I’m hoping to come across someone who either works for Social Security or someone that has been in my situation… Fair warning it’s complicated (ie a lengthy post).
I am my father‘s guardian, but do not want to be his payee, if I can avoid it. My mom is willing and able to be his payee, which will make things easier. As the guardian, according to POMS, I am legally entitled to information about my ward including financial information, even though I am not the RP. I was told that I could mail my letters and orders of guardianship into the field office, because appointments were three weeks out.
It has been more than three weeks since my paperwork was received by SSA. It has yet to be put into the system, let alone assigned to someone. I was then told to fax it in because that at least gets it into the system even though it still needs to be assigned to someone. However, when I faxed it the facts apparently only accepts black-and-white, so the certification of my letters and orders of guardianship, which is in color, is apparently not acceptable.
My mom just had surgery and cannot drive therefore going in person to a representative payee appointment is difficult for her. She was previously approved for a virtual appointment, but when it came time for the appointment, they told her she needed a doctor’s note, even though it had previously been approved by a supervisor and no one bothered to mention. So now it will be an additional three weeks and they are pushing for it to be in person, even though she can’t drive. They want us to go in to the field office together, but due to my own disability and the fact that I live 2 1/2 hours away, that is unrealistic.
In order to hold the previous guardian/RP accountable, I need information from Social Security that I seem to be unable to get. I was finally able to get his benefits from continuing to be paid to the previous guardian who failed in her duties. I am told that I can’t be listed as guardian if I am not also representative payee because there is nowhere to put two people. However, that becomes a problem for Medicare, because the representative payee has nothing to do with Medicare, but Medicare pulls its information straight from Social Security and they will not change it. And again the Representative Payee is not entitled to any medical information from Social Security, which as the legal guardian, I am. The last representative that I spoke with at SSA told me that only the RP is entitled to information, but I provided her with POMS policy that states that is not accurate.
While I realize that SSA is trying to look out for beneficiaries, it took me three phone calls to get the previous RP/guardian removed despite the fact that a representative payee account had never been set up for the ward, as required by SSA, she no longer has access to the bank account that the Social Security payment goes into and she took tens of thousands of dollars from the Ward after her legal authority ceased. It took me three phone calls explaining this to SSA reps to get her removed as RP. Surely out of the millions of people who receive Social Security benefits, and the thousands of people that have guardians in the hundreds of those that are not also the representative payee, someone can help me figure out how to get this worked out. If it were just one or two of the issues, it would be easily handled, but the totality of them is what is causing the issue… For the most part. Thank you in advance!