What's A Poor Claimant To Do?

     The New Republic has an article up on the problems faced by Social Security claimants who are declared overpaid. The statutes, regulations and policies are complicated. Very few lawyers understand them and lay people never do. If you're declared overpaid, untnil you do something your monthly checks stop immediately. The system is undeniably harsh. Social Security is difficult to contact. Many of the agency's employees don't understand overpayments themselves. It can be well nigh impossible to get an explanation for a declared overpayment. Claimants can't afford lawyers. Even most Social Security attorneys have only a limited understanding of all the ways that alleged overpayments can happen and what can be done about them because they are so few cases where claimants can pay a fee. There's too many of the cases for the private bar to handle them pro bono. It would be best if legal services had the resources to handle all of the cases but they don't. A second best way of handling the problem would be if the cases could be made fee generating for attorneys in private practice but I don't see that happening.

     Think an attorney can't make a difference? I've had two cases in my career which started off with my client facing a large overpayment but which ended with my client receiving a large underpayment. Yes, they really do make mistakes that bad. The agency makes plenty of mistakes in declaring and computing overpayments. Even when the overpayment is real, there's always waiver for the claimant, waiver for dependents who received benefits, partial waiver, payment plans, lump sum payment offers, etc.