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The Social Security official in Tucson who evaluates representative payee applications is Haydee Enriquez de Garcia, according to Preston, nursing home officials and documentation involving rep payees with Enriquez de Garcia’s name on it. A new law is empowering advocacy firms like the Arizona Center for Disability Law to provide greater scrutiny of the representative payee program, said J.J. Rico said he was unaware of the concerns about payee denials in Tucson, but he said the program is vulnerable to abuse. In response to the Star’s questions, Raymond initially provided, via email, only a generic explanation of how the representative payee program works.
Project H.O.M.E. is not a licensed fiduciary — representative payees aren’t required to be — but its finances are audited every three years by an independent auditor, through the Social Security Administration. Nursing homes create trusts for patients’ finances and those trusts are audited annually by the managed-care companies that administer Medicaid benefits, called AHCCCS in Arizona, to elderly or disabled people covered by the Arizona Long-Term Care System, Preston said. The facilities must also maintain detailed monthly records that are subject to audit, in addition to oversight from the Social Security Administration, she said.
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We strive to create a safe and respectful environment where we support each other in our struggles for self-esteem, recovery, and the confidence to move toward self-actualization. OIG spokesman Andrew Cannarsa said he “cannot confirm or deny” whether the office is looking into the practices in the Tucson office. Cannarsa did say concerned Social Security beneficiaries or their family can file a complaint with the Office of Inspector General .
Project AMOR works with the Department of Child Safety and the Division of Developmental Disabilities and supports families with children in care including children with special needs. Reached by phone, Enriquez de Garcia would not comment, referring the Star to Social Security’s regional public affairs office. Regional communications director Patricia Raymond would not allow the Star to interview anyone about the rationale for the denials. The mission of the Project HOME community is to empower adults, children, and families to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty, to alleviate the underlying causes of poverty, and to enable all of us to attain our fullest potential as individuals and as members of the broader society.
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If a beneficiary with a representative payee suspects payee fraud or misuse, the beneficiary or someone close to the beneficiary can submit an allegation to the Social Security Administration's Office of the Inspector General at oig.ssa.gov/report. The Pima Council on Aging’s long-term care ombudsman Kathleen Kuczynski said her oversight only covers issues related to elderly patients’ quality of care, not the payee issue. For about the past five years, Phoenix-based benefits consultant Jill Preston has been noticing something odd happening to her Tucson clients, in the course of her work helping elderly people and their families navigate a confusing web of medical benefits options. Project AMOR is a nonprofit 5013 Social Service agency based in Tucson, Arizona and it's primary focus is to support families within Pima County.
We asked Star reporters to share some of their experiences trying to keep the 'public' in public records. Project H.O.M.E. was founded in 1992 initially with a focus on helping people with mental illness handle their benefits by acting as an intermediary with government agencies, Star archives said. A judge granted the injunction against harassment, based on 16 tweets by the journalist, who is appealing.
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But she said families affected by this should contact the nonprofit Arizona Center for Disability Law. The public interest law firm is part of the nationwide “protection and advocacy” system that provides free legal services to people with disabilities. Nursing home leaders with locations outside Tucson say they haven’t had a problem getting their rep payee applications approved elsewhere in the state. Social Security Administration officials gave the Arizona Daily Star no explanation for the denials, which result in affected beneficiaries losing more than one-third of their $112.50 monthly living allowance to a private company. YP - The Real Yellow PagesSM - helps you find the right local businesses to meet your specific needs. Search results are sorted by a combination of factors to give you a set of choices in response to your search criteria.
Keaton told Jimmy Kimmel this week that "Tucson is underappreciated" but she doesn't plan to live in the home, instead hoping to find a buyer. The fund will allow the community to pool resources to rapidly meet urgent needs following disasters, said foundation head Clint Mabie. Owners of pre-1976 mobile homes must now provide proof that the trailers have been brought up to safety standards before installing or relocating them. You could almost feel her presence, her commitment to the community, her dedication to improving the lives of others.
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“Preferred” listings, or those with featured website buttons, indicate YP advertisers who directly provide information about their businesses to help consumers make more informed buying decisions. YP advertisers receive higher placement in the default ordering of search results and may appear in sponsored listings on the top, side, or bottom of the search results page. SSSA provides payee services to disabled and retired individuals receiving Social Security benefits. Our program offers monthly bill paying along with the administration of benefits, all for only $44.00 per month. A representative payee is a person or organization appointed by Social Security to receive and manage a beneficiary's disability or Supplemental Security Income payments when the beneficiary cannot do so on their own. A payee’s main duties are to use the benefits to pay for the current and future needs of the beneficiary.
Preston noticed Tucson’s Social Security office, unlike its counterpart in Phoenix, routinely denies applications from nursing homes to act as a rep payee. Instead, with no input from the low-income beneficiary, those cases were assigned to a private representative payee company that charges a fee for the same service the nursing home would provide for free, Preston said. Private companies who act as representative payees are allowed to take a fee for their services. Nursing home officials say the Tucson Social Security office usually refers beneficiaries to one particular rep payee, the nonprofit Project H.O.M.E. It charges $42 per month for the services, the amount allowable under Social Security rules. While some nursing home officials say the private companies do a perfectly fine job as rep payee, they’re confounded by the Tucson Social Security office’s denials of nursing homes’ applications to do the work for free.
The newly passed legislation, HR 4547, authorizes protection and advocacy systems to investigate representative payees, either at the behest of Social Security or after getting a complaint from the public, Rico said. But when a nursing home is willing to be rep payee, Preston said there’s no clear reason why a private company would be the preferred choice, instead of nursing homes that get equal, if not greater, financial scrutiny. A payee must keep records of expenses and upon request, provide an accounting to Social Security of how he or she used or saved the benefits.
After repeated inquiries, Raymond said the agency is looking into the Tucson office’s practices. Rodriguez noted Project H.O.M.E. rep payee applications are sometimes denied when another party steps up to handle a beneficiaries’ finances, but she said she can’t comment on Social Security’s decisions on other applications. Raymond said, without a formal Freedom of Information Act request, the agency would not disclose how many rep payee applications are handled in Tucson and statewide, nor the proportion of applications that are denied for each area.
Social Security Services of Arizona was established in 2005 as a community-based nonprofit organization. Providing education programs tailored to help residents of the community, both children and adults. Our programs offer permanent, subsidized housing for individuals and families who had been homeless.
