BASIC (01-02)

A. Policy

SSA has prescribed responsibilities for ensuring SVB is paid accurately and when due and must make every reasonable effort to obtain evidence/information needed to make a determination of entitlement. Beneficiaries and representative payees are responsible for providing information and evidence to SSA to assist in making determinations. Failure to do so may result in the suspension of SVB payments.

1. Recipient/Payee Responsibilities

Legally competent recipients, or their representative payees, are responsible for:

• reporting changes that may affect SVB qualification, entitlement or benefit amount;

• providing evidence and/or information, as requested, to support continuing SVB qualification, entitlement and benefit amount; and

• cooperating with and assisting SSA in obtaining evidence and/or information affecting SVB qualification, entitlement or benefit amount.

2. SSA Responsibilities

SSA is responsible for:

• offering and providing assistance as needed to comply with SSA's requests;

• providing initial written requests for evidence/information that give the addressee a reasonable amount of time to comply;

• making follow-up attempts to obtain the evidence/information requested; and

• documenting the efforts taken (and results) to assist and obtain the requested evidence/information.

B. Process

Benefit suspensions for failure to provide information are manually input (N20).

REMINDER: The Goldberg/Kelly cutoff procedures outlined in SI 02301.301 apply when a record is changing from C01 to N20 status; however, Notices of Planned Action are not systems-generated in SVB cases. Manual notices must be prepared and the systems-generated due process date (DPD) must be adjusted accordingly in SVB claims.

Do not suspend benefits N20 when:

• the recipient's (or payee's) whereabouts are unknown;

• a representative payee is no longer willing or able to serve as the individual's payee;

• the individual requests more time to comply with SSA's request; or

• an individual fails to provide information for a past period, but provides sufficient information to establish current entitlement and/or benefit amount, i.e., an unconfirmed period of eligibility (N05) as discussed in SI 02301.220B.