42 U.S.C. § 405 — Evidence, procedure, and certification for payments

(a) Rules and regulations The Commissioner of Social Security can write rules and set up procedures for running the disability and retirement benefit programs. These rules must fit within the law. The Commissioner also sets reasonable rules for what proof people need to show, and how they must submit it, to earn benefits. (b) Deciding claims and holding hearings (1) The Commissioner must make findings of fact and decide each person's benefit application. If a disability decision goes against the person, in whole or in part, the Commissioner must explain it in plain language: what the evidence showed, and why the Commissioner ruled that way. The applicant, or certain family members (like a spouse, divorced spouse, widow, widower, child, or parent) who show in writing that the decision might hurt their own rights, can ask for a hearing. They must ask within 60 days of getting notice of the decision. If a hearing happens, the Commissioner reviews the evidence and can keep, change, or reverse the earlier decision. The Commissioner can also start hearings, investigations, and other proceedings on his or her own, whenever needed to run the program. At any hearing, the Commissioner can put witnesses under oath, question them, and accept evidence — even evidence a regular court would not allow. (2) Sometimes someone is getting disability benefits, and the Commissioner finds their impairment has ended, never existed, or is no longer disabling — and cuts off benefits as a result. Before any regular hearing under paragraph (1), the person gets a separate evidentiary hearing just on that medical finding, held somewhere they can reasonably reach. Whichever body made the original medical finding — a state agency or the Commissioner — handles this hearing too, but a different unit or person must run it than the one that made the original finding. (3)(A) If someone misses the deadline to appeal a decision because a Social Security or state employee gave them wrong, incomplete, or misleading information about reapplying instead of appealing, and they reasonably relied on that bad information, the missed deadline cannot be used to deny a later application. (B) Every notice of an adverse decision must clearly explain, in plain language, what happens to a person's benefit rights if they reapply instead of appealing. (c) Wage records This part defines some terms first: "year" means a calendar year for wages and a tax year for self-employment income. The "time limitation" is three years, three months, and fifteen days. A "survivor" is a spouse, divorced spouse, widow, widower, child, or parent who outlives the worker. "Period" means a tax year for self-employment income, and for wages it usually means the quarter or year the wages were reported on tax filings (a half-year rule applies only to 1937 wages). (2)(A) The Commissioner keeps records of everyone's wages and self-employment income, verifies them as needed, and must tell a person (or their survivor or legal representative) what those records show, on request. (B) The Commissioner must work to make sure everyone who needs a Social Security number has one — lawfully admitted immigrants, anyone applying for or getting federally funded benefits (including children benefits are claimed for), and anyone else who should have one but doesn't. The Commissioner can also proactively issue numbers to young children at a parent's request, or to children starting school. Applicants must prove their age, citizenship or immigration status, and identity; for anyone under 18, extra proof is required. The Commissioner must work with the Attorney General, other officials, welfare agencies, and schools to carry this out. (C) States may use Social Security numbers to identify people for tax, public assistance, driver's license, and vehicle registration purposes, and may require people to give their number for those purposes. States issuing birth certificates must collect each parent's number (unless the state finds good cause not to) and share it with the Commissioner and the state's child-support agency — but the number cannot be printed on the birth certificate, and states generally cannot use a number collected this way for anything except enforcing child support, unless the state had already required disclosure by law before 1975. In administering food-assistance eligibility rules, the Agriculture Secretary can collect Social Security numbers from officers or owners of stores that want to accept food benefits, but Agriculture Department staff can only use those numbers to check for past violations, and may share limited matching information with other agencies solely to help administer or enforce related federal laws, with access restricted to staff who need it and safeguards required. Similarly, in administering federal crop insurance, the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation can collect numbers from policyholders, reinsured companies, and anyone owning 5% or more of a policyholder, with the same kind of restricted access and required safeguards, and misuse limits on department staff. Any older federal law that conflicts with the general state-use policy became void as of October 4, 1976; any older law conflicting with the birth-certificate rule became void as of October 13, 1988. A state welfare, driver's license, or vehicle registration agency that was not already using the number before 1975 may only require it for administering those laws and for responding to certain federal welfare-agency requests. States (and their agents) cannot print a Social Security number, or anything derived from it, on a driver's license, vehicle registration, or ID card, and cannot embed it in a barcode or magnetic strip on those documents. "State" here includes D.C., Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Marianas, and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Numbers and related records obtained under any law passed on or after October 1, 1990, must be kept confidential; unauthorized willful disclosure, or offering something of value to get someone's number, carries the same penalties as leaking tax return information. In administering federal workers' compensation and the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, the Labor Secretary can require a person's number on an injury notice or benefits claim, again with restricted staff access and required safeguards. Health and Human Services and the Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges can collect and use numbers to run the ACA. No government check for any payment can show anyone's Social Security number. No government agency may let a prisoner work anywhere they could access other people's numbers. HHS and the Commissioner must keep Social Security numbers off Medicare cards, and make sure nothing on the card looks like one. (D) States and licensed blood banks may use Social Security numbers to identify blood donors, and may require donors to provide their number. Any older federal law conflicting with this became void as of November 10, 1988. (E) States may use Social Security numbers to find duplicate names on jury lists and to screen out people ineligible to serve because of a felony conviction; federal district courts may use the same numbers the state already collected for this. Any older federal law conflicting with this became void as of August 15, 1994. (F) To get benefits, a person must prove they have a Social Security number, or, if they don't have one, apply for one. (G) The Commissioner must issue a Social Security card, printed on banknote paper, made as hard to counterfeit as practical. (H) The Commissioner must share certain Social Security number information with the Treasury Secretary, so Treasury can administer tax benefits that depend on who a child lives with or who supports them. (3) The Commissioner's wage and self-employment records count as evidence in any proceeding. If the records show no entry for wages or income someone claims they earned, that absence counts as evidence the claim isn't true. (4) Before the time limitation runs out for a given year, the Commissioner can fix wrong entries or add missing ones. After it runs out: (A) the records (as later corrected under paragraph (5)) become conclusive proof of what was earned; (B) a missing wage entry becomes evidence — but not final proof — that no such wages were paid; (C) a missing self-employment income entry becomes final proof that no such income was earned, unless the person filed a timely tax return reporting it, in which case the Commissioner must add it to the record. (5) After the time limitation runs out, the Commissioner can still change, delete, or add a wage or self-employment entry for a year, but only for specific reasons: (A) a benefit or death-payment application was filed on time and hasn't been finally decided yet; (B) the worker or a survivor asked in writing, within the time limit, to fix an error, and no final decision has been made on that request yet — with written notice of the final decision either way; (C) fixing an obvious clerical error; (D) moving items to or from Railroad Retirement Board records where they were credited to the wrong system; (E) deleting or lowering an entry that is wrong because of fraud; (F) matching the records to tax returns, state wage reports, or related assessments already on file — except that late-filed self-employment income still can't be added this way; (G) fixing mistakes in which person or period wages were credited to; (H) adding wages actually paid that year; (I) adding railroad-service items based on certified Railroad Retirement Board reports; or (J) adding self-employment income, up to the amount of wages the Commissioner removed as mistaken, if that income is reported on a timely return. (6) The Commissioner must give written notice of any deletion or reduction to the worker, and to a survivor too, but only if that person had already been told what the earlier record showed. (7) On written request, the worker or survivor gets a hearing about any record change or refusal to change a record. After the hearing, the Commissioner decides based on the evidence presented and updates the records accordingly. (8) If someone translates a foreign-language statement from an applicant or beneficiary, that translation only counts as reliable if the translator certifies, under penalty of perjury, that it's accurate and discloses any relationship they have with the applicant or beneficiary. (9) A person can challenge the Commissioner's decisions under this subsection in court, the same way described in subsection (g). (d) Subpoenas For any hearing, investigation, or other proceeding under this law, the Commissioner can subpoena witnesses to testify and require evidence to be produced, from anywhere in the United States or its territories. A subpoena is served by handing a copy to the person, or by registered or certified mail to their home or main place of business. Proof of service is either a signed statement from whoever served it, or the signed mail receipt. Subpoenaed witnesses get paid the same fees and travel costs as witnesses in federal court. (e) Enforcing subpoenas in court If someone refuses to obey a properly served subpoena, the Commissioner can ask the federal district court where that person is found, lives, or does business to order them to testify or produce evidence. Disobeying that court order is contempt of court. (f) Repealed. This subsection was repealed by Congress in 1970 and no longer has any effect. (g) Going to court After a final decision made following a hearing, a person can sue in federal district court to challenge it, no matter how much money is at stake. They must file within 60 days of getting notice of the decision, unless the Commissioner allows more time. The suit goes in the district where the person lives or does business, or in the District of Columbia if they don't live or do business in any U.S. judicial district. The Commissioner must file a certified copy of the hearing record, including the evidence the decision was based on. The court can affirm, change, or reverse the decision, and can send the case back for another hearing. The Commissioner's factual findings are final if "substantial evidence" backs them up — meaning enough evidence that a reasonable person would accept it. If a claim was denied only because the person failed to submit proof the way regulations required, the court reviews only whether those regulations were followed and whether they were valid, not the underlying facts. Before answering the lawsuit, the Commissioner can ask the court, for good cause, to send the case back for more work. At any point, the court can order new evidence to be taken by the Commissioner, but only if it's new, matters to the case, and there was good reason it wasn't submitted earlier. After a remand, the Commissioner must review the new evidence, update or confirm the findings and decision, and file them — along with a transcript — with the court. Those updated findings get reviewed the same way as the original ones. The court's judgment is final, but can still be appealed like judgments in other civil cases. A lawsuit under this subsection keeps going even if the person holding the Commissioner's office changes or the office is empty. (h) Finality of the Commissioner's decision Once the Commissioner decides a case after a hearing, that decision binds everyone who was a party to it. No court, person, or agency can review a Social Security finding or decision except through the process this law sets out. Nobody can sue the United States, the Commissioner, or any Social Security employee under the general federal-question or "claims against the United States" statutes (28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1346) to collect on a Social Security claim — the process in this section is the only way. (i) Certifying payment Once the Commissioner (or a court) makes a final decision that someone is entitled to a payment, the Commissioner tells the Treasury's Managing Trustee the person's name, address, the amount, and when to pay it. The Treasury then pays according to that certification, ahead of any review by the Government Accountability Office. There's an exception for people connected to the railroad industry — workers with 10 years of railroad service (or 5+ years all earned after 1995), their spouses or divorced spouses, certain survivors, and other dependents on their record. For them, the Commissioner certifies payment to the Railroad Retirement Board instead, and the Board pays them under railroad retirement law. If a court review under subsection (g) is happening or might happen, the Commissioner can hold off on certifying payment. The Managing Trustee is not personally liable for payments made based on the Commissioner's certification. (j) Representative payees — paying benefits through someone else (1)(A) If the Commissioner decides it would serve a person's interest, benefits can be certified for payment either directly to that person or, regardless of whether the person is legally competent, to another individual or organization acting for their use and benefit — called a "representative payee." If the Commissioner or a court finds a representative payee has misused someone's benefits, the Commissioner must promptly cancel that payee's certification and switch to a new payee, or pay the person directly if that now serves their interest. (B) A person getting disability benefits must have a representative payee if the Commissioner finds they also have alcoholism or drug addiction and can't manage the money themselves. (C) Anyone 18 or older, or an emancipated minor, who gets or applies for these benefits can name in advance one or more people to serve as their representative payee if one is ever needed. If the Commissioner later decides a payee is needed, the Commissioner must use the person's chosen designee — as long as that designee meets the usual requirements — or, if the designee doesn't qualify, is unwilling or unable, or there's other good cause, pick someone else instead. Only individuals, not organizations, can be named this way in advance. (2)(A) Before certifying anyone as a representative payee, the Commissioner must investigate that person — including, where practical, a face-to-face interview — and find adequate evidence that doing so serves the beneficiary's interest. (B) That investigation must include: proof of the payee candidate's identity; verification of their Social Security or employer ID number; a check for convictions of Social Security fraud crimes; a check for any other federal or state offense that led to more than a year in prison; a check for whether the person is a certain kind of fugitive or violator described elsewhere in the law; a check for whether they were previously terminated as a payee for misusing funds; and a check for convictions — not later overturned — of a specific list of serious felonies: human trafficking, false imprisonment, kidnapping, rape or sexual assault, first-degree murder, robbery, fraud to get government assistance, fraud schemes generally, theft of government money or property, abuse or neglect, forgery, and identity theft. The Commissioner can add more disqualifying felonies by regulation. The Commissioner must keep an updated, centralized, searchable file listing everyone whose payee status was revoked for misuse since 1991 and everyone convicted of the listed fraud crimes. On request, and with enough identifying information, the Commissioner must give a law enforcement officer the current address, number, and photo of someone under investigation who is a described fugitive, if the officer needs it for official duties. The Commissioner can run background checks on anyone seeking to be a payee and can disqualify, or revoke the status of, anyone who refuses to allow one. (C) The Commissioner cannot certify someone as a representative payee if that person: was convicted of the Social Security fraud crimes above; already had payee status revoked for misuse (unless granted a case-by-case exemption that serves the beneficiary's best interest); is a creditor who sells the beneficiary goods or services for pay — unless that creditor is a household family member, legal guardian, a licensed care facility, an employee of such a facility where the beneficiary lives (only after a good-faith search for another payee failed), or someone the Commissioner specifically finds, in writing, poses no risk, has no real conflict of interest, and is the best available option; was convicted of the "more than a year in prison" offense (unless the Commissioner decides certification is still appropriate); is the described fugitive or violator; was convicted of one of the listed serious felonies (unless they are a qualifying custodial parent, spouse, guardian, or grandparent, or received a pardon, in which case the Commissioner may still grant an exemption); or is already having their own benefits paid to someone else as their representative payee. For a beneficiary who needs a payee because of alcoholism or drug addiction, the Commissioner should prefer a certified nonprofit social service agency or a relevant government agency, unless picking a family member makes more sense. (D) If direct payment would substantially harm the beneficiary, the Commissioner can delay a first payment or suspend an ongoing one until a payee is found — generally for no more than one month, except when the beneficiary is legally incompetent, under 15, or has the alcoholism/drug-addiction disability described above. Once a payee is found, any delayed or suspended benefits get paid, in one lump sum or spread out, whichever the Commissioner decides serves the beneficiary's interest. (E) Anyone unhappy with a decision to use a representative payee, or with who was picked, can get a hearing under subsection (b) and, after that, go to court under subsection (g). Before certifying a payee, the Commissioner must give written notice — to the beneficiary directly, unless they're under 15, an unemancipated minor under 18, or legally incompetent, in which case notice goes to their guardian or legal representative instead. That notice must be written in plain, understandable language, name the proposed payee, and explain the right to appeal both the need for a payee and the choice of who it is, and the right to review and respond to the evidence behind that choice. (3) When someone else is paid on a beneficiary's behalf, the Commissioner must generally require that payee to report, at least once a year, how the money was used, and must statistically review those reports to catch misuse. This reporting rule doesn't apply when the payee is a state institution (state institutions get their own separate monitoring system) or a federal institution where the beneficiary lives, and it doesn't apply to certain in-household family payees — a parent or guardian of a minor child, a parent of an adult disabled child, or a spouse — through an exemption process the Commissioner must set up. Regardless of these exemptions, the Commissioner can demand a report anytime there's reason to think misuse is happening. If a payee who was required to report fails to do so, the Commissioner can, after giving notice, require them to come in person to a local Social Security office to collect payments. The Commissioner must keep an updated, centralized, searchable file of every payee's address and number, and of every beneficiary each payee serves. Local Social Security offices must also keep an updated list of qualified public and certified nonprofit agencies available locally to serve as payees. Beyond ordinary reviews, the Commissioner must run periodic in-person, on-site reviews of: payees serving 15 or more people; certified nonprofit agencies acting as payees; other agencies serving 50 or more people; any payee who charges a fee; and other individual or organizational payees chosen based on risk factors, including family payees living with the beneficiary. To help pay for this, the Commissioner must give annual grants — totaling at least $25 million, and enough to cover the required work — to each state's federally established protection-and-advocacy system and to a similar American Indian consortium, based on how many represented beneficiaries each covers, with guaranteed minimum grants (at least $30,000 for the smaller territories/consortium, at least $60,000 for other states). These systems use the grant money to do the required on-site reviews and other requested reviews, help fix problems they find, report results back to the Commissioner, and check out any new organization that starts charging fees as a payee. The Commissioner must also give a separate grant, equal to 4% of the total review grants, to one qualifying national disability association for training and support to those state review systems. These dollar minimums rise automatically with the same cost-of-living adjustments used for benefit amounts generally. No extra money is authorized for any of this — it comes out of funds already available. (4) A "qualified organization" acting as payee — a state or local government agency running income, social service, or health programs, or a certified nonprofit meeting the requirements below — can charge the beneficiary a monthly fee. Work through the cap step by step: take 10% of the beneficiary's monthly benefit; compare that to $25 per month ($50 if the beneficiary needed a payee because of alcoholism or drug addiction); the fee cannot be more than the smaller of the two. Those dollar caps rise with inflation after 1995, rounded to the nearest dollar. No fee can be charged for any month the Commissioner or a court found the organization misused the beneficiary's money, and anything collected for that month counts as misused funds. Any agreement charging more than the allowed fee is void and treated as misuse. If someone's monthly benefits have stopped but they're still owed back pay, each month's share of that back pay counts toward the fee cap the same way. To qualify as a "qualified organization," an agency must regularly serve five or more beneficiaries as payee and show it isn't otherwise a creditor of any of them, though the Commissioner can grant a case-by-case exception on the creditor point. Anyone at a qualifying organization who knowingly charges more than the legal cap can be fined or imprisoned up to six months, or both. (5) If the Commissioner's own negligent failure to investigate or monitor a payee let misuse happen, the Commissioner must repay the beneficiary (or their new payee) the misused amount. The Commissioner must also repay misused funds — regardless of negligence — whenever the payee who misused the money either isn't an individual (so any organization, even a "qualified" one), or is an individual who was serving 15 or more Social Security, SSI, or related beneficiaries at the time. This repayment is capped, as explained in paragraph (7)(B), and the Commissioner must make a good-faith effort to get the money back from the payee who was removed. (6) On top of routine oversight, the Commissioner must do regular on-site reviews of payees who serve many beneficiaries, are certified nonprofits, charge fees, or are otherwise picked based on risk — as described above under paragraph (3) — funded through the same state protection-and-advocacy grants described there. (7)(A) A non-government payee who misuses funds is personally responsible for repaying that amount; whatever they don't repay is treated like any other benefit overpayment the Commissioner can recover from them. When the Commissioner does recover money, an equal amount goes back to the beneficiary or their new payee. (B) Total repayments to the beneficiary under paragraphs (5) and (7) together cannot exceed the total amount that was actually misused. (8) For this subsection, "benefit based on disability" means a disability benefit, or a child's, widow's, or widower's benefit paid because of someone's disability. (9) "Misuse" happens when a payee takes money meant for the beneficiary's use and benefit and spends it on something else instead. The Commissioner can define "use and benefit" more precisely by regulation. (10) A "certified community-based nonprofit social service agency" is a nonprofit that annually certifies to the Commissioner, under rules the Commissioner sets, that it is bonded and licensed everywhere it serves as a payee (where licensing exists), including a copy of any independent audit done since the last certification. (11) The Commissioner must make monthly data-matching agreements with each state's foster-care information system to find beneficiary children in foster care, and must reconsider who the right payee is whenever a child enters, leaves, or changes foster care placement that month. Key terms — "State," the state child-welfare data systems, and "represented minor beneficiary" — are defined by cross-reference to related child-welfare law. (12) By January 31 each year, the Commissioner must report to Congress (the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees) detailed statistics: how many beneficiaries across the disability, SSI, and related programs have a payee; how many payees there are; how many reviews were done and what they found; how many payees were changed and why; how many misuse cases were found and their total dollar value; how many misuse cases stemmed from the Commissioner's own negligence; how those cases were resolved, including penalties and amounts repaid or recovered; and updates to past years' figures. The report must break these numbers out separately for organizations that charge fees, large payees (15+ beneficiaries), and smaller individual and family payees. (k) Payments already made to people who were legally incompetent A payment made under the representative-payee rules in subsection (j), or (for payments before 1940) made to or for someone legally incompetent, or (for payments after 1939) made directly to someone the Commissioner didn't yet know was incompetent, fully settles that person's claim to the payment, as long as the payment was otherwise valid. (l) Delegating the Commissioner's powers The Commissioner can hand off any power given by this section to a Social Security Administration employee. The Commissioner can also use the agency's own attorneys, rather than outside counsel, in any court case arising under subsection (e)'s subpoena-enforcement rules. (m) Repealed. This subsection was repealed by Congress in 1950 and no longer has any effect. (n) Paying two people jointly The Commissioner can certify a joint payment to two or more members of the same family. If one of them dies before the joint check is cashed, the survivor(s) can be paid the check's value under Treasury rules — but any amount over what the survivors are actually entitled to for that month must be adjusted or recovered under section 404(a). (o) Crediting railroad pay toward Social Security If nobody would qualify for a Railroad Retirement Act annuity or lump-sum payment based on a railroad worker's death, then that worker's railroad pay (excluding pay treated as coming from military service already credited elsewhere) counts as ordinary wages instead, for figuring both a lump-sum death payment and any monthly Social Security benefit for the month of death or later. Railroad pay from before 1978 is assumed, unless proven otherwise, to have been earned evenly across every month of the year it was paid. (p) Special rules for federal employees (1) For work covered under Social Security that was done for the U.S. government or a wholly government-owned entity — including uniformed service and Peace Corps volunteer work — the Commissioner does not independently figure out how much someone was paid or when. Instead, the Commissioner accepts the determination of the agency head (based on the agency's tax filings and certifications), and that determination is final. The Commissioner still decides, separately, whether the work counted as covered employment and whether the pay counted as wages. (2) On the Commissioner's written request, an agency head must certify any fact the Commissioner needs about that service. (3) The same rules apply to civilian, non-appropriated-fund employees working at military or Coast Guard exchange and recreation activities (like base exchanges or morale programs) — treating the Defense Secretary or Homeland Security Secretary as the "agency head" for that purpose. (q) Faster payment when a benefit was missed (1) The Commissioner must set up procedures for paying missed monthly benefits quickly. (2) If someone says a monthly benefit was due but never paid, and files a written request for it, the Commissioner must act on it within a set waiting period: 30 days after the 15th of the month in question if the person got a regular benefit the month before (any request filed earlier counts as filed once that 30 days is up), or 90 days after the later of the date the benefit was allegedly due or the date the person gave the Commissioner the last information asked for, in any other case. If the Commissioner finds the benefit is actually owed, it must be certified and paid within 15 days after the request counts as filed. (3) Even before that waiting period ends, the Commissioner can pay a preliminary amount if there's already some evidence — even if not enough for a final decision — that the claim is true. (4) A preliminary payment made this way doesn't count as an "incorrect payment" when figuring out whether the Commissioner or a payment officer is personally responsible for it. (5) Certain related benefits count as monthly benefits for this subsection, but it does not apply to a benefit whose check has already been cashed, or to specific disability-dependent claims by a spouse, child, or disabled adult child or widow(er). (r) Using death records to catch mistaken payments (1) The Commissioner must run a program where states voluntarily share death-certificate data, which the Commissioner compares against Social Security's own records, checks for accuracy, and uses to fix wrong records. (2) States providing this data get paid a set fee for its use, plus their full, documented cost of sending it to the Commissioner. The fee is worked out with the states and must reflect their real costs of collecting, maintaining, and transmitting the data, plus a charge for the right to use it. The Commissioner generally can't dip into the agency's separate administrative-expenses budget to cover these state payments, except briefly and only if reimbursed later. (3) When another federal or state agency runs its own federally funded benefit program, the Commissioner should share this death data with that agency under a cost-sharing agreement, as long as the agency reimburses its fair share of the state payments and the Commissioner's own costs, and the arrangement doesn't get in the way of running this program. (4) The Commissioner can make similar agreements with states for their own state-funded programs, on the same reimbursement terms. (5) The Commissioner can also use or share this death data for statistical and research work by federal or state agencies, under required safeguards and the same reimbursement conditions. (6) This data can only be used for the purposes described here, and it's exempt from the usual public-records and privacy-notice disclosure laws. (7) If a state's data wrongly shows someone as dead, and that person proves the mistake, the Commissioner can tell the state about the error and tell the person where the bad information came from. (8) The Commissioner had to describe this program's status, and any problems running it, in the 1984 report required under section 904. (9) On request, the Commissioner must agree with a state's driver's-license agency (under the Help America Vote Act) to verify a voter-registration applicant's name, birth date, and Social Security number, and whether Social Security's records show them as deceased — with confidentiality safeguards, and the Commissioner must develop ways to check the accuracy of matches made using only the last four digits of a number. This information is strictly confidential and can only be used for these purposes; a state officer, employee, or contractor who discloses it without written Commissioner authorization commits a felony and faces the fines or imprisonment set out in section 408. The Commissioner doesn't have to provide the information if there's a safety risk or it would interfere with an investigation. (10) On request from the Health and Human Services Secretary or Inspector General, the Commissioner must agree to match Social Security and HHS records, with confidentiality safeguards. (11) For three years after this rule took effect, the Commissioner must, where practical, share this death data with the Treasury's "Do Not Pay" system, to help stop improper payments to dead people, under the same reimbursement terms. (s) Clear notices Any notice the Commissioner or a state agency sends under this law must be written in simple, clear language, and must include the address and phone number of the local Social Security office serving the recipient. If a notice wasn't generated by that local office, it still has to include that office's address and a phone number that reaches it. (t) Same-day help at local offices If someone visits a Social Security office and says they're there because of a notice with a response deadline, or because a benefit payment was stolen, lost, or never arrived, the Commissioner must make sure they get a face-to-face meeting with an office employee before the office closes that day. (u) Redoing a decision after suspected fraud (1)(A) The Commissioner must immediately redo a person's entitlement decision if there's reason to believe fraud or "similar fault" was involved in their application — unless a federal or state prosecutor certifies in writing that doing so now would risk the criminal case against a suspected fraudster. (B) When redoing, or first deciding, someone's entitlement, the Commissioner must ignore any evidence there's reason to believe was tainted by fraud or similar fault. (2) "Similar fault" means someone knowingly gave an incorrect or incomplete statement that mattered to the decision, or knowingly hid information that mattered to it. (3) If, after redoing the decision, the Commissioner finds there isn't enough evidence to support the person's entitlement, the Commissioner can end it — and can treat benefits already paid based on that weak evidence as an overpayment that must be returned.