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Happy Holidays from the Maryland Benefits Counseling Network!

Dec 22, 2020

It’s been quite the year but all of us here at the Maryland Benefits Counseling Network (MDBCN) wish you and yours the very happiest of holiday breaks. The new year promises still a few challenges but as we look forward to the next twelve months and beyond there is...

Social Security Standardizes the Benefits Verification Letter

Dec 9, 2020

Social Security recently announced through their own blog the arrival of a standardized Benefits Verification letter. This has always been the simplest way of verifying your eligibility for benefits and the income you are receiving. The new and improved format will...

Medicare Costs for 2021 Are Out and Up

Nov 25, 2020

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently published the new 2021 figures for Medicare costs. As has been the norm in recent years there have been increases across the board. While for most recipients there's still no premium for Part A, deductibles...

Social Security Announces 2021 COLAs

Oct 15, 2020

The Social Security Administration has just announced the 2021 Cost Of Living Adjustments (COLA) for Social Security and SSI recipients. Across the board there will be a 1.3% increase in income. This means that for SSI recipients the individual monthly maximum income...

Still Waiting on Your Stimulus Check? IRS Looks to TAS to Get That to You

Aug 21, 2020

It was as long ago as the end of March that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was tasked with the admittedly monumental challenge of distributing Economic Impact Payments (EIP), more commonly known as the stimulus payments, to all eligible adults and their dependent...

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Oscillate Wildly: Changes to SSDI Overpayment Recovery Rates

It may have escaped your attention, as it did this writer’s, that on August 29 this year Social Security issued Emergency Message 25029 REV. Emergency Messages are the agency’s method of notifying every office of the new protocols to follow. This one’s purpose is to...

Tapping In: Maryland’s Assistive Technology Financial Loan Program

To judge from the figures presented in the 2024 review of Maryland Department of Disabilities’ Technical Assistance Program (MDTAP) there’s not much knowledge within the state of the program itself or any of its projects. MDTAP has provided the Assistive Technology...

Listen Up: Maryland DDA’s Low Intensity Support Services Program Accepting Applications

Maryland’s Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA) has long understood the need to provide funding to children and adults in the community in order that they might lead happier and more fully integrated lives in the community. What was once called Rolling...

Social Security Turns 90!

To commemorate this landmark birthday, we've re-published the open letter from Frank Bisignano, the agency's current commissioner. Today, we celebrate the 90th anniversary of Social Security—a program that has stood as a pillarof economic security and dignity for...

Healthy Options? USDA Encouraging SNAP Food Restrictions

In further changes under the new administration (remarkably, it has only been seven months) the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Services are now actively seeking states to implement further restrictions on what you can buy with food...

As You Were: VCU’s National Training and Data Center Re-opens

Last week we reported that Virginia Commonwealth’s NTDC has been closed and all services terminated. This week Social Security announced that the center is open once more. Melanie Webb, the Branch Chief of SSA’s Employment Programs, sent out an n email to the nation’s...

VCU’s National Training and Data Center Closed Down

Benefits Counselors around the country received the news today that Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) was forced to close the National Training and Data Center (NTDC) on July 29. The brief announcement from Melanie Webb, Branch Chief of Employment Programs at...

Salt in the Wound: OBBBA and Cuts to Medicaid for Non- Citizens

Further to our recent blog on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and its plan to cut Medicaid funding, here’s some more bad news brought to you by your government. This time the target is Non-Citizens. At present there are some severe limitations to eligibility...

Stopped Check: SSA to Eliminate Paper Payments to Beneficiaries

These days if you are to order a new batch of checks you are given a choice of designs for the background and can even select a personal message line. You may notice, however, that the choices appear to skew towards appealing to an older demographic. One recent option...

Uncivil Service: OBBBA and Medicaid Work Requirements

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that was recently signed into law by the current incumbent in the White House has within its hundreds of provisions a number of cuts to Medicaid funding under the pretext that there’s vast and widespread fraud and cheating going...