Summary: GAO reported the results of a nationwide test of the Social Security Administration's (SSA) telephone accessibility to the public and provided information on SSA standards and telephone reporting activities.
GAO noted that SSA: (1) maintains 34 teleservice centers to answer telephone calls in major metropolitan areas or entire states; (2) maintains 20 miniteleservice centers, 12 statewide centers, and 627 local or district offices to provide telephone service to less populous areas; and (3) utilizes service standards for its teleservice centers that require that calls not be left on hold for more than 2 minutes and that busy-signal rates do not exceed 15 percent. GAO found that: (1) SSA answered three of every four calls from the public directly or within 2 minutes of putting a call on hold; (2) telephone access to SSA varied considerably among telephone answering facilities; (3) some SSA facilities provided unacceptable service by SSA standards; (4) SSA facilities reported misleading and limited data on their telephone service to the public; and (5) SSA service standards apply only to the teleservice centers.
