SSA is sincerely trying to get people use their online services. Following the DOGE uproar earlier in the year, they made it clear that you can easily communicate with SSA by phone or in person at a local office, and offered stats showing shorter hold times, etc. Now they are going all out to get people to use the website. The new redesign does seem to have some improvements, offering more services on the homepage than the previous bare-bones website presented.
An important part of your Savvy Social Security Planning services is helping clients navigate SSA. I hope you are encouraging them to come to you with their questions (and you come to me!) in order to avoid long hold times and general aggravation. You can also give them general tips on how to deal with SSA as discussed in this newsletter.
But let’s face it: SSA is busy. The agency has over 300 million number holders and some 74 million current beneficiaries. Its administrative budget is miniscule for the number of people it serves. It only makes sense offload much of this work to us, online, just as every other business has done in this Internet age.
SSA will always maintain telephone and in-person services for the truly disabled and very elderly. But for everyone else, online is the way to go. This means you may now be called to help your less computer-savvy clients learn to navigate SSA online. If security is a concern, send them to this page on Security and Protection. Otherwise, send them to ssa.gov, encourage them to open an account, and invite them to browse around.
See SSA’s latest blog post for highlights of the website redesign.