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CMS Announces New Medicare Plan Finder

Sep 20, 2019

In readiness for the new Medicare open enrollment season The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced that is has updated its website to make its most visited page more user-friendly. In keeping with the times you can now access the page on any...

Equifax Data Breach: Were You Affected?

Sep 5, 2019

In September 2017 Equifax, the consumer credit reporting agency, admitted that it had suffered a cyber-security breach of its system which had compromised the personal data of some 147 million customers in the United States alone. That translates to roughly 1 in 3...

The Maryland Employment Network is Hiring!!

Aug 23, 2019

The Maryland Employment Network is Hiring!! The Maryland Employment Network is an Employment Network through the Social Security Administration’s Ticket to Work Program. MD-EN provides services to Marylanders with disabilities to assist them with meeting their career...

This Week in History: Social Security Act Signed into Law

Aug 16, 2019

It was in June 1934 as part of his New Deal that President Franklin D. Roosevelt created by executive order a Committee for Economic Security (CES) which was to study the issue of economic instability and make recommendations upon those findings. Six months later the...

HUD Now Exempts ABLE Accounts

May 15, 2019

In a notice issued earlier this month the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, better known as HUD, formally recognized the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act and will now disregard the amounts in beneficiaries' ABLE accounts when determining...

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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...