Do Social Services Give A Letter For Guardainship

I want to update you about how things are going at the Social Security Administration.

Almost a year ago, I took the unprecedented step to close our offices to the public. I did this to keep our employees and you—the public nosotros serve—safe.  As we enter year ii of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines and other precautionary measures give us cause for hope. For now, we will keep our current safety measures as described in our COVID-xix Workplace Safety Programme. This plan is iterative, and we will update it as we receive additional government-wide guidance and information from public health experts in the Centers for Disease Command and Prevention.

Similar many businesses and organizations, the pandemic has forced us to suit. I want to thank our employees for their willingness to embrace innovative ways of working while we continue to deliver our mission. As we examine our work in a new light, we are asking which lessons learned could ameliorate service beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

We empathise that the public wants to engage with us on some matters in person, and our local offices are integral to our communities. We also know that not everyone tin conveniently come up to us in person and that when y'all do visit, you want the process to exist efficient. For instance, we may need show from you, but we do not need to interview yous in person. We are currently testing drop box and limited appointment options for the public to bring in documentation.

Often, you only need to know your Social Security number and do not need a physical Social Security card. Notwithstanding, if you do need to replace your card, we are testing video appointments if you demand a new Social Security bill of fare just do not need to modify whatever of the information in our records. Although ideas like these began as solutions during COVID-xix, we are considering how they could ameliorate service in the time to come.

Some of these concepts also allow us to consider how nosotros might go on to use telework, something that most organizations and companies accept depended on during the COVID-nineteen pandemic, to drive longer-term operational efficiencies like reducing space. We could employ those savings to provide y'all more online service options and hire more people to serve you more than quickly as well every bit to retain outstanding employees. We will continue to engage our managers, employees, and unions on ways we could use telework to better customer service and other issues.

We often note that Social Security touches the lives of nearly every American. Exist bodacious that every bit we continue to evolve, we are committed to serving anybody including our most vulnerable populations who often require in person aid. We are working with the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, claimant advocates, and other organizations to ensure our services are accessible to people with depression income, limited English proficiency, mental disease, or facing homelessness. We recently added online tools and information pages to our website including:

• Online resources for People Helping Others access our services.
• Online Outreach Materials for Partner Groups.
• Updated information for Religion-Based and Community Groups including a new toolkit.

As we contemplate the future, we are delivering now. To aid improve deteriorating service, nosotros accept added over 6,000 frontline employees to help yous. We decreased the average expect to talk to our 800 Number agents by 1-3rd and reduced the agent busy rate by over fifty percent in the last two years, and our 800 Number agents handled 1.6 million more calls than they did a year ago.

During the pandemic, nosotros shifted service to the telephone where local part employees answered 13 1000000 more calls last yr than they did in financial (FY) 2019. They answered your calls in under three minutes on boilerplate compared to an average wait of near 24 minutes in FY 2019.

For individuals who were denied benefits and requested an entreatment, nosotros quickly shifted to holding hearings past telephone at the start of the pandemic and then added online video hearings. During the pandemic, we have continued to reduce the number of people waiting for a hearing to 376,000 at the finish of February 2021, the lowest level in nearly 20 years. We reduced the average wait for a hearing past over nine months in the final two years. If yous are still waiting for a hearing, please consider scheduling by telephone or video. Yous can find out more than data about phone hearings and video hearings.

The pandemic has significantly disrupted parts of our disability process, especially at the country Disability Determination Services (DDS) that make disability determinations for us. We have provided the DDSs with additional hiring and overtime to help accost a significant increase in pending initial inability cases. The DDSs take been able to reduce the number of people waiting for a determination on initial inability claims by nearly 100,000 cases since the meridian of the pending cases in August 2020. In gild to make initial disability decisions as rapidly as possible, and to reduce the burden on the medical customs however stressed from the pandemic, we have focused our limited resources on completing initial requests for disability benefits and take reduced the number of standing disability reviews we are conducting.

We have made some notable improvements to our online services:

• Our redesigned Retirement Benefits Portal helps you set and utilize for retirement benefits, with clearer, simplified information.
• Nosotros improved our registration process for our online my Social Security account – more than than i million people will register for an account this month.
• Our Bulletin Center allows people with a my Social Security business relationship to access notices online instead of past mail.
• We implemented an online payment option for people to repay debts to Social Security.
• We expanded our online Social Security card replacement service to almost all states. If you demand to replace your card, y'all can request a replacement through your my Social Security account if you:
  • Are a U.South. denizen age 18 years or older with a U.South. mailing address;
  • Are not requesting a name change or whatever other change to your card; and
  • Take a driver's license or a state-issued identification card from 1 of 45 participating states or the Commune of Columbia. If your state does not yet participate in this service, check back soon. More states are added regularly.

The unabridged team at Social Security is working hard to serve you lot. We thank you lot for your patience during the COVID-xix pandemic and we look forrad to welcoming you dorsum in our offices when it is safe to do so. Nosotros also look frontward to continuing to meliorate all of our service channels to provide you with convenient options to do business with us.

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Tags: COVID-19, my Social Security, social security, SSI

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Do Social Services Give A Letter For Guardainship,

Source: https://blog.ssa.gov/letter-to-the-public-on-service/

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