Safeguards for SSI Clients
House passes safeguards for some SSI clients with severe mental illness
Mental Health Weekly July 15, 2002
The U.S. House of Representatives last month took action designed to protect
federal disability beneficiaries from unscrupulous actions taken by
representative payees who are appointed to receive and process their monthly
checks.
The House adopted legislation (H.R. 4070) that would make it easier for
recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability
Insurance (SSDI) to recover their cash benefits in cases of theft or fraud
committed by a representative payee. At present there is no companion
legislation to H.R. 4070 in the Senate, according to a news alert from the
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI).
Disability beneficiaries with mental impairments, including severe and
persistent mental illness, usually have a family member or a community-based
organization such as a community mental health center or for-profit company
serve as their representative payee.
According to the NAMI statement, “several high-profile cases of theft and fraud”
committed by these institutional payees in recent years have spurred the House’s
interest in legislation.
Other elements of the House bill would require non-governmental organizations
serving as representative payees to be bonded and licensed, and would impose
harsh civil penalties for payees’ misuse of benefits.
The bill also includes provisions designed to combat actions by disability
beneficiaries who knowingly withhold information on changes in earnings or
employment status in order to protect their benefits. But at the request of NAMI
and other groups, the House included language requiring the Social Security
Administration to speed up its processing of beneficiaries’ earnings reports.
NAMI contends that many SSI and SSDI recipients are assessed overpayments
because federal officials do not process their good-faith earnings reports in a
timely fashion. Sometimes it takes months or years for those reports to be
processed, according to the NAMI statement.
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Save these dates!
September 10 - 13, 2002
NYAPRS 20th Annual Conference Celebration
'Now More Than Ever: Hope, Healing and Recovery'
at the Nevele Grande Resort, Ellenville New York
contact: Mary McLaughlin, NYAPRS
1 Columbia Place Albany, NY 12207
(518) 436-0008; fax: (518) 436-0044
