Agencies not working together to quell improper payments

The Social Security Administration needs to work with other federal agencies and state government and share data to make sure Social Security payments are made properly, Office of Federal Financial Management Controller Daniel Werfel told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee May 8.

Werfel said an example of how agencies can work together is on curbing Supplemental Security Income payments to those people living overseas.

SSI recipients are ineligible when outside the country for more than 30 days.

SSA and the Homeland Security Department should develop a process so that SSA could access DHS-collected travel data on individuals who enter and leave the United States, O'Carroll said. As of April 2013, SSA was pursuing access to this data and developing a database matching agreement, he said.

There has been some success in lower improper payments, though. In fiscal 2012, SSA investigators recovered $96.5 million in SSA restitution and projected $398.5 million in savings from programs such as the Cooperative Disability Investigations initiative, which works with state agencies to detect potential fraud and reduces the number of fraudulent disability payments, O'Carroll said.

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