The Social Security Administration is calling on private insurers that pay workers’ compensation as well as state and local agencies to report payments to the agency to help cut down on fraud and overpayments.

In a recent speech to the U.S. House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, Carolyn Colvin, deputy administrator for the SSA, explained that funding shortages are forcing tough decisions to be made. The administration is trying to streamline income reporting to cut back on how long it takes to catch overpayments for Social Security Disability Insurance and the Supplemental Security Income programs.

When the Social Security Administration waits for beneficiaries to report changes in their income, it can take too long and invites problems, Colvin said.

“By requiring plan administrators to provide payment information to us promptly, this proposal would improve the integrity of the [workers’ compensation] and [public disability benefit] reporting process, improve the accuracy of SSDI benefits and SSI payments, and lessen our reliance on the beneficiary to report this information,” she said.

The agency considers the goal of curbing improper payments to be key in the Social Security Administration’s strategic plan to “Preserve the Public’s Trust in Our Programs,” she told the subcommittee.

Funding issues are forcing the administration to do fewer continuing disability reviews and significantly fewer SSI redeterminations. The agency does SSI redeterminations on the nonmedical factors that make a beneficiary eligible for SSI. Since the agency has cut back on the number of reviews and redeterminations, it has needed to rely more on the strategic use of the processes and staff, she told the lawmakers.

By asking private insurers and state and local agencies to report income to the SSA, the reporting can trigger some reviews and increase the agency’s efficiency. In the past two years, the agency’s work to continue disability reviews has paid off. In about a third of the work, CDRs found that a disability had ceased and suspended benefits.

SSI redeterminations are up since 2007 after falling the five years before that. The numbers are up because funding increased for program integrity, she said. The increased funding has enabled the agency to improve SSI overpayment accuracy rates by almost four percent in three years.

Colvin asked members of the subcommittee to push for provisions in the President’s budget that would require employers to report wages quarterly. The more frequent the reporting, the easier it is for the agency to accurately distribute benefits, she said.