At the urging of NOSSCR, SSA has increased and streamlined their communication capacity with the representative community. Please review their announcement below:

The Social Security Administration is pleased to announce that they have expanded the services the Representative Call Center (RCC) provides to the attorney and non-attorney representative community (ARNARC). The RCC was originally established in Processing Center (PC) 7 to provide the ARNARC with a dedicated phone line to inquire about claimant payment issues and expedite actions whenever possible for cases pending in PC7. With this expansion, the RCC will now assist the ARNARC will cases pending in PCs 1-7.

Representatives can still contact the RCC line at 877-626-6363 and will be directly connected to the PC of jurisdiction based on the claimant’s age and Social Security number range. The Social Security Administration was able to make this change by transitioning the RCC phone platform to the Amazon Web Services Connect platform, which offers advanced automated call routing, IVR, direct transfers, ensuring faster and more efficient services to customers. 

The expanded RCC will continue to serve as a single point of contact for the ARNARC, enabling technicians to perform tasks such as issuing notices of award, processing attorney payments, and releasing past-due benefits during calls. Technicians gather the necessary information to process payments for mutual clients or provide details about payments due to ARNARC for services rendered. Calls requiring further development are documented and dispatched to the appropriate processing divisions. To ensure security, technicians authenticate all calls by reviewing SSA-1696 and SSA-3288 forms and verifying responses to at least seven identifying questions.

The RCC’s streamlined approach enhances efficiency, strengthens communication with the representative community, and ensures timely resolution of claimant and payment-related inquiries. 

The agency also shared with NOSSCR the following answers to our questions about local office communications:

• Our Office of Public Service and Operations Support will send a reminder email to the regions that the purpose of the RCC is to give representatives a more direct link for PC related issues. 
• We have not directed our local offices to refer any and all requests for case status/decision status to the RCC; therefore, our local offices will continue to provide status requests to attorney offices.
• We do not have a limit on the number of claimant inquiries per call. 

We know that connecting with a staff member at the agency who can provide you with meaningful updates about your cases is a crucial yet time-consuming part of your practice. It is our hope that these improvements will lessen the time you wait on hold and will improve your access to needed information.