A customer representative in the SSA Hanford does not have a complete understanding of the Medicare application process, the unique circumstances and issues to be resolved. Two representatives differ in the manner of assisting us. We visited three times, the first two was with one representative on window 1 and the third time was with this male customer representative on window 3.
On our third visit yesterday afternoon, Feb 28, we were assigned to a male customer representative. We were explaining to him what we came for and he concluded that my wife was not eligible without listening to the full circumstance that we have to present. This representative relied primarily on personal knowledge rather than established SSA procedures. He asked another person inside about our issue, came back and began to work with us. That alone gave me the suspicion that he was not confident with his job. We showed him the filled out forms that were given by the previous SSA representative from the previous visits. We handed them to him along with our military ID cards and he told us that he did not need those forms. He started to interview us and asked for my SSN, birthdate and other information. As he was typing in and entering the information, he noticed that we have an appointment scheduled online. It was a phone-call appointment from the 1-800 number. We explained to him that we made the appointment but were scheduled by the end of March which is very late so we decided to do walk-in in the local SSA office. The representative discouraged further assistance, insisting we wait for the phone call despite the significant delay and stating they were unable to help at the office or cancel the appointment. HE TOLD US TO APPLY ONLINE. He said that there are only three of them working that afternoon and the people at the back office are also busy!!! I do not understand that comment from this representative.
I googled into the SSA website and it says there that I can schedule, reschedule, or cancel an appointment by calling us at 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778), Monday through Friday between 8:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. local time, OR CONTACTING YOUR LOCAL SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE. It is very clear!!!! This contradicts the provided information
We had wasted so much time and travel to visit SSA Hanford only to be assigned to someone who does not seem to know the process of Medicare application. What differentiates their assistance from our self-service efforts? And he said he could not do anything about canceling an appointment made on the 1-800 number.
The application that we did online was forwarded to SSA Hanford for processing as per the SSA status that we received by email.
It is just a big run-around from this representative. read more
