Guide for Organizational Representative Payees

Special instructions for children's representative payees

The following instructions apply to payees for children under the age of 18.

General Reporting Instructions

• You must report to SSA if a child beneficiary moves, dies, works, is incarcerated, begins to live with someone else, or if the child is adopted or marries.

• You must report if the child’s parents divorce or one dies.

Children who receive SSI

• You may be required to obtain treatment prescribed by a physician, psychologist or other acceptable medical source that is expected to improve or restore the child's functioning. Failure to provide help in obtaining necessary medical treatment for the child may result in SSA removing you as the payee.

• Certain large past-due SSI payments to blind or disabled children totaling more than six times the maximum federal SSI benefit rate must be placed into a separate "dedicated account”. Use these funds only for certain expenses, as discussed below.

 Dedicated Accounts

The law requires that payees establish and maintain an account in a financial institution for certain large past-due payments for SSI beneficiaries under the age of 18. These "dedicated accounts" must be maintained separately from any other savings or checking account set up for the beneficiary. You may use an approved collective account for more than one beneficiary’s dedicated account funds. Except for past-due payments that may be received later, do not commingle any other funds in the account. The money and the interest earned on the money in a dedicated account are not counted as income or resources for SSI purposes.

Money in a dedicated account can be used only for the following categories of expenses:

• medical treatment;

• education or job skills training;

• personal needs assistance, special equipment, housing modification, and therapy or rehabilitation, if related to the child's disability; or

• any other item or service related to the child's disability that SSA determines to be appropriate. We encourage you to get approval from your local Social Security office for this category of expenses.

Examples of "other" items or services that could be related to the child's impairment:

• Household furnishings and appliances related to the child's disability such as an air conditioner for an asthmatic child, a washing machine for an incontinent child or installation of a phone line to ensure ready access for a needed service;

• Increased electric bills resulting from impairment-related mechanical devices that must run frequently;

• Housing renovations where the present conditions adversely affect the child's health such as insulating a home for a child with a respiratory or cardiovascular condition aggravated by extremes of cold or heat, or a separate bedroom for a child with emotional disabilities who requires a structured setting;

• Repaired walls, replaced carpets or furnishings that have been damaged by a disabled child;

• Special play and recreation equipment related to the child's impairment and specialized day care and therapeutic recreation such as special summer camps or Special Olympics;

• Special foods for a child with specific dietary needs;

• Special clothes , such as orthopedic shoes or specialized clothing for incontinent children;

• Computers and related accessories and software to promote learning, cognitive and other skills;

• Transportation expenses incurred in getting the child to training classes, therapy sessions, doctor's appointments, etc. This could include bus or cab fare, or in some cases the purchase of a vehicle;

• Counseling , crisis intervention services, respite care or therapeutic foster care, if not covered by health insurance or a public service program; and

• Payment of attorney fees incurred in pursuit of the child's disability claim.

Examples of approved requests for expenditures from dedicated accounts:

• An organizational payee requested approval to pay for computer software that enables a blind child to hear text as it is keyed. This expense was related to the child's blindness and the software enables the child to use the computer. The request was approved to help the child use the computer and to keep up with the other children in her class.

• An organizational payee requested approval for purchases of large quantities of gluten-free products for a beneficiary with celiac disease. Other beneficiaries and clients in the beneficiary’s group residence did not commonly eat these foods. The request was approved because the beneficiary could not eat a regular diet without becoming quite ill.

• An organizational payee requested approval to pay for attorney fees incurred in pursuit of the beneficiary’s SSI disability claim. The child’s retroactive SSI payments were paid to the payee for the child’s use and the attorney was not paid out of the past due benefit payments prior to releasing the retroactive payment to the payee. The request was approved because the child’s monthly SSI payment was used for the child’s current maintenance needs and there was no other money to pay the attorney’s fees.

Examples of denied requests for expenditures from dedicated accounts:

• An organizational payee requested approval to buy a new pair of shoes for the disabled child. The request was denied because the shoes are not related to the child's impairment. The child should have shoes, but the expense must be paid from the child's ongoing monthly SSI payments.

• A beneficiary has a Social Security overpayment due to a parent’s wages. The payee requested approval to pay the overpayment from the beneficiary’s dedicated account funds. The request was denied because the overpayment is not related to the child’s impairment.

Note: In an emergency, dedicated account funds can be used for basic living expenses to prevent the child from becoming homeless or malnourished. If you knowingly use money from the dedicated account for anything other than the expenses shown above, your organization must repay SSA from its own funds. You must keep a record of all money taken from this account and retain receipts for all items or services obtained with money from this account. We periodically review these records. Payees for beneficiaries with dedicated accounts must manually complete a SSA-6233-BK  (See Exhibit A ). Keep these records for at least two years.

Dedicated account rules apply until all funds in the dedicated account are depleted or eligibility for SSI payments ends. If you have any questions about dedicated accounts, please contact your local Social Security office.