{ "item_title" : "Social Security", "item_author" : [" U. S. Government Accountability Office ( "], "item_description" : "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Social Security Administration's (SSA) process for obtaining information on deceased beneficiaries and terminating benefits payments, focusing on: (1) how long family members, states, and others take to report deaths to SSA; (2) the amount of time SSA takes to terminate payments once a death is reported; (3) whether delays in reporting and processing inhibit SSA from recovering erroneous payments made to deceased beneficiaries; and (4) opportunities to improve the timeliness of death information reported to SSA. GAO found that: (1) 90 percent of the reported deaths come from family members, friends, and funeral homes; (2) most beneficiary deaths are reported within 14 days and SSA terminates benefits within 2 days; (3) telephoned, rather than mailed, reporting of death speeds benefit termination; (4) 32 percent of erroneous payments result from state and Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) reporting delays; (5) a lack of uniform state reporting requirements causes delays and erroneous payments; (6) HCFA reported 80 percent of its death reports to SSA within 2 months; (7) SSA requires an additional 2 to 3 months to process and terminate benefits after SSA receives HCFA and state death reports; (8) SSA verification of death creates delays and additional costs in obtaining death certificates; (9) less than 1 percent of shared SSA and state information is inaccurate, but 13 percent of HCFA information contains inaccuracies; (10) inadequate procedures and state information restrictions result in limited data sharing regarding non-SSA deaths; (11) delays in HCFA and state death reporting prevent SSA and the Treasury Department from initiating timely erroneous death payment recoveries; (12) Treasury and SSA have lost $5.8 million due to recovery time limitations; and (13) SSA lacks access to state automated information systems and has initiated and paid for new accessible information sharing systems.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/28/909/188/1289091889_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "14.75", "online_price" : "14.75", "our_price" : "14.75", "club_price" : "14.75", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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