit summary and analysis don’t just say you
need to report. I want to see, and I’m not the only one on our team, we want
to see structured instruction – very specific instruction to the beneficiary
where you say, “I want you to do this, then I want you to do this, then I want
you to do this.”
And then we want to hear you tell the beneficiary what you are going to do to
support it. And you should include that in the work incentives plan if there
are things that you need to do to support the beneficiary after BSNA
development and you need to stay in touch. An employed beneficiary is an
accident waiting to happen if you don’t keep an eye on them.
You know, the folks that just want generic information, they’re not the ones
that you need to be contacting every month or two. The fellows who are
working, especially the people who are working at any kind of substantial
level, we expect you to be contacting them on a monthly basis. If you’re not
doing that, they’re going to get themselves in trouble and then you’ve got the
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 14
mess to clean up. So proactive. Know who on your case load do you need to
follow up with.
Now, some of you may be working with beneficiaries through a (vendorship)
with (folk rehab) and there is no money available for proactive follow up.
That’s a problem. And I think that you should be discussing this with your
VR agencies because, you know, just jumping in and doing an initial benefits
summary and analysis, that’s very helpful. But if an individual doesn’t have
any support beyond that and they’re at risk of getting their benefits messed up,
that’s a problem.
So, again, all the more reason, if you know you’re going to have limited
interaction with this person in that benefits summary and analysis, tell him
what to do. Be specific. Give him some handouts – how do I report – what
are good tips?
You have a very nice handout in your material that is called, “Tips for
Reporting Wages”. That can be printed out on your agency letterhead. Just
take it and give it to everybody you work with.
Go over it and say, “This goes on the refrigerator or the bulletin board at
home.” This is – you know – and we’ll go over it again and again and again.
This is so you know how to manage all of this so that the person doesn’t
themselves in trouble.
All right. So what are some recommendations that we have about – for you to
help manage all of this because it can feel a little overwhelming? All right.
Step one. You can’t get any structured – more structured than this. And you
know what? These steps, you could actually just load this into a BSNA with
some – with some basic revisions.
You’re going to start by reporting the initial employment or self employment
and you do that in writing. Now, you can do that any way you want but we
recommend that you use a format that we’ve developed and it’s called, “The
Notice of Change in Earnings Status”. It was one of the handouts you got.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 15
And the reason I like that is that it provides you with a lot of prompting
mechanisms so you won’t forget all of the information that social security
needs. And it also prompts you to think about work incentive usage like
(early leaves) or subsidy – any of those that belong to the title two side. Make
sure you keep a copy and your beneficiary keeps a copy and you mail the
original to the field office.
Now, hear me say, as a benefits specialist, you have no authority to fill this
out, sign it yourself and mail it in. You are just, you know, a third party. You
can (do) without but the beneficiary needs to be the one that signs it.
And remember that a beneficiary still – you know, that the rep payee doesn’t
have to sign on behalf of the beneficiary all the time. I mean, the
beneficiary’s signature is still good. If you want both signatures, the
beneficiary and the rep payee, that’s fine.
And you certainly want your contact information involved in all that because
you want Social Security to know that this beneficiary has a benefits specialist
helping them. All right. Step one, report in writing.
Step two. Help the beneficiary complete the 820 or the 821. Well, I’m even
going to have a step 1.5. Tell the beneficiary to expect an 820 or an 821 in the
mail. That is how you know that the report of work was paid attention – that
Social Security sat up and said, “(This) is working. Let’s get more
information.” Right?
Tell the beneficiary the form is coming. Tell the beneficiary to get you on
speed dial immediately when that call – when that form shows up so that you
can help them complete it. You can’t – you can’t sign it.
Now, you could actually do the completion of it over the phone with the
beneficiary but the beneficiary and the rep payee have to sign it. Keep a copy,
mail it to your local field offices.
Step 3. Save everything. And you need to be very structured with the
beneficiary and tell him what to save and how to save it. You want to save
pay stub.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 16
If you have – what I have (at this deal), I haven’t got the pay stub in 12 years.
But there is an automated system that I can go to with – password protected. I
can get into that and I can print off my wages and what was paid to me and
my withholdings and all that. And if that’s the case with your beneficiary you
want to make sure that they understand how to access that information and
that they need to go in and download that and print it off to retain it.
When you have all of that data, you submit it to Social Security in one
package near the end of the trial work period. OK? So that Social Security
determinations can be made. Remember, SGA is not relevant until the trial
work period is over.
So rather than nickel and diming and sending in a pay stub here and a pay stub
there and everything gets lost – initially report work – complete the 821 –
save, save, save, save, save – track those (two to VP) months – bundle
everything together – keep a copy of everything and mail it to Social Security
and follow up. If this person is definitely looking like SGAs and evidence,
you want a determination to be made quickly because after the grace period,
then no more checks would be due and the person will get overpaid.
All right. Now, from that point forward, after the trial work period is over,
you want to continue to retain all wage information and that means the
beneficiary should save it and they would submit it to Social Security
whenever requested to do so or back to that slide with the changes and
situation that could cause Social Security to need to make a decision. OK?
But you don’t have to in the title two program.
Again, if I’m earning $300 a month, there is no need for you to be mailing in
that pay stub every month. Social Security is not going to do anything with
that information. If you send it, they’ll put it in your file but it has no material
impact on your checks, so you’re wasting your time. OK?
As long as they know you’re working initially, you retain that information
until they request it. OK? Keep – work smart. OK. Not hard. We don’t
want to do a lot of stuff that doesn’t help people with anything or that’s just a
waste of time.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 17
Remember the BPQY. Hopefully, nobody on this call would be writing a
benefits summary and analysis or offering advice without the BPQY. That’s
the valuable tool that we use to determine what wages have or have not been
reported or developed and it is particularly essential with the title two
beneficiary.
This is how you can decide or determine, “Mr. Smith, you know, you told me
you didn’t work since entitlement. But look what the IRS is showing as
wages for the year 2005 and 2007,” OK? That BPQY can be absolutely
essential in helping you spot title two beneficiaries primarily who have past
works since (inaudible) the benefit that Social Security is not aware of.
You’re going to see that when you see the IRS interface and there’s
annualized earnings. But you’re not going to see any month-by-month wage
development which is on the third page – at the latest version of the BPQY.
You’re going to see earned income reported to the IRS doesn’t match what
Social Security sometimes has in the wage – month-by-month wage
breakdown. You’re going to see annual income but no monthly breakdown
which means Social Security never developed the wages. Or you’re going to
see, you know, annual income is showing and the BPQY clearly indicates that
they don’t know that a trial work period month or two or, heaven forbid, all of
them have been used.
All of these things are indicators that you have a problem with undeveloped to
past work. Now, that’s pretty much as far as we’re going to go on that subject
because last week we did a training a week ago today on how to develop past
wages for title two beneficiaries and that’s probably archived on our Web site
already or soon will be. And an earlier version of that training I believe is
already archived on the Web site. So if you missed it that is available to you
for free whenever you want to access it.
So that’s the title two program and that’s the intro why is this important,
what’s your job and all this. And then let’s look at the title two people. So,
(Alan), I’m going to go ahead and ask that you open the lines and take some
questions.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 18
Operator:
Certainly, ma’am. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you’d like to ask a
question over the phone, please press star and then the number one on your
telephone keypad. And we have one question in queue from the line of
(Bernard Hickock) and their line is open.
Lucy Miller:
Hi.
(Bernard Hickok): Hi. How are you today?
Lucy Miller:
I’m good. What can I help you with?
(Bernard Hickok): Well, I actually have about three questions but I’ll start off with two simple
ones.
Lucy Miller:
OK.
(Bernard Hickok): (Inaudible) the EPE, my beneficiaries have been asking me are they still
looking for the 720 or are they looking for the 1010?
Lucy Miller:
All right. They – (one to 12) work period is over. That 720 figure applies to
nothing. It’s done; you’ve used it.
What they’re looking for in the EPE is countable monthly earnings of over
$1010 if you’re disabled or $1690 if you’re blind. And if you never were
determined to be engaging in SGA, a single month of over $1010 would not
cause your check to stop.
Remember that your check will never be held unless that determination of
SGA level work has been made, cessation has been established and the grace
period has been used. OK? And as long as that hasn’t happened and you’re
not showing an ongoing pattern – a pattern of SGA-level work, then, you
know, you got to have a month in the EPE (inaudible) you got $1015 or
something or more than that and it wouldn’t cause your check to stop. OK?
Your check does not stop until that decision has been made by Social Security
that you are showing the ability to support yourself by working which is what
they – you know, what SGA really means from their perspective.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 19
(Bernard Hickok): OK. The second question is, I was looking at your handout on notice of
changes in earnings status.
Lucy Miller:
Yes.
(Bernard Hickok): I was kind of curious if the trial work period was listed as a work incentive. I
mean.
Lucy Miller:
Yes. I mean, it’s certainly a phase when, you know, someone is – their
benefits are protected. What we are looking for – what we want you to
document in that form are work incentives that require you to support and
assist with and that might require documentations from the beneficiary other
than just pay stubs.
Social Security, when they’re aware that you’re working and they’re watching
your monthly wages, they’re going to be, hopefully, figuring out which
months are trial work and which months are not. And that doesn’t require any
additional documentation on your part or the beneficiary’s part other than pay
stubs. That’s all – pay stubs.
So what we wanted to list on the notice of change and earnings status was
special work incentives that might reduce how much Social Security counted
when they’re looking at the value of your wages. OK?
(Bernard Hickok): Thank you. I appreciate that.
Lucy Miller:
No problem. Was that it, Bernard?
(Bernard Hickok): Well, there was one other question.
Lucy Miller:
OK.
(Bernard Hickok): I’ve had a couple of issues, and I don’t know if this is standard or not. But,
you know, there are people (inaudible) underpayments or overpayments but
sometimes they’re not included on the BPQY. Should I something when I
first read it or when I – when I get a copy of it? Or should I…
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 20
Lucy Miller:
If – yes. If you’re seeing a discrepancy, if the beneficiary is telling you that
there is an overpayment or an underpayment and it’s not showing on the
BPQY, any discrepancy like that should generate a phone call from you to
either the claims rep or the (will) and the local office, the work incentive
liaison or in some states (you’re) (inaudible) and may want to take calls like
that for you to explore.
You want to make sure that you do investigate any discrepancy between what
the beneficiary is insisting is going on and what the BPQY is actually showing
because that’s an indicator of a problem. OK?
(Bernard Hickok): OK. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Lucy Miller:
OK. No problem. Next call?
Operator:
At this time, we there are no – we do have some other – we have at the line of
(Gabriel Garcia). They’re line is open.
(Gabriel Garcia): Yes. I’m kind of confused what you said about – regarding how the income is
counted. Is it counted with the date they receive the – the date they receive
the check or (inaudible) by the period they work?
Lucy Miller:
It’s when you worked. A Social – in the title two program, and this is terribly
confusing for everybody …
(Gabriel Garcia): Yes.
Lucy Miller:
…they really don’t care when you got your paycheck. They care how many
hours did you work in this month and what are the wages that are associated
with that work that you did. OK?
(Gabriel Garcia): OK. Another question. Another question. How will they know, because, you
know, for some periods there is the beginning period of – let’s just say the last
week of August and then the first week of September, how will they know
which hours apply to which week?
Lucy Miller:
Well, that’s an excellent question and a lot of times they don’t know and
they’re supposed to ask. The POMS, and hopefully, everybody on this call
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 21
have heard about – the POMS – that’s P-O-M-S and it stands for the Program
Operating Manual System. That’s the rulebook that Social Security claims
reps are used to do their work.
The POMS is very clear. It tells claims rep in about a hundred different
places, remember don’t just look at the pay stub and look at the day it was
received. Remember, you are only supposed to be counting wages when they
are earned, not when they are paid.
And so the claims reps are supposed to be asking questions particularly if it’s
clear by looking at the pay stub that there is a – there is a discrepancy there
that there was an extra pay stub received in the month that’s not representative
of the work that was actually performed in that calendar month.
Now, here is the problem with that, Gabriel, they don’t – they’re busy. OK?
And sometimes they don’t do their due diligence. They don’t do the job the
way it’s supposed to be done.
So here’s what I recommend. If you have beneficiaries working variable
schedules and where the pay periods can get off – where the pay that they
receive wouldn’t match with the actual calendar month – what you need to
remind beneficiaries to do, and it’s so hard to get them to do it, is to literally
keep a log of their hours – a piece of paper that they carry in their pocket, a
little notebook. You know, sometimes if you work in restaurants you can
have your schedule printed out – some way to keep track of when the work
was done so that you can take the pay stub and reconcile it with the scheduled
hours.
Unfortunately, so many beneficiaries don’t do that or they don’t know to do it.
I’m sorry to say that many claims reps, they’re busy, they don’t feel like going
that extra step, they just look at the pay stubs and say, “Well, it’s SGA.”
(Gabriel Garcia): OK. One more – one more question. So a person pretty much is done with
the trial work period and interested in the extended (period of eligibility) and
never pretty much over the SGA but (I was setting) goals over, then they go
into the cessation period and the grace period.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 22
Lucy Miller:
Not necessarily. Remember that SGA is a decision. It’s not just a number.
OK?
So when Social Security is looking at work that’s performed after the trial
work period, they’re looking for a pattern of SGA-level work. And when they
see that pattern and they decide that this person is showing their ability to
support themselves by working, which is how they define that SGA
determination, that is when a decision is made that SGA is inevident, the
cessation month is established and the grace period is used.
It is only if that happens that during the EPE then you can get a check one
month and not get one another and then one a month and not another. As long
as that pattern of SGA-level work has never been established, that person can
go over in a month here and a month here and they’re not going to lose their
cash payment in that month.
(Gabriel Garcia): OK. Now I see. So…
Lucy Miller:
Yes. It is only after the grace period has been used that this EPE thing of one
month you can get a check and the next month you wouldn’t and then you can
and then you can’t. OK? But if this individual never shows that pattern of
SGA-level work, then the check will continue – full checks will continue
throughout the EPE.
(Gabriel Garcia): OK. So as long as they don’t show a pattern like about three or four
consecutive months going over $1010 then they should be…
Lucy Miller:
Well, the SGA determination is a little bit more complicated than that. OK?
A little more complicated than that and we don’t have time to cover how – I
mean, because that’s a two-hour training in and of itself.
(Gabriel Garcia): OK.
Lucy Miller:
Come back – go back to the manual. Be sure you’ve read that chapter on how
SGA determinations are done on our Web site. I think we even have a nice
little handout that’s like frequently asked questions about SGA determinations
…
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 23
(Gabriel Garcia): Yes.
Lucy Miller:
…that’s really handy. But I would say in the title two program the most
misunderstood concept is how Social Security decides if a person is engaging
in SGA because it’s complicated. It’s not – it’s not a number; it’s a decision.
And they look at lots of things. OK? So it’s possible that a person could
show three months, even four months of SGA-level work and that work just
get discounted and Social Security say, “We don’t think that was SGA.”
(Gabriel Garcia): OK.
Lucy Miller:
OK? It’s not a number. It’s not that simple.
(Gabriel Garcia): OK. Thank you.
Lucy Miller:
OK. Anyone else?
Operator:
There are no questions in queue at this time.
Lucy Miller. All right. All right. Great. All right. So we’re going to kind of
shut the door on title two and we’re going to jump into the SSI program which
is very different. All right.
Reporting in the SSI program is literally a big deal because it isn’t just wages
that need to be reported; it’s a whole pile of stuff. It’s unearned income, it’s
resource changes, it’s wage changes, it’s living arrangement changes, it’s
marital status changes. It can even involve, you know, changes in household
makeup like who’s living in your household now.
There are so many things that can affect the amount of an SSI person’s check
and all of those things have to be reported. So how do you make sure people
know what needs to be reported? Well, I would start with that handout we
gave you on tips for reporting because it has a little chart in there and it says,
“OK, SSI pips, you need to report this stuff. Title two pips, you need to report
this stuff.”
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 24
And you want to circle that, you want to discuss it, you want to make sure that
that beneficiary understands, you want to make sure the rep payee
understands; if they have a case manager, the case manager understands
because all of these people can be of assistance in reporting information to
SSI and it’s a lot of stuff.
Now, remember in the SSI program, it’s month-by-month-by-month-bymonth eligibility determination and the amount of your check changes month
by month. So this means reporting is a much bigger deal and being prompt in
your reporting is a much bigger deal or you’ll get overpaid.
It also means it’s a lot more complicated, it creates a lot of confusion for the
beneficiary and it’s just a lot more high maintenance. That’s the best
expression I can think of for that.
You can even get underpaid. I mean, you know, we’ve been talking about
people getting overpaid, but it certainly is possible for someone to have, let’s
say, unearned income that, for some reason, becomes decreased and that
change was not reported and so SSI ends up owing a beneficiary money. That
can happen.
Now, one of the things we’re going to talk about in a little bit is that in the –
when you’re reporting wages, one of the things you’ll discover when you
work with most Social Security field offices is that they really prefer when
you initially report work. They really prefer for you provide them with an
accurate estimate – an average of what this individual will be earning each
month – an average.
And they would prefer to enter that monthly estimate in their computer and
adjust the person’s SSI check based on that estimate and then settle up once a
year at the annual redetermination time. And sometimes I find benefits
specialists and beneficiaries like resisting that. That they think that’s a bad
thing.
That is not a bad thing; that is a good thing. It is easier for everyone, not just
the beneficiary or the claims rep. But the trick is, what’s a good estimate?
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 25
Well, if you work a lot of variable hours, that can be pretty difficult to
establish. But for the – most beneficiaries that’s not hard. You’re going to
average it a little higher or estimate a little high because what you want is
when it comes time for Social Security to settle up at the annual
redetermination, it’s really nice if they owe the beneficiary money because it’s
like a wonderful windfall.
And, remember, Social Security ends up owing a beneficiary $1,000 because
they’ve reduced SSI check too much. That money is not counted as income
when SSI gives it to you. And it’s not counted as a resource if you put it in
the bank, at least for a period of time.
So there’s no problem with getting a little bit of a windfall from the SSI
program and putting it in the bank. OK? So, you know, everybody gets all
freaked out in the SSI program and they think, “I have to send my pay stubs in
every 30 days.”
Well, in some areas – in Kentucky where I (was with) one of them, if you do
that, it makes the field offices crazy. They hate it. They hate it because
you’re creating lots of confusion and lots of unnecessary work for them.
And years ago when (BPIO) first started, everybody was so diligent. You
know, “We were reporting every month which is really what the POMS said
and we were trying to do the right thing.” And Social Security sent out a
letter to all of the beneficiaries who had been doing this saying, “Stop already.
We don’t want your pay stubs. Don’t send us them until we ask you for
them,” and everybody was shocked.
And it’s like, why did they do this? And it’s like they did it because you were
making them crazy. They don’t have the staff to handle that kind of
information. They would much rather estimate wages moving forward and
simply settle up and that is a good thing. It is good for beneficiaries and for
claims reps.
So, you know, you don’t have to do this month-by-month-by-month reporting
unless your local office has told you to do it that way. So, in my opinion, in
my experience, monthly wage reporting causes confusion and constant
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 26
readjustment of the cash payment. That’s not good for anybody. So don’t just
assume; you need to ask what method do they want.
And then the next slide just obsessed over this. Should SSI recipients send in
pay stubs every month? Well, no. Not unless your field office has
specifically told you to do that and it is rare that field office will do that.
Ask your local people what they prefer; don’t assume. OK? Help
beneficiaries comply with whatever procedures the local field office prefers.
You need to be – for the interpreter, make sure that the beneficiary
understands how to retain wage information and when and how it needs to be
submitted to the Social Security Administration. And make sure you are very
clear in how you describe that to the beneficiary and then you better be
following up.
You should be helping to develop as accurate wage estimates as you can. If
your field office would prefer to work off of estimates, which is a good thing,
then, you need to work with the family – the beneficiary, whoever – look at
their pay stubs, figure out an average. And remember that the best thing to do
is if you’re going to make a mistake, the best thing is to average a little high
rather than a little low, so that at the end of the year, when Social Security
says, “OK. Now, send us all the pay stubs so that we can look at what we
paid you and what should have paid you,” that’s settling up. It’s really nice
that Social Security owes the beneficiary money rather than the opposite.
And if they do owe you money, they take all of it that they owe you and they
lump it into the very next check. OK? And, remember, there’s nothing to
matter with that. Nobody’s going to get into trouble even if it takes your bank
account over $2,000. OK? That is OK. All right.
Now, what are the ways to report wages in the SSI program? Well, you have
multiple options. You can mail, like the notice of change in earnings status, to
the local field office. You can fax stuff to the local field office.
Now, a beneficiary might have trouble with that. But, you, as a work
incentive specialist can do that. Using the fax to communicate with your local
field office is very efficient. Make sure that you know the fax numbers and
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 27
make sure that you’ve checked to see that that is what they prefer; if that’s
OK.
You can bundle material up and take it to the Social Security Administration
in person. There is nothing to matter with that except it’s extremely timeconsuming.
And, finally, for SSI recipients only, there is a pretty nifty little automated
wage reporting system and it works really well. We’ll have some slides on
that in a minute. Now, it’s limited. You can’t use it – if you have any weird
work incentives like (IRWIS) or anything like that, it’s – but if you don’t have
any bells and whistles and your SSI only, the automated wage reporting
system is pretty nice. I mean, you can do that from home, you can teach the
beneficiary to do it; very simple.
Now, the second bullet here. Under no circumstances should any other phone
reporting be done. Do not try to call the local field office and report wages by
phone. Do not call that national toll-free number if the main Social Security
toll-free line and report your wages verbally to whoever answers the phone.
That way lies madness.
I mean, you’re just asking for trouble. And I’m not trying to (despaired)
Social Security. It’s just those people get too many calls that information
doesn’t get recorded, it doesn’t get entered in the computer. It’s like that work
– the reporting just goes in the air. OK?
Technically, you’re supposed to receive a receipt. Any time you give Social
Security wage information, they are supposed to generate a receipt and mail it
to you. And some of the time that happens, but not all of the time. But I can
guarantee you that won’t happen if you try to use the standard toll-free line or
if you call the field office; it’s just not going to happen.
And Social Security – you – you, the benefits specialist and/or the beneficiary
needs to keep a copy of everything you send to Social Security. Remember,
that if a mistake is made on their part and there is an overpayment that could
have been avoided, you are going to have to help beneficiaries prove that it
wasn’t their fault in order to be able to get a waiver – not have to pay it back.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 28
So if you haven’t retained the information showing you tried and tried and
tried and they just didn’t pay attention to it, you might not be successful in
getting a waiver. So, you know, we’ve said this a thousand times but it bears
repeating, keep a copy of everything.
All right. Let’s talk about the automated way to reporting system because it’s
pretty spiffy. I included a fact sheet. There’s some information in your
material.
On this slide, we’re on slide 13 here – I’m sorry, 12. There – you can go
online and there’s a lovely little fact sheet that talks about the wage reporting
system. And it is also known – don’t you love Social Security and their
acronyms – SSITWR.
And basically you make wage reports by using a phone line as a dedicated
toll-free line that all this toll-free line does. It processes information
automatically. It does not work if you have any work incentives at play that
might be deductions.
You can’t use it if you’re blind and you have (BWIZ). You can’t use it if you
have impairment-related work expend or if you have a pass. OK? But, you
know, let’s face it. The overwhelming majority of SSI recipients do have
fairly simple cases, so a lot of people can use the automated wage reporting
and with some instruction and support from you it’s a very efficient way to
report wages and I would recommend that.
All right. Let’s take a look. Who’s a good candidate? Somebody with no
work incentive deductions. You can use it if you the student earned income
exclusion because the student earned income exclusion is actually the only
work incentive that is supposed to be automatic, that doesn’t have to be
especially claimed.
If you’re eligible for it, it should be automatically applied. Well, we can
argue all day whether that happens but that’s the – that’s what is said. You
can use it if you’re a student.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 29
Parents or spouses of SSI recipients who are not disabled but have income that
will be deemed to the recipient can also use the automated wage reporting
line. It works fine. Again, though, not if you have weird little deductions.
OK?
Now, there is a note there. Remember, lots of people who get SSI also get a
title two check, whether it’s CDB or SSDI. All right? You can’t use the wage
reporting system – the SSI automated wage reporting system to cover both
bases.
It only is going to process the information that you provide on the SSI side, so
a concurrent is going to have to double report. They could use the automated
wage reporting for the SSI piece but they’re going to have to also go back and
look at the slides and figure out what wage reporting you want to do for the
title two side and that’s going to have to be done separately, so it’s going to be
duplicative, but welcome to the world of a concurrent. You always should
report twice when you’re a concurrent. So these are the good candidates.
An SSI recipient with no work incentive deduction other than student earned
income or parents or spouses of SSI recipients – and, remember, when we say
“parents”, parents income only counts when SSI recipients are under 18. So
we’re not talking about, you know, a 27-year-old person who lives with their
parents. OK?
Spouses, that always applies. OK? You can use the wage-reporting line to
report wage. And remember it – we’ll get there in a minute. Sorry about that.
Let’s just go to the next slide.
All right. Who may not use this system? You may not use it if you have
(ERWIS, BWIS) or PASS. OK? You should not use this if you are not
working.
This is a system that is set up for you to report wages – wages. Not reporting
unemployment insurance, not reporting that you got married, not reporting
that somebody gave you 100 bucks to buy groceries with. OK? That’s not
what it’s for. It’s limited. All right?
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 30
You use this to report wages. Any other changes have to be reported through
the local field office. And, again, we would recommend that that be done
either in writing, where you keep a copy, or in person where you still keep a
copy of anything that you hand over to them.
Another problem. If you have more than one employer in a month, and some
people do – they have different employers – you can’t use the automated wage
system because it just gets it all befuddled. OK?
It’s really for very simple SSI recipients with very simple employment cases.
OK? If there’s any complexity, you can’t use it. You’re going to have to find
another way to report.
Now, you don’t have to use the automated wage reporting system at all if you
don’t want to. Even if you’re a good candidate for it, you can use it if it works
– if it works for the beneficiary and I definitely recommend that you
investigate it, take a look at it, support beneficiary to our excellent candidates
who are using it to do so, but it is not required.
If you’re going to use it, you are required to make that verbal report using the
phone within the first six days of the month. And if you mess up and you
forget to report, then you can report using a more traditional method – mail,
visit, whatever.
You don’t have to do a month-by-month reporting at all. If your local field
office is happy to do wage estimates, that’s totally fine. OK? This is not
required. It is an option.
OK. For you to use their line, you have to be able to do some things. You or
an advocate, someone helping you, have to be able to speak clearly and give
your first and last name. You need to be able to understand, request for
information that are provided by the automated system and it’s, you know,
kind of one of those (robo) voices and you either need to speak or use a
telephone keypad to enter your data first and your social security number.
So there might be people with disabilities for whom this would be
challenging. But, certainly, an advocate could do this with the beneficiary.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 31
Again, we do not want work incentive specialists taking responsibility and
doing this on their own. But you could certainly do it with the beneficiary
sitting next to you.
All right. Emphasize to the individual that the call has to be made between
the first and the sixth of each calendar, in which wages were received. And
the name to be used for authentication is the name that’s on their social
security card, the most recent one.
And if someone is reporting wages for another individual, like a rep payee is
reporting for a beneficiary, they need their own name, their own social
security number, their birth date as well as the social security number for the
beneficiary. And that’s going to happen a lot because, you know, some
people with very profound disabilities may need a rep payee to make a call
like this because they’re simply unable to do it. So it is a nice option though.
Be sure you’re prepared before you dial the phone. Make sure the report is
appropriate, like you’re a good candidate for this. Make sure you’ve got your
data in front of you.
There are even sheets that you can use, I think I included them, where you can
sort of write down all this information and have it in front of you, make sure
all the numbers are handy and there’s the phone number, 1-866-772-0953.
And, remember, that number is only for reporting wages in the SSI program.
It doesn’t work for anything else. OK?
All right. We always have to put the warning, warning (Will Robinson).
There are some self-employment issues. Actually, I think what I’ll do, we just
have a couple of slides on reporting self employment and wrapping up some
(odds within).
So this is a good stopping place to take some additional questions. And I’ll
entertain questions on anything that we’ve covered up until now but we were
only looking at the title two program prior and now we’ve covered the SSI
program. So, (Alan), if you would open the line again for questions, let’s take
them.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 32
Operator:
Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, if you’d like to ask a question
over the phone, please press star one on your telephone keypad. And we have
a question from the line (Bernard Hickok) and their line is open now.
Lucy Miller:
Hi, Bernard.
(Bernard Hickok): I hope I’m not the only one asking.
Lucy Miller:
No. I think it’s wonderful. If you have questions, ask them. I mean, we’re
here, we’re happy to take them. Go ahead.
(Bernard Hickok): Well, you were talking about some places – some field offices want you to
wait to report SSI. My only concern is still the risk of getting an overpayment
from somebody that from over at a field office for not reporting …
Lucy Miller:
Well, here’s…
(Bernard Hickok): …(inaudible) manner.
Lucy Miller:
Here’s what – here’s what I meant when I went and said that. You have to
report, by law, when you initially go to work. OK? And it’s in the SSI
program or title two.
You need to either do that in writing. We never really suggest that you do that
by phone, but you need to fill out a notice of change in earnings status or
something equivalent, keep a copy and mail that in.
So we want you to immediately report when someone goes to work. From
that point forward, in the SSI program, you need to ask your field office staff
how do you want this to work. Most field offices prefer to say, “OK, Mr.
Smith, you told us you were working like this and this many hours and this
many wages and this much pay in an average number of hours, so we’re going
to estimate your monthly wages at $900,” or whatever.
And then what they’re going to do, Bernard, they’re going to use that estimate
to reduce your SSI checks for the rest of the year. Then when it’s time for
your annual redetermination they’re going to say, “OK. Now, mail in all your
pay stubs and we’re going to settle up. We’re going to look at what did we
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 33
actually pay you and then we’re going to look at what we should have paid
you based on your actual pay stub.”
And what you want to do is have Social Security owe the beneficiary money
rather than the other way around. And you can make sure that happens by
providing a good estimate initially and then watching the actual pay that’s
received by the beneficiary and comparing it to the estimate. Does that make
sense?
(Bernard Hickok): Yes. It makes sense. But still my concern isn’t of the overpayment because,
let’s say, if a person made an estimate and they fell short of that estimate, then
there’s an overpayment that’s about to be paid.
Lucy Miller:
Well, (you see), if they fell short of the estimate, Social Security is actually
going to be taking more money from your SSI check than they should have, so
you won’t be – you won’t have an overpayment, you’re going to – you’ve
been underpaid. They owe you money.
(Bernard Hickok): Yes, that’s true.
Lucy Miller:
The worry is that you say, “OK. I think I’m going to earn $800 on average,”
and then it turns out that’s not accurate and you’re actually earning $1,000 a
month. That is a situation…
(Bernard Hickok): (Inaudible)
Lucy Miller:
Yes. That’s a situation that somebody can get in trouble. But if you’re
watching the pay every month and you start to see that the estimate is getting
messed up all it takes is you submitting another notice of change in earnings
status with some pay stubs saying, “I was wrong. My average is higher than I
thought it was going to be.” And they’ll fix your estimate and they’ll just
move forward.
So what I found is if you – if you send pay stubs in every single month, here’s
what happens and it’s a nightmare. If you have a person with variable hours
and they work lots of different amounts in different months, you’re sending in
pay stubs every month and what it does, it’s forcing Social Security to enter
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 34
that data into their system and every time they enter that data, it generates a
letter.
So your beneficiary is going to send in pay stubs and it’s going to generate a
letter that says, “We didn’t realize you earned this much this month. We
already cut your check for this amount, now, you’re telling us you actually
earned this amount. So we – you were underpaid or overpaid for this month.”
And then the next month you do the same thing and it’s a different amount. It
generates another where they say, “Goodness, we sent you this amount but
actually we should have sent you this other amount, so we’re going to,” – you
see that it causes chaos. And the beneficiary gets constant letters every single
month that say – they’re very confusing – that say, “Oh, dear, we paid you the
wrong amount. We sent you this but we should have sent you this. Now,
we’re going to have to (recruit) the overpayment.”
And so you really aren’t helping the beneficiary if you’re telling them to
report on a month-by-month basis when they have variable hours unless your
local office has told you that they insist that you do it that way.
(Bernard Hickok): OK.
Lucy Miller:
I know it’s hard to believe but it really is better for everybody to do an
estimate and work off of that in 99 percent of the cases. Does that answer …
(Bernard Hickok): Thanks (inaudible). I appreciate it.
Lucy Miller:
…your question? You’re welcome. You’re welcome. Anybody else?
Operator:
Yes. Next in queue we have the line of (Nelson Ferguson) and their line is
open.
Lucy Miller:
Hi, Nelson.
(Nelson Ferguson):
Lucy Miller:
Hi, Lucy. How are you?
I’m good. What can I do for you?
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 35
(Nelson Ferguson):
Lucy Miller:
It’s not necessarily a question but a comment.
Yes.
(Nelson Ferguson): The beneficiary and work incentive people need to realize that Social
Security takes two or three months to react to these changes.
Lucy Miller:
Yes.
(Nelson Ferguson): But you’re going to – you’re not going to see that check change for a
couple of months.
Lucy Miller:
That’s absolutely true. And the SSI program, that is always the case because
of the system of retrospective monthly accounting that they use. So when I
report wages today, I’m going to see a change on my check two months later.
Now, there is one notable exception to that rule. Social Security can stop a
check entirely very quickly. So let’s say I’m getting $698 of SSI and I get this
fabulous job making $30,000 a year and I’m going to go from zero to 60 or 60
to zero – my check’s going to zero out – like I’m over the breakeven point.
When you report that to Social Security, don’t tell the beneficiary they’ll get
full checks for two months; they won’t. That check will stop right now. I
don’t really know the difference but if you’re not due any check at all that is a
change that they can make immediately. If they need to adjust the amount of
your check, that takes two months. So it’s an excellent point. Thank you.
Anybody else?
Operator:
Yes. Next in queue we have the line of (Gail Nunn) and their line is open
now.
Lucy Miller:
Well, how are you (Gail).
(Gail Nunn):
I’m pretty good, Lucy. How about you (inaudible)?
Lucy Miller:
Very well.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 36
(Gail Nunn):
I’ve always had a grey area about reporting to SSI rep and the SSDI rep. How
do you do the double reporting?
Lucy Miller:
You actually send two separate letters and to the same field office. And one
of them, you address Social Security Administration, blah, blah, blah. And
then in the corner you write, “Attention SSI.”
And on the other one you write the same address and down in the corner,
“Attention SSDI.” And it will literally get sent to separate places. They will
– they will have two different staff people that open those letters. And that’s
all you do. And you keep a copy of everything.
And then you watch the check. You watch the check to make sure that
whatever was supposed to happen at the check actually happens. And the SSI
people tend to be a whole lot more responsive than the title two people are.
So you’ll typically get notice back from SSI saying, “Thank you for your, you
know, report of work. Your adjusted SSI check starting two months from
now is going to be, you know, $40.62 or whatever it’s going to be and then
you’ll have (dead silence) out of the title two program.”
(Gail Nunn):
OK. Thank you, Lucy.
Lucy Miller:
I mean, you know, that’s common, so – and really maybe it needed to be
(dead silent). If the person is not working even at trial work period amounts,
there’s nothing for them to act on. You send them the information, they
appreciate it and went in the file but there’s no action required on their part.
They’re supposed to send you a receipt. But…
(Gail Nunn):
Right.
Lucy Miller:
Yes. I know.
(Gail Nunn):
OK. All righty, then. I haven’t experienced that and it just left me ...
Lucy Miller:
Quite variable.
(Gail Nunn):
…(inaudible). Yes.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 37
Lucy Miller:
Yes, yes.
(Gail Nunn):
OK. Thanks.
Lucy Miller:
OK. You’re welcome. Anybody else?
Operator:
Yes. We currently have one more question in queue from the line of (Mary
Beth Carey) and their line is open.
Lucy Miller:
Hi, Mary Beth.
(Mary Beth Carey):
Lucy Miller:
Hey, Lucy. How are you?
Good.
(Mary Beth Carey): I’m just curious. Typically, with the beneficiaries that I work with, they
report their SSI every month.
Lucy Miller:
Yes.
(Mary Beth Carey): So they’re constantly getting the letter saying, you know, “Two months in
a row this is what your benefit is going to be.”
Lucy Miller:
Yes.
(Mary Beth Carey): So I’m just kind of curious. If you give them the estimate of earnings, so
it’s used throughout the year.
Lucy Miller:
Yes.
(Mary Beth Carey): Those months that have like the five weeks in them, does Social Security
automatically bump that estimate up? I’m just not sure how that would work.
Lucy Miller:
No. It’s just over a year’s time. So you’re going to go with an average and
you’re going to say, “This is the estimate that we would like you to use to
reduce the SSI cash payment.” And then when it comes to the end of the cash
of the year they’re going to ask you for those pay stubs and they will literally
map it out month by month.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 38
So what normally happens in a situation like that, because that happens to
everyone who’s paid weekly or bi-weekly. Two months out of every year
you’re going to get the extra paycheck. Right?
(Mary Beth Carey):
Lucy Miller:
Right.
And that’s a month where your SSI checks should have been much lower.
But in the previous month you probably should have had a higher check than
what you got because you used an estimate. You see what I’m saying? It
balances out in the wash.
(Mary Beth Carey):
Lucy Miller:
OK.
But they literally go back in time and they will do a month by month by
month and you actually get a letter from them. And it shows that for August
we paid you $472 and we should have paid you $316.
You see what I’m saying? It literally shows you month by month what they
sent you, what they should have sent you and (inaudible), it shows you the net
result.
(Mary Beth Carey):
Lucy Miller:
And that’s why claims rep like the averaging so much.
(Mary Beth Carey):
Lucy Miller:
OK.
Yes. OK.
It’s much better and much easier to manage.
(Mary Beth Carey):
OK. Perfect. Thanks so much.
Lucy Miller:
Sure. Anyone else?
Operator:
Next in queue we have the line of (Jeff Black) and he’s line open for you now.
Lucy Miller:
Hi, Jeff.
(Jeff Black):
Hi, Lucy. How are you?
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 39
Lucy Miller:
Good.
(Jeff Black):
Great information. Thanks for doing this.
Lucy Miller:
Good. Sure.
(Jeff Black):
My question is about – is about electronic data or document management. Is
Social Security moving towards anything like that? I mean, I don’t know
where they would start, but, …
Lucy Miller:
Well…
(Jeff Black):
…you know, for instance Medicaid and, you know, Mass Health in
Massachusetts, you know, if you fax something to them, if you mail them
something, everything is getting scanned now. And something like this notice
in change in earnings status, you know, it’s a great – it’s a great – great boiler
plate to work off of.
You mentioned that, you know, when you send them things they put in the
file, like, is there – are they still keeping paper file …
Lucy Miller:
They do keep a paper file.
(Jeff Black):
…for everything (that’s in) them?
Lucy Miller:
They do. It’s called the Master Beneficiary Record. And there is literally a
paper file that is housed at various locations around the country with the
actual original documentation.
But Social Security is certainly becoming far more technologically-oriented
with their scanning things and, certainly, where they’re just taking the primary
source documentation and someone is literally entering that data into the
computer system, typing it in, then the piece of paper goes often as filed
somewhere. But that information is now stored electronically.
And I’ll tell you from – I do a lot of work with the Social Security bond
program. People may not be very familiar with that but it’s a research and
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 40
demonstration program that is testing whether or not – you know, kind of
styling the SSDI program more like SSI – encourages people to work.
And I actually serve beneficiaries directly in that program and I use an
automated system called “BTS” and we scan – we scan everything. We scan
the pay stubs, we scan the BSNAs and everything is stored electronically with
no paper files.
(Jeff Black):
Yes. That’s great.
Lucy Miller:
Yes. So, I mean…
(Jeff Black):
We’d like to – we’d like to have that.
Lucy Miller:
Here’s the problem that they have with that. Because internet-based systems
are corruptible and your privacy can be invaded, I mean, for you to be able to
communicate with Social Security electronically, you have to follow all kinds
of rules.
You have to have a certain type of computer, you have to have a certain
encryption, you have to have a lot of training in protecting security. I mean, I
had to go through all of this with bond. So it’s been really interesting to be in
a program where I am communicating electronically very sensitive
information about beneficiaries and what kind of security is involved in all of
that.
But, you know, who knows? Our world is becoming more and more
electronic in that method and maybe we’ll have access to that more as time
goes on. Certainly within Social Security they’re more and more keeping data
in electronic files and not relying so much on that paper. Great question.
(Jeff Black):
OK. Thank you.
Lucy Miller:
Yes. Anyone else?
Operator:
No, ma’am. There is no one else in queue at this time.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 41
Lucy Miller:
All right. Well, we’re kind of into the home stretch. We’re on slide 17 now
and this is just a warning and sort of a reminder. Again, we don’t have time to
like do a lot of training about self-employment on this call.
We certainly have a unit in your manual that is very detailed that talks about
how both title two benefits and SSI look at income from self-employment.
And we do have, for frequently asked questions document, about selfemployment on our Web site. And we’ve done some additional training on
self-employment.
This is just a reminder that things are different for people who are selfemployed. For example, instead of looking at growth wages, when you’re
self-employed, Social Security looks at something called net earnings from
self-employment. And that’s the income that your business brings in less the
IRS allowable expenses and less part of your self-employment tax.
A lot of time, beneficiaries think that they can own a business and have a ton
of profit. And as long as they only take a nickel out of the bank account for
the business every month, that’s all that’s going to count. No.
(Would is the word), but that is not – you know, what you take out of the
business bank account is irrelevant from Social Security perspective. They’re
going to count any net earnings – net profit from your business that is
attributable to you as your income. It doesn’t matter that you leave it all in the
bank account. OK?
And remember too that that net earnings and self-employment can be reduced
when Social Security is looking at SGA by applying work incentives. And
it’s the same work incentives as people who are wage employed. If you’re a
title two beneficiaries, you have (ERWIS) and subsidies.
Self-employment subsidies are a little bit different but they’re still subsidies.
And certainly in the SSI side, you’ve got (ERWIS), you’ve got student earned
income exclusion and (BWIS) certainly and PASS available. So there’s no
real difference. It’s just that what you report and how Social Security looks at
your wages that are a little different.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 42
And then the next slide provides just some reporting reminders for selfemployment situations for – no matter which program you’re on. And I work
with lots and lots of self-employed people. And the biggest problem I see
with beneficiaries is they don’t keep their books.
They – you know, they’ve got a shoebox full of a bunch of bits and pieces of
paper and they’re not keeping track of, “OK. Here’s how much income I got.
Here is how much my expenses were.” And you can do this in a very simple
paper-and-pencil manner. You can use software like QuickBook.
We don’t care how you do it, but you really need to do it because, if you
don’t, you have no idea what profit your business is making. And so there’s
no way to know what to tell Social Security.
So, first and foremost, when you have a self-employed client, you need to ask,
“OK. Have you thought about how you’re going to keep track of your income
and your expenses? Tell me what you’re going to do to make sure that you’re
on top of this.” So lots of times they haven’t even thought about that, so it’s
good to get them to think.
Beneficiaries should report that they have initiated self-employment as soon
as it begins even if you’re not making any money. So, again, in writing, you
know, use the notice of change in earnings status, tell or just write a letter to
Social Security that says, “I’ve engaged in this venture. I’ve opened a small
business, I’ve become self-employed,” whatever. “I’m not making any
money yet, but here’s what I’m doing.”
Provide some basic information. And Social Security will ask you – they will
actually ask you for a projection of your profits for the calendar year. And,
boy, you need to be careful because I’ve seen beneficiaries, “I’m going to
make a $1 million.” And they literally will use that estimate to reduce your
SSI cash payment which is probably not good because, you know, what if you
really don’t make money?
So you need to be very conservative. And then what you need to do is watch
the actual receipts in your business. OK? Watch your profits to see if they
are consistent with the estimate that you provided.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 43
And the only documentation that Social Security really wants from you to
prove your actuals, like, what did you really generate in terms of profit – are
your tax returns. So beneficiaries, like all of us, delay sometimes in getting
their taxes done and that’s not a good thing when you’re self-employed.
You need to – you know, as soon as you – the tax are in, you need to go to
your tax preparer and get that information prepared and then submit a full
copy of your personal and business tax returns to Social Security. And they’re
going to use the information from the tax return to determine how much your
business profited for the year. And then they’re going to apply that one way if
you’re in title two and another way if you’re in title 16.
So let’s look at that first slide. The next slide is when you’re in title two, you
want to keep your business financials on a calendar-month basis during the
trial work period. And you should keep a log of the hours that you spend
working on your business because, remember, when you’re self-employed,
even if you lost money in your business, if you put more than 80 hours of your
personal work into the business in a month – in a calendar month – that is a
TWP month, even if you lost money. OK?
If your – you are generating profits, you want to be able to track it on a month
by month. I know that’s annoying because most businesses really don’t work
that way. But, initially, when you’re in your trial work period, we would
recommend that people keep their profit and law statements or – on a monthby-month basis and then submit that to Social Security so we can track the
usage of TWP.
Now, when your trial work period’s over, your monthly financial statements
are – that’s not necessary. From that point forward, you would just keep
cumulative records of your income and your expenses, you’re going to file
your annual tax returns and send that to Social Security and they will use the
annualized profit that your business got to make an SGA determination.
So the more you delay on sending them your tax returns, then you could find
yourself into a world of (hurt) because if you’re showing a lot of profit for the
year, they’ll all going to go back to January and say, “Well, you made a lot of
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 44
profit for this year and we think the SGA pattern began in January.” And so
you were only due a payment for January, February and March and after that
you shouldn’t have gotten one. You’re going to owe them money. Not much
you can really do about that when you’re self-employed but it’s just
something to remember.
And I’ll something – practical tip number three. Beneficiaries, they
sometimes, they just get muddled. And they think that what they’re supposed
to report to Social Security is their gross income, meaning, so I billed all of
this income and it came to me and they aren’t realizing that they need to
reduce that income by the allowable expenses that they incurred to generate
that income.
Whatever you send to Social Security, they’re going to use it. So you never
want to tell them, “Well, here is how much money I billed.” You want to say,
“No, no. Here’s how much profit I made.” And that’s the income that you
receive minus those IRS allowable expenses.
And they’re going to mail you a work activity report for self-employment and
that’s the SSA-820, not the 821. And they’re going to do that either when
they first realized you’re self-employed which is typically when you tell them
you’re self-employed. They’re going to want you to complete an 820.
Or if they’re really diligent and you’ve been really diligent and they actually
know when the end of your trial work period is, they often will generate one
and send it out to the beneficiary at the end of the TWP. And that’s a clear
indication that Social Security is about to do a work – that they’re gathering
information because they want to make that SGA determination at that point.
So those are some good tips there. And then in the SSI program, we’re on
slide 22 now, remember that NESE, that stands for Net Earnings and SelfEmployment. And that’s determined at the end of the first year of business
operations.
Again, they take your taxes. They are going to divide your profit, OK, for the
year by a full 12 months. Even if you didn’t start your business until August,
September, they’re still going to take whatever profit you generated from the
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 45
year, they’re going to divide it by 12 and they’re going to go and do a settling
up.
They’re going to say, “Well, we paid you this much for this month and we
should have paid you this,” the same thing that they do in wage employment.
And then the end analysis is going to be that you either owe them a little bit of
money or they owe you a little bit of money.
And they’ll settle up with that. And then they’re going to use whatever your
profit was from the past year to estimate forward into the next year and you
can change that estimate if you believe you’re going to make less income or
more income, you provide that information to Social Security. And, I mean,
they have to listen to the beneficiary’s allegations and they will adjust the
estimate based on the input that you provide.
Again, you want to try to be as accurate as possible because if you’re way off,
you’re either going to be way overpaid or way underpaid and you can
certainly change your estimate mid-year if you’re watching your profits and
you realize you’re going to make way more than you thought or you’re going
to make way less than you thought.
And you can certainly go back to Social Security and say, “Look at my
monthly profits. I’m rocking this business here. We need to change the
estimate.” And they’re happy to comply with that.
Some tip for reporting income for SSI recipients for self-employed. Again,
keep an eye on your business profits on a monthly basis. If your business
starts to become profitable or more profitable than you thought, you want to
tell Social Security.
If you don’t want to tell Social Security because you’re not sure if your profits
will be sustained, that is your – that’s the beneficiary’s business. If they
choose to do that, that’s fine. What Social Security is going to do is take that
profit that you report to the IRS and they are going to use that to retroactively
adjust your check.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 46
So if you ended up making a ton more money than you thought, you’re going
to owe Social Security some money. And if you make a bunch less than you
thought, they’re going to owe you. So, you know, as long as the beneficiary is
clear about what the consequences of their behavior is, the decision is there.
But, you know, we would certainly advice people to keep their eye on things
and to change the estimates as needed.
Watch out for those projections of (NESI). You’ve got one year of business
operations under your belt, you’ve got your taxes filed, you see how much
profit you made. Now, that trick is to decide what do I want to tell Social
Security my estimate is for the coming year? And, honestly, 90 percent of the
time that’s just kind of a crap (shoe).
I mean, you really don’t know. So, worst case scenario, Social Security will
use whatever you earn for the prior year. You could certainly stick with that
and then adjust throughout the year if you’re seeing that your profits are going
to go way over our way under. It’s a very inexact science. And I will tell
you, it’s just one of the downsides of self-employment.
You just need to keep your eye on the profits that you’re making and compare
them to that estimate to see if you’re on track – a little bit high maintenance.
It kind of is what it is there.
Some general reminders here on slide 24. The use of the work incentives
creates more work for all of us. I mean, it’s good but it is more work.
So make sure you are probing, probing, probing for (ERWIS), for (BWIS) if
it’s a blind individual – for subsidy. Catch it early – prompt, prompt, prompt
the beneficiary about, “Here’s what you need to document the use of this work
incentive. Here is the receipts you need to be keeping.” And check in with
beneficiaries to make sure they’re actually doing it because sometimes they
say they will but they world and then you got a world of hurt on your hand.
You can reconstruct receipts sometimes if they lose them, like if it was
medication copays. You can often go back to your pharmacy and get a
printout. You can – doctor’s offices can often give you a printout of what
you’ve paid.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 47
You can look at credit card statements if you charge things and certainly
cancelled checks. Sometimes even just your bank statement if you’re using
your checking card. Sometimes that can help you provide some
documentation as well.
The best thing though is to keep the primary source documentation – the
actual receipt – because that’s really what Social Security prefers. And it’s
better to keep the primary source documentation and not have to go back and
recreate later.
Some things to remember if you’re reporting by mail or fax. You need to be
submitting pay stubs or printout of wages. You need to be submitting receipts
of work incentives, letters identifying beneficiary by name, social security
number, address and phone.
You need to make sure you’re listing the social security numbers on which the
benefits are being paid in addition to the beneficiary SSN if they’re different.
And this is common in the title two program. You know, I might be getting a
check off of my father’s work record, so my social security number and my
father’s needs to be included.
If I’m getting a disabled widow benefit, I’m collecting a benefit on a deceased
spouse. So I want to include my SSN and the spouse’s SSN and just, you
know, here we are obsessing, keep everything, keep everything, keep
everything.
I’ve even seen, you know, benefits specialists give beneficiaries, you know,
folders to keep things in. I’ve seen some really innovative products that some
of our better WIPA projects previously or BPAO projects are now bond
projects have created that gives structure to the process of saving things. And
they literally provide that to the beneficiaries. It’s very helpful.
Final words. There’s absolutely nothing you can do that has a bigger payoff
than what we’ve just spent, you know, an hour and 45 minutes talking about.
That’s just true.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 48
If you are investing your time and energy in supporting a beneficiary to report,
report, report, report, it’s going to pay off. You’re going to have beneficiaries
that have fewer messes. Your time is going to be used more judiciously in
prevention rather than crisis intervention.
And, you know, once the huge overpayment has been accrued, may not be
able to do anything about that. You know, if that overpayment is rightful,
meaning, that beneficiary didn’t report should have – there’s no way to get out
of it, then this is really a shame because this is a – typically, beneficiaries
don’t have a lot of money. They now have to pay back wages or back
information to Social Security and it’s painful.
So invest. Invest, invest your time and energy upfront teaching very
proactively reporting processes to your beneficiaries. If you’re doing
presentations to community agency personnel, like job coaches, case
managers, residential support providers, these people can make your life
wonderful or a living hell. I mean, these folks have a lot of interaction with
our beneficiaries. And we can teach them what needs to be done, it really
saves us time.
Teach anyone who is doing beneficiary rep payee work. You’ve got agencies
doing this, you’ve got state guardians. Some of the messes I had seen well
intended state guardians do to beneficiaries because they don’t understand
what needs to be reported and how to report it.
So branch out. Get out into your community, spread the word, teach. Take
these slides. Use these slides. Anything we provide out there is public
information. You can’t take.
Don’t, you know, fight us. Say, this came (from me to you) but you’re
allowed to take this and teach people. We would be utterly delighted if you
did that.
Make sure you’re watching people over time, especially your employed
people, you know, just preaching at people and telling them what to do isn’t
enough. You got to watch and provide support and be available to resolve
problems because no matter how hard you work at this and how diligent you
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 49
are, somebody’s going to mess up or you’re going to get referred a person
who didn’t see you initially and didn’t pop up in the system until a big fat
mess has occurred with this huge overpayment and they’re going to be
referred to you, for crisis intervention.
So no matter how hard you work you’re still going to have some of these folks
pop up. But be available to agency personnel and beneficiaries and rep payees
to answer questions and to help people understand about overpayments
because they’re common. We do have information on our Web site about
overpayments and how to deal with overpayments. And, certainly, there’s
information about that in our manual as well.
They’re going to happen no matter how wonderful you are. You’re never
going to resolve all of that. So it’s always going to be a little bit of crisis
intervention that you’ll have to do.
So that is it. You know, we got done a little early. We’ve got time for more
questions. (Alan), if you would open the lines for one last queue, that would
be awesome.
Operator:
Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you’d like to ask a question
over the phone, please press star and then the number one on your telephone
keypad. And we have (Lisa O’Conner) in queue. Their line is open.
Lucy Miller:
Well, (Lisa O’Conner), I haven’t heard from you in a month this Sunday. So
how are you?
(Lisa O’Conner): Good. How are you?
Lucy Miller:
Awesome.
(Lisa O’Conner): I always think about you and your incredible trainings.
Lucy Miller:
Well, I’m so glad you’ve dialed in today. What can I do for you?
(Lisa O’Conner): Regarding – sorry, I called in a little bit late. But does each office have some
somebody who develops and adjudicates the earnings or is that only like the
main district offices or regional?
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 50
Lucy Miller:
Yes. The answer is every field office has personnel that develop wages. And,
as a matter of fact, every claims rep does that.
(Lisa O’Conner): OK. (Inaudible)…
Lucy Miller:
Every single claims rep. So every single SSI claims rep does their own case
load in terms of acting on work reports that they receive, entering the data,
adjusting check, communicating with beneficiaries and the title two side is
exactly the same.
(Lisa O’Conner): Yes.
Lucy Miller:
They try to make it sound sometimes like the SGA determinations are done at
some magic office far, far away. No.
(Lisa O’Conner): OK.
Lucy Miller:
They’re done in the local office. Now, we’ll give you one exception to that.
When a beneficiary has failed to report and a lot of past work pops out in a
routine scan for that – I mean, Social Security does interfaces between their
data and the IRS data on – (sometimes) for periodic basis. And people who
have failed to report their wages who have a lot of wages, they get caught that
way.
And what – the first line of people who address those kinds of cases are
people who work in the PSCs – the Payment Service Centers, which are not
local field offices. So those kinds of cases are handled in Payment Service
Centers which, you know, like in the Southeast, that might be out of
Birmingham, Alabama. But the only cases for which that’s true is title two
cases who got caught – got – literally their flag got popped up because they
have substantial past work that was never reported.
(Lisa O’Conner): OK. Super. Because, you know, I’ve gotten to know and speak to frequently
the person – the title two person in the Hartford office who does to develop
and adjudicate.
Lucy Miller:
Good. OK.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 51
(Lisa O’Conner): And I wasn’t certain if that’s pretty much standard that every office – but like
you said, every field office.
Lucy Miller:
Some people do – some offices do do it that way where they, especially
smaller offices, where they might have a specialist like your (will) or a title
two expert – a technical expert – who just take responsibility for doing the
development of the work because it is – it is complicated in the title two
program.
You have to understand all the work incentives, you have to know how to
operate the (E or) system and I can see how a field office might centralize that
function in one person. In my experience in the Southeast, that has not been
the case. But field offices can vary significantly. So as long as you’ve, you
know, interfaced with this office and you know how they do things, that’s
awesome.
(Lisa O’Conner): Well, Lucy, thanks again. Great …
Lucy Miller:
You’re welcome.
(Lisa O’Conner): …to hear your voice.
Lucy Miller:
OK. Bye-bye. Good to hear your voice. Bye. Anyone else?
Operator:
Yes, ma’am. Next in queue we have the line of (Kena Arkeri) and their line is
open.
Lucy Miller:
Hi.
(Kena Arkeri):
Hi. How are you doing?
Lucy Miller:
I’m good. What do you got?
(Kena Arkeri):
My question is regarding SSI.
Lucy Miller:
Yes.
(Kena Arkeri):
So the redeterminations, are they done based on a calendar year?
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 52
Lucy Miller:
Yes, they are. And what the POMS said is that annual redeterminations have
to be done once every calendar year. Worst case scenario, what you could
find happen, is, let’s say, in 2012, they do the annual redetermination in
January, so the very first month of 2012.
But they don’t get around to it in January of 2013. For some reason, it gets
delayed. They may not do it until, worst case scenario, December of 2013
which means that you actually have 23 months in between the annual
redetermination. They’ve met the rule of – the letter of that rule which is
every calendar year but it wasn’t just 12 months apart.
Now, most field offices have a ticker system where beneficiaries are assigned
a redetermination month. So you’ve got a bunch of people that are – their
redets are scheduled every January, then another group that is February,
another group that is March to avoid that kind of situation, so that every –
actually every 12 months they’re getting done so that people don’t get
seriously underpaid or overpaid. But, again, every field office doesn’t do it
that way.
(Kena Arkeri):
OK.
Lucy Miller:
So, occasionally, you’ll pop out against this SSI person who incurred a pretty
significant overpayment because a very important piece of information went
for, you know, 20, 21, 22 months without being acted on.
(Kena Arkeri):
Yes. Is that a cessation for a waiver request?
Lucy Miller:
No. Well, you can always request a waiver, whether you’ll be granted it or
not, right, are two different stories. But in order to get approved for a waiver,
the beneficiary has to prove two things. They have to prove that the
overpayment was not their fault, meaning, that they did their responsibility in
terms of reporting.
You have to be able to prove that. OK? So I have data. I have a document
that shows, “I told them I was working and they didn’t act on it.” So that’s
number one.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 53
Number two, simultaneously, you have to prove that it would be a financial
hardship for you to repay that debt. And for an SSI recipient, that’s a lot
easier to prove than it would be for a title two beneficiary and you will see
more waivers occur in the SSI program.
But – you know, but what Social Security typically will come to and say,
“Well, all right, so we – you owe us $5,000. We know you don’t have that in
the bank. We are going to take 10 – you know, 10 percent of the federal
benefit rate out of your – any subsequent SSI cash payments to recover the
overpayments.” So worst case scenario, that’s going to be $69.80 a month
that they could take of any subsequent SSI check that you had to repay
themselves.
(Kena Arkeri):
Yes. OK. Thanks.
Lucy Miller:
You’re welcome. Anyone else?
Operator:
Yes, ma’am. Next in queue we have (Cliston Bell) and their line is open.
Lucy Miller:
Hi.
(Cliston Bell):
Hey, Lucy.
Lucy Miller:
Well, how are you?
(Cliston Bell):
I’m doing great. I got a question for you. When they do the averaging at the
end of the year they find out that they’ve got an underpayment and they paid
the check. You said that money, they could put in the bank, it wouldn’t count
as a resource.
Lucy Miller:
Most definitely and there is a POMS citation that states that absolutely clearly.
Actually, there’s two POMS citations. There’s one in the income section that
says that back paid money is not income. Did it pass due benefit? That it’s
not income to the – to the beneficiary.
And then there’s another citation in the resources section that says that the
beneficiary is permitted to put that money in the bank, that money can –
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 54
they’re allowed to go over the $2,000 limit because of that money for up to
nine months. You are given nine months to spend that money down.
(Cliston Bell):
(Inaudible) spend down part, that was my question…
Lucy Miller:
You got to spend it eventually, yes. And then Social Security will even be
nosy enough to ask where did it go – where did the money go?
(Cliston Bell):
OK. OK…
Lucy Miller:
So if you said something like, “Well, I just took it out in cash and stuck it in a
lock box under my bed,” that would not be good.
(Cliston Bell):
Right.
Lucy Miller:
But you could spend it on anything. Like you could say, “I went to Churchill
Downs and I spent it on the ponies and I was starting to have a really good
time but I lost every penny.” And they’re going to say – Social Security is
going to go, “OK. That’s fine.”
(Cliston Bell):
OK.
Lucy Miller:
As long as it’s gone, yes.
(Cliston Bell):
Well, they don’t – they don’t have to come up with a receipt where they spent
it or used it?
Lucy Miller:
It’s your allegation – the beneficiary’s allegation. Unless there is reason to
suspect that fraud is involved and most beneficiaries, that would never be the
case. I mean, they’re going to say, “Here’s what I did with the money.”
(Cliston Bell):
Yes. OK. Thank you.
Lucy Miller:
You’re welcome.
(Cliston Bell):
Thank you for the presentation. Wonderful.
Lucy Miller:
I’m glad. Anyone else?
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 55
Operator:
Yes, ma’am. We currently have the line of (Vivienne Roddam) and their line
is open.
Lucy Miller:
(Vivienne), hi.
(Vivienne Roddam): Hi, Lucy. Thank you for that. Well, you know what? That’s the same
question I was going to ask earlier about this nine months to spend down and
then – and also another question I know and it’s not related but then it’s part
of the BPQY.
Lucy Miller:
Yes.
(Vivienne Roddam): I’m having a struggle with requesting the BPQY and a lot of them – I
mean, the Social Security was telling them to mail it to the – to the
beneficiary. But we were requesting for – I mean, some of them was faxed to
us.
Lucy Miller:
Right. Right.
(Vivienne Roddam): (Inaudible). So it’s not – they’re not consistent.
Lucy Miller:
Well, and – we’ve seen a real breakdown in this since the demise of the WIPA
program because, you know, WIPA was funded by Social Security. And so,
over the years, I think a lot of offices realized that CWICs who work Social
Security WIPA projects were partners.
I mean, so there’s – you know, you might as well just fax the information
direction to the CWIC as long as the 3288s have been correctly signed and
submitted. But that’s really broken down. Now, that there is no formal WIPA
program, you know, community partners out there delivering this service are
struggling with getting the BPQYs and there are certain field offices that are
literally refusing to provide them.
You know, it’s very challenging. There are some options. The beneficiary
can request the BPQY themselves and Social Security must provide that to the
beneficiary. That’s required and cannot charge the beneficiary for that report.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 56
That can slow things down because beneficiaries often didn’t know how to
request a BPQY or they have to go to the field office and that takes time. But
that’s an option.
The other option, depending on what state your from, is – would be to work
collaboratively with your AWIC – the Area Work Incentive Coordinator –
because all of you who are doing benefits counseling, you’re helping Social
Security. And if they would cooperate and send you the BPQY after you’ve
submitted the appropriate releases, you’re helping them.
But sometimes you have to get your AWIC involved so that you have an
insider. And the system can them communicate with the field offices and say,
“Dude, come on. These are our buddies. We want to give them this
information. They are helping us.” Rather than being very stubborn and, you
know, obstructive. So I don’t…
(Vivienne Roddam): But they don’t even know who their – I’m sorry.
Lucy Miller:
Go ahead.
(Vivienne Roddam): But they don’t even know who their AWICs and then some of them
doesn’t…
Lucy Miller:
Well, you need to know who the AWIC is and for every state. And I
understand that in some states the AWIC is afforded a lot of power and the
field offices know what that person’s job is. I understand that in some states
that’s not the case. But you just got …
(Vivienne Roddam): And not only that…
Lucy Miller:
…(inaudible) away. Yes.
(Vivienne Roddam): And not only that, some, you know, reps (inaudible) if they know what’s a
BPQY but some of them doesn’t even know the BPQY.
Lucy Miller:
I know. The best answer you have for that is remember that the BPQY is
referenced in the red book. It’s in the red book.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 57
So anyone who goes to the field office to request a BPQY should take a copy
of the red book with them with that section circled because if you encounter a
Social Security employee who’s like, “We don’t have that.” It’s like, “Well,
you do. Here it is.”
And you can show him the red book and that’s their publication and they’ll
frown and look at it and say, “Let me get a supervisor.” The supervisor will
come over and show them their computer screen – every computer at Social
Security has an icon on the desktop for BPQY. And it’s a simple matter of
clicking on the icon and pulling open that report and entering the data.
So it’s not that they don’t have it; they just don’t know. And sometimes you
have to show them using their own materials what you’re talking about and
that’s a good strategy.
(Vivienne Roddam): OK.
Lucy Miller:
Great.
(Vivienne Roddam): Thank you.
Lucy Miller:
You’re welcome. Anyone else?
Operator:
Next in queue we have the line of (Lesley Wood) and her line is open.
Lucy Miller:
Hi, (Leslie).
(Leslie Wood):
Hi, Lucy. So I – we had a situation where – sorry. I – we had a situation
where I had a person who, in the last couple of years, had gotten on to a
childhood disability benefit because his father retired.
Lucy Miller:
Right.
(Leslie Wood):
And when that happened the Social Security claims rep told his family that he
didn’t ever have to report wages again. This is what the mom says. And so I
said, “Really?”
And it turns out that this young man has been working …
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 58
Lucy Miller:
No.
(Leslie Wood):
…consistently over like two or three different jobs.
Lucy Miller:
No.
(Leslie Wood):
And so I said, “Well, we’re going to have to report these wages and we’re
going to include to it 820 and 821.
Lucy Miller:
Yes, 82.
(Leslie Wood):
And so I called the Social Security office and that person had retired and so
the new person was there. I mean, she’s selling in from another area. She’s
coming from Anchorage down to where this person lives and said, “Oh, my
gosh,” you know, “I’m going to send 821 right away.” And so we did and
they got that all figured out. And so now she’s got all the information. She’s
making that determination because he might have his own SSDI check right
now. And …
Lucy Miller:
Yes.
(Leslie Wood):
…so I just – I didn’t quite know how to handle that but I just said, “I’m sure
she didn’t mean to lead you astray but,” you know, I mean – why – my
question to you is why would she do that?
Lucy Miller:
I know. It’s just ignorance. I mean, you know, it might have been an SSI
claims rep that you were talking to.
(Leslie Wood):
The person who told him the wrong…
Lucy Miller:
I’m sorry. My phone just kind of cut out there for a minute. What you may
have had was an SSI claims rep who knew nothing about the title two
program. That’s a little common where you’re talking to an expert in one of
the programs who knows nothing about the other program and if they know
nothing I wish they would just say, “Well, I really don’t know.”
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 59
They’re trying to be helpful and they provide the wrong information. And
there is nothing you could tell me that a beneficiary wasn’t told by a claims
rep that I wouldn’t believe. I mean, I’ve heard it all.
And there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s like, “Well, I’m sorry that she
told you that, you know. It’s not true and it’s never been true.” And there is
no – there’s no out for that.
Like Social Security is never at fault, you know. There’s nothing you can do
to get out of the overpayment because you were told that. And I know that
feels terribly unjust and it is unjust. But it is, I’m sorry to say, the way it is.
And if you’ve been provided benefits that you are entitled to, you owe then
back.
(Leslie Wood):
Yes. I mean, it’s possible. We caught it in time. It might still be in a trial
work period which…
Lucy Miller:
You might. You might. And you might be able to request a waiver. You
might be able to get some of the debt reduced, you know. But, yes. It’s an
ongoing problem. I know. I know.
(Leslie Wood):
Yes.
Lucy Miller:
So, sorry, I don’t have more encouraging words for you.
(Leslie Wood):
And that happened in the same office with another person who was an SSI
recipient and all of a sudden got a good job and was a non-paid status. And so
they said, “We don’t need your waivers status anymore, you’re an non-paid
status.” But his wages went down.
Lucy Miller:
Yes.
(Leslie Wood):
You know, it’s fluctuated over the few months and so…
Lucy Miller:
See, now, they owe him money. Yes. Yes. My goodness. See, no matter
what you do – I mean, it’s a complicated system.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 60
And, you know, beneficiaries really are kind of victims. They don’t
understand the rules and information is power in this system. What you don’t
know, it can hurt you in this system. And it’s – that why – you know, those of
you who are listening in, you’re so important.
You have so much capacity to make a difference in the financial stability of so
many people and their understanding of what happens when they go to work
and the SSI program – all that other stuff, you know, getting married; you
know, moving in with someone else, getting help with your groceries. All that
stuff can affect how much your SSI check is. And a little information can be
so powerful. And – so you’re doing good work. You know, it’s important
that you’re out there.
(Leslie Wood):
Well, I think what might have helped for that one guy is the DVR person who
involved should have gotten the benefits analysis much (inaudible)…
Lucy Miller:
Yes. And they do forget. You’re right, you know. Yes. Earlier is better.
Earlier is better. And you’re right.
A lot of people do not get referred for benefits counseling during the job
search phase of initially when the job is obtained. They wait until there is
scariness, until there is a problem. And by the time these problems have
occurred, we can’t fix them a lot of the time.
We can advise people about why the problem occurred. We can tell them
how to at least get the PASS work developed so we know how much is owed.
We can offer advice about how to deal with a massive overpayment. But once
it happened, you know, we don’t have a magic wand. There’s not much we
can do.
You’re right. Prevention, prevention, prevention. If they would just think to
refer earlier. You’re right. You’re right. The story of our lives, you know.
Yes. Great question.
(Leslie Wood):
Thanks.
Lucy Miller:
Anyone else?
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 61
Operator:
Yes, ma’am. We have the line of (Christian Bell) or (Christon Bell) and their
line is open.
Lucy Miller:
I think it’s (Clis). I think it’s (Clis Bell).
(Cliston Bell):
Yes, Lucy. Back to the BPQY.
Lucy Miller:
Yes.
(Cliston Bell):
Where the issues that I had. Finally to get those resolved, I actually took a
(inaudible) actual plain copy of a BPQY. And when I’ve sent in the request I
would fax that to them (inaudible).
Lucy Miller:
You know what? That is a really good idea, (Clis). That is a great idea. So
you just printed one off from the manual – from the BPQY manual like a
sample and you attached it to the 3288 and it’s like, “Dude, this is what I
want. Not a TPQY. I want this.” That’s awesome. That’s a great idea.
(Cliston Bell):
That’s the only we – that is the only way we got it. The one that they
understood what I needed when I sent it in.
Lucy Miller:
That’s hilarious. Well, I hope everyone listening, write that down. That never
occurred to me, (Clis). That is a great idea. Thank you for sharing that.
(Cliston Bell):
Thank you, Lucy.
Lucy Miller:
Anyone else? I’ll take one more call. We’re running over. I thought we’d get
done early. Wow.
Operator:
Once again, ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question over the phone, star one
on your telephone keypad. And, presenter, there is no one in queue at this
time.
Lucy Miller:
Awesome. Well, we ended up right – just a couple of minutes over. Thank
you so much for dialing in.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION
Moderator: Lucy Miller
09-20-12/1:00 p.m. ET
Confirmation # 28440544
Page 62
Please, please, please watch for an evaluation form. It’s very important to us
that you tell us what you like and don’t like about the training sessions that
you offer. So if you get an evaluation in your inbox – in your – in your e-mail
– please complete it and e-mail it back.
It’s always – and you could always let your tech liaison know – your
(assigned) tech liaison know if there’s other topics you want us to cover.
Thank you for your time and attention. I hope everybody have a wonderful
weekend. Bye-bye.
Operator:
And, ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference. You may now
disconnect.
END