Social Security

Nearly all the information based on reports of death that the Social Security Administration (SSA) shares with other federal agencies is accurate. The accuracy of this information, which is provided to such agencies as the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Labor, is essential to prevent or identify millions of dollars in overpayments by federal agencies to deceased persons and to avoid the erroneous termination of benefits. Fewer than one percent of the nearly 350,000 recorded deaths GAO reviewed were inaccurate. SSA can make its information more useful by taking action in four areas: the handling of cases erroneously terminated, processing of rejected death reports, providing information on nonbeneficiaries, and using feedback based on agency investigations of deaths.

GAO found that: (1) most of the death file information SSA shares with other federal agencies is accurate; (2) less than 1 percent of the nearly 365,000 death files reviewed were inaccurate; (3) SSA needs to improve its handling of cases erroneously terminated, processing of rejected death reports, nonbeneficiaries' information processing, and use of feedback from other agency death investigations; (4) although SSA normally restores benefits to beneficiaries that are removed from the rolls because of inaccurate death reports, it does not always correct the inaccurate death file; (5) SSA can improve the accuracy of its death files by updating them when reports of death are found to be erroneous; (6) SSA death file information would be more complete if SSA improved its ability to correctly identify and record a greater number of rejected death reports; (7) other federal agencies using SSA death information for persons not receiving social security or supplemental security income benefits may be using incorrect information because SSA does not verify deaths for nonbeneficiaries; (8) feedback from agencies that independently verify SSA death reports could assist SSA in correcting the erroneous information in its death files; (9) although all agencies are required by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to provide SSA with death information, the reporting instructions do not clearly indicate the types of information required or how frequently the agencies should provide this information; and (10) SSA systems are not capable of processing death information from other agencies.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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