January 8, 2016

Representative Payee – What you need to know

The appointment of a representative payee is a process that is managed by the Social Security Administration and is governed by the laws of the federal government. The representative payee provides financial management of the Social Security Retirement, Social Security Disability, and/or the Social Security Supplemental Income payments for individuals who are incapable of managing their benefits.

  1. The Social Security Administration requires an application to be completed in order to appoint a representative payee. The application form is called an SSA-11 application and is completed by either the individual themselves, a concerned family or friend, or an outside agency (such as Adult Protective Services).
  2. As a policy, we do not complete this form for an individual unless we have been appointed guardian and/or conservator, which then requires us to complete the SSA-11 so that we may manage the financials or those individuals.
  3. We are required to complete an annual report, called an Annual Payee Report, which will inform the Social Security Administration of how the finances we distributed and handled during that year.
  4. Since we are an organized representative payee program we are subjected to annual audits to ensure that our activities are within the requirements of the Social Security Administration.
  5. An individual can request a Representative Payee be appointed to manage their benefits by going directly to the Social Security Administration office.
  6. There are times that an individual already has a payee whom they believe is mishandling or abusing their income, in this case the individual can request that another payee be appointed by going directly to the Social Security Administration office.
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