For many people out there, Social Security is all about a monthly payment. Moreover, to make sure it’s happening and that the benefits get delivered on time and in full amounts to all the millions of older American citizens who need them, including people with disabilities, the Social Security Administration works relentlessly.
However, over the course of history, the Social Security Administration (SSA) added a series of special services to help its customers (including you and me) deal with all those pressing medical, familial, and financial matters. Today, we are going to discuss all the things that are less known about the Social Security Administration and what they can do for you.
Expedited disability claims
It takes the Social Security Administration about four months on average to process all the claims for disability benefits. That’s just the initial application because, in reality, it can take many more months, even years, to completely appeal a claim that was initially denied.
Waits like that can be particularly hard for people with severe or worsening illnesses. That’s exactly why the Social Security Administration decided to create the Compassionate Allowances program, a list of over 250 serious medical conditions that, by definition, meet the needed Social Security standards for disability.
Moreover, applications for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) involve all the conditions that are instantly flagged for fast-tracking and can also be approved in a couple of days.
Representative payees
Truth be told, not all Social Security recipients are even able to properly manage their own benefit payments. Some suffer from cognitive disorders or even developmental disabilities, and some are small kids. In this situation, Social Security can appoint someone to serve as the beneficiary’s representative payee. What’s a representative payee? It’s basically an authority to receive another person’s benefits and also use them to meet the needed requirements, like food, shelter, and even health care.
It’s mainly a family member or a friend, but some organizations like nursing homes can easily fill the role. It’s a very serious job that needs a lot of diligence. Social Security holds all payees accountable depending on how much they spend on benefit funds, and they are prohibited from putting the money to their own use.
Help with Medicare drug costs
Extra Help, a well-known program administered by Social Security and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, can easily reduce prescription drug expenses for low-income Medicare beneficiaries by as much as $5,000 a year.
The help can be easily placed in the category of premiums, deductibles, and copays related to a Medicare drug plan. The program is fully open to residents of the 50 states, but also to residents of the District of Columbia who are currently enrolled in Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B.
Also, they need to have an income under the threshold of $19,320 for an individual and $26,130 for a married couple living together. There’s also a set of strict limits on financial assets, like savings, investments, and even property.
Translation and interpretation
Just like everyone else, people who don’t speak a lot of English might have to talk to the staff at Social Security about benefits or any other concerns they might have. To address this, Social Security offers free interpreter services to anyone who needs or shows a need for any kind of language assistance.
Languages that the agency can translate on a phone call or even an office visit also include Arabic, Armenian, Chinese, Farsi, French, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hmong, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. If you want to request an interpreter, call Social Security at 800-772-1213. SSA also offers written materials in many languages on its own website.
International Social Security Agreements
Plenty of Americans work in foreign countries, and many other foreign nationals work in the United States as well. People in any of these two situations could be subject to dual payroll taxation: having to pay into two countries’ retirement systems from the same wages. To minimize the risk, Social Security decided to negotiate agreements with 30 countries that have comparable programs for their retirees.
These pacts usually require workers to pay payroll taxes to only one country’s retirement system at a time. They also let workers covered by the agreements pool the credits they already earned from employment in more than just one country to make sure they qualify for retirement benefits in the country where they claim them.
Proof of income
Whether you want to apply for a loan or just for a government benefit such as food stamps or even housing assistance, you need to prove your income is high enough to make you a proper credit risk or even low enough to make you eligible for aid.
If that income also includes Social Security benefits, you can easily get the evidence you need (it only takes a matter of minutes) via the Social Security Administration’s online My Social Security service. With a Social Security account, you can easily customize, download, and even print a copy of your benefit verification letter, which also serves as proof of your Social Security income.
Moreover, you can use your account to review your earnings history, check the current or even future benefits, order a replacement Social Security or Medicare card, and access any other Social Security services.
Benefits of grandchildren
Almost 3 million children in the United States are raised by a grandparent or grandparents, as a recent study published in the September 2020 issue of “Pediatrics” shows. Most of them may even be eligible for Social Security benefits on the basis of such a relationship.
As a general rule, if you’re providing a minimum of half of a minor grandchild’s financial support and the natural parents are deceased, disabled, or simply unable to constantly contribute to that support, the child could collect survivor benefits when you retire, become disabled, or even pass away.
If you are already on Social Security when a grandchild comes into your care, you need to legally adopt the child for him and receive the benefits on your record.
Baby names are galore.
The Social Security Administration is there for all the new parents out there, especially if they can apply for their baby’s Social Security number before they even leave the hospital. It’s also a good idea to do so, as you only need the number to claim the child as a dependent on your next tax return and get him or her medical coverage, among a couple of other things.
Another delightful byproduct of this type of early involvement is that Social Security is the ideal go-to resource for all things baby. The SSA famously released an annual list of some of the most popular choices (2020, for example, was the year of Olivia and Liam, as was 2019), but its baby names index also allows you to search for top names depending on the year, decade, and state and see just how your own handle held up over time.
It’s definitely a treasure trove of ideas for naming your newborn and of cultural data for nomenclature nerds.
If you found this article useful, we also recommend checking out: Stay Fit and Active: Why a 15-Minute Exercise Routine Is Great for Seniors
