An erroneous death termination is caused by:
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a death match with another agency that has received an incorrect report,
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an erroneous return by the financial institution (FI) with a reason code of death,
or
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Once the erroneous death is on one of SSA's systems, it is propagated to other SSA
and Medicare/Medicaid systems.
Incorrect returns frequently come from FIs as a result of a report received from SSA
or another source by the FI. For example, when SSA sends a Death Notification entry
(DNE), the FI “flags” the customer's account to return any future payments for this
customer. Sometimes future payments received for joint account holders, including
a spouse, are returned erroneously with a reason of death.
A Title II EFT payment that the FI returns for death does not automatically result
in death termination. Instead, the beneficiary's/recipient's benefits are suspended
while the responsible component develops to determine whether the report of death
is accurate. However, it is still possible to encounter a case in which the beneficiary/recipient
has been erroneously terminated for death by other means.
For information about DNEs, see GN 02408.605.