Ticket Payment Process for Prospective & Existing Employment Networks

July 11, 2008

Ticket Payment Process for Prospective & Existing Employment Networks

Webinar Transcript

Welcome, I’m Ray on faculty at Cornell. I’m going to serve as your host and moderator today and I’m here today with Jeff Trondson and Shelia who is serving as technical backup, if you have problems with the phone or internet. Today’s webinar is going to be discussing the EN payment basics of the new Ticket to Work program. We have a large group today, we’re encouraging questions. However, it’s really likely we’re not going to be able to respond to every question. We have one question and answer period during the webinar. If there’s time we will take a few more questions. Know we’ll be logging all of the questions and sending them to the presenters.

You will receive an email from Shelia with the questions and answers along with other documents, including today’s PowerPoint presentation.

Could I have the next slide, please Sallie? Thank you. During today’s webinar you will be able to post your question. What you need to do when you want to post a question is click on the arrow next to question and answer. It will open the question and answer box, you can type your question and hit send. That question will then appear on our screen. We will be able to log them. We’ll pick a few during the session to answer.

Next slide, Sallie. All you need to do to sign-out is click on the little X in the right-hand side. That being the technical information, I will now turn it over to the capable hands of Ken McGill. Ken, take it away.

Thanks a lot. I’m Ken McGill. I’m a consultant. We’re working with Social Security on getting the new Ticket to Work launched, we’re in an exciting time. I would like to say welcome to all of you who are existing employment networks and those that are thinking about becoming Employment Networks with us. Today we will talk about the payment process. We’re looking at some data recently. We know that social security right now as we speak is over $400,000 a day in Employment Networks. We can do better though. That’s what we’re about today is to talk with those of you in our system about how to get paid, the processes we’re setting up, we’re excited to get started with all of this. I’m going to introduce my two compatriots here from Baltimore. First is Nathan, and then we also have Felix. I’m going to turn it over to those capable folks, Nate.

Thanks, this is Nate, Ken introduced me as Nathan, I only get called that when I’m in trouble, generally with somebody at home. Thank you all for taking part of your Friday afternoon to be part of the webinar. EN payments are something I consider to be exciting and important. I know it’s not the biggest thing on everybody’s plate on a Friday in the summer. Hopefully we’ll answer some of your questions today, or give you information to raise some more. You will see we’re ready for the start of the new ticket program. Today’s webinar is a two part presentation. For those of you out there who have not yet signed on to EN and those who are just getting started, part one is a general overview of the EN payment process. The second part we’ll go over some of the more small situations. There will be a question and answer session at the end of each part of the presentation today.

ENs qualify after ticket assignment. The first big decision occurs before their first ticket is assigned. The EN submits their application to SSA. These two systems are the milestone outcome system and the outcome only system. Under the milestone outcome system ENs receive payments based on ticket holder benefits, as well as after their benefits stop. As the name implies ENs can be paid after a ticket holder benefit’s have stopped due to worker earnings.

The total dollars available under the two systems are comparable. Selecting a payment system an EN should look at how likely their clients are to achieve SGA level earnings and how likely they are to get outcome status.

If beneficiaries want to work part-time or are unlikely or unable to return to full-time you should select the milestone system. However, the majority of your ticket holders are likely to attain and sustain full-time you want the outcome only system. A ticket holder’s receipt of services from a state vocational agency, it can reduce the ability of phase one milestone. These factors may make the choice of payment system less obvious. It’s important to remember that whichever you choose it determines how all of your ticket payments will be made. You don’t have to stick with the same system forever. If you change your business model you can change your election once each calendar year. If you do change your payment system it’s important to remember it affects only tickets assigned after the change is effective.

Slide 7 is a comparison of the payment available – payments available. That was a subliminal image of mine to get you thinking nice thoughts. Now I would like to talk more about each of the payments. You may want to refer to the payment overview that was sent out with the handouts. Looking first at the milestone outcome system, remember that milestones are paid only for earnings while the ticket holder is still receiving benefits. As you can see there are four milestone payments that are possible in phase one. They’re intended to recognize a ticket holder’s initial effort of returning to work, and are based on trial work level earnings. Milestones must be paid in sequence. All available phase one milestones must be paid before moving on to phase two, even if the earnings are actually over SGA levels. Milestone one is once the beneficiary has earned at least 50% of the trial work level in one month. Second milestone is once the beneficiary has worked three months within a six month period. Third milestone is once six months in a 12 month period, and the fourth, nine months within 18 months. To receive milestone four ENs must certify that they have completed the services agreed to in the IWP or IPE. In total, there are $4,708 dollars payable for stage one milestone.

Mentioned before not all ticket holders are eligible for all phase one milestones. Ticket holders that receive services from a state vocational agency and whose cases were closed with an employment outcome are not eligible for phase one milestones. Since phase one milestones are to intended to compensate ENs for their roles, some or all of the phase one milestones are also considered unavailable if the ticket holder had the required earnings in the 18 months immediately prior to ticket assignment. Both of these exclusions will be discussed in part two today. It’s important for planning purposes to remember that not all ticket holders are eligible for all phase one payments.

The ticket holder is still receiving disability benefits after the last available phase one milestone is paid they move on to phase two. Unlike phase one, phase two require gross earnings at the SGA level or above. ENs can receive a maximum of 18 SSA payments in phase two. That’s another not so subliminal thought. As with phase one, not all phase two milestones are guaranteed. Once a ticket holder’s benefits are stopped they enter their outcome period. However, the ultimate goal is to obtain self-sufficient employment one of our goals in crafting the new program was to stop penalized ENs who are successful in getting ticket holder toss outcome status quickly. The new regulations provide for a reconciliation payment of any unpaid available milestone after the 12th outcome is achieved.

Once a ticket holder is in outcome status as long as their earnings remain at the SGA level ENs can receive up to 36 SSI outcome payments.

Phase two milestones are payment to ENs. ENs who are operating under the outcome only system are also eligible for 36 or 60 outcome payments. Or $2,620 per se.

Now that I have focused on that ticket pot of gold I will have Felix walk you through the EN payment process.

Thank you, very much. Hello, everybody. What I’ll do, Nate just went over the structure for the new ticket, I will talk about the actual process for requesting these dollars you will be receiving.

There are two ways that you can request a Ticket to Work payment, one time payment request is the EPR. You will be submit be actual primary evidence of earning. The other way is to request a certification payment request. That’s when earning statements might not be available.

For evidentiary process what you want to do is wait until the end of one month, or one quarter, or any other period of time that you think is appropriate. Any kind of payment period that you would like. The close of that payment period and submit two things – the first would be the payment request form, and the second is the ticket holder’s primary evidence of those earnings. This payment request form is available on the website. The combined form, or to help streamline the process, do complete different sections of the form based on the type of payment that you are making. There are instructions on the form; if you have questions you can contact your representative. You send in this payment request form. What does that mean? There are main types of primary evidence that you can use. The first are pay stubs, that’s the preferred evidence based on the fact that it has the information that we need to process that request. Everything we might want to know is on that stub. If you have copies of stubs you can fax them or mail them with the payment request form. You can send in an earning’s statement that is prepared and signed by the employer. It needs to have the same information that would be on the pay stub.

If you don’t have either the stubs or the statement from the employment you can use a record from a third party source that gives you a monthly breakdown. Information from the work number, for example, which is a third party service. You will find more information on that at theworknumber.com.

Also note that all payment requests for self-employed ticket holders must be submitted. If you have submitted this request, on the form you will be telling us who you are, the details of your network, who the beneficiary is, their name and social security number, which claim months that you are requesting for and what the evidence is that you are sending, and then attach that evidence to the form.

Primary evidence of earnings is not available the EN can make a certification payment request. You are sending in two pieces, the payment request form and the source of your secondary evidence. Types of secondary evidence are four things; the first is a recent dated contact that is where you had a conversation with the ticket holder, or employer. That conversation or email exchange must happen after the period for which you are requesting payment. You will indicate that on the form. You can also submit a response that you received form Maximus. That we’ll go over in a bit. If you have access to the National Directory of New Hires, the UI data, you can submit that. Or if you are dealing with a self-employed individual we have available a self-employment income form where you and the ticket holder together will complete a quarterly statement of their revenue and expenses.

The earnings inquiry request is a process where the EN is requesting earnings information that might be available to them prior to the request. You will receive a written response from Maximus indicating whether or not the beneficiary is working, or has earnings over three times SGA for a given calendar quarter. Note this is not monthly information, this is quarterly. Also, generally the last two years of information is available, what we do here is check the database is made available to us by social security. If you see earnings over three times over SGA for a quarter we send you back a written response indicating such. You submit this to our website, you will tell us who you are, give us just the social security number of the ticket holders that you are interested in and the date of ticket assignment to your organization. You can also download the EIR form. It’s a basic Word document. You can email it back or fax the form to us.

This slide gives you a screen shot of what that EIR page on your Ticket to Work looks like. This form helps us to protect the privacy of this individual.

There’s some restrictions on the EIR process. Only written requests will be accepted, we won’t be able to take the requests over the phone. If you are emailing your submission that email will come from the signatoryauthority or the primary contact, some authorized person at your EN. Earnings are generally available not right away, it takes time for that information to filter through. If you are making a request right now in the middle of July for some information, the most recent data we can give you maybe 5 to 8 months old, depending on the close of the quarter. It’s not necessarily realtime information. Also, information is not available for time periods before or after a ticket was assigned to your Employment Networks. And earnings are not available generally for the self-employed or employees of the federal government. Around 70% of employees will show up in these databases. Not all of your individuals will be able to have information on this system.

Those options are the evidentiary request process, or certification. You can use either type. You might be better off submitting an evidentiary request. If they’re submitting pay stubs, or if you have a relationship with that employer. You send in the primary evidence. You can send in anytime. Certification you can use when you cannot get that information. You have lost track with that individualism you can submit the EIR response. Or you maintain contact but they find it easier to submit it this way. In this case you will submit either a record of that contact, the EIR response, or the self-employment income form.

This is not a reality yet, this is just coming, and it’s the auto pay option. Once nine months has passed since the ticket assignment. When you reach the fourth milestone you have to submit a payment request, but also a certification of services provided. Once that point is reached the EN will have the option of putting the individual tickets on auto pay. Once that individual is on auto pay you don’t have to submit any further evidence or forms. They will be paid when we see information pop up in the system. When we see earnings information that is in the SSA system we will trigger a payment. They’re going to work for a year at zero cash benefit, outcomes 13 and then are paid to you immediately following that month.

In order to help you keep track of this payment activity we have tools. First is the payment status report. This monthly status report includes all of your payment activity, the requests that you made and the status of the requests, whether or not they’ve been paid or they’re pending. They’re available on the 15th of each month. They reflect the activity for the previous month and year to date information. These reports are available printed or in an electronic format. If you choose to receive the report electronically you will get more timely information, sometimes more often than once a month.

It includes the date of each payment request received by Maximus, the beneficiary’s name, the payment option, the dollar amount that is paid and the claim month and status. If you are not receiving this report you need to send in a request form that’s available at your Ticket to Work site. You fill out the form, sign it, tell us who you want it to go to, we’ll start putting those out as soon as possible.

Other service is the EN help desk. This is a social security service to assist ENs. We process all payment requests. Once Maximus sends it to SSA a lot of times we don’t have the status of the payment after it has go to SSA. If it’s been 30 days since Maximus has sent that request to SSA you will know that based on the payment status report. You can send an email or fax us here, include the beneficiary’s social security number, what payment request you are referring to and the date that is was submitted, they will get back to you with the exact status. If you would like to, you can communicate with your representative at Maximus. We can help you as well.

As you begin to see these deposits show up sometimes it might be difficult to determine which ticket holder these payments are for. The best tool to use to track that activity is the paid system, which is a service of the Department of Treasury. It provides federal agencies information available to their vendors through the internet. Those vendors are you.