Section 4 

 SURVEY TECHNIQUES 



4.1 POWER-OF-ATTORNEY BENEFICIARIES 



TO DETERMINE THE PROBLEMS THAT ARE INHERENT IN THE POWER-OF-ATTORNEY 

 PROCEDURE A SURVEY OF A REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE OF ALL POWER-OF-ATTORNEY 

 BENEFICIARIES WAS UNDERTAKEN. THE QUESTIONNAIRE WAS DESIGNED TO PROVIDE 

 DATA ON PROBLEMS, BENEFICIARY CHARACTERISTICS, AND REASONS FOR AUTHORIZ- 

 ING THE POWER OF ATTORNEY. 



In order to get a feel about the suspected problems of direct deposit and 

 how to solicit information from the beneficiaries about the concerns, two 

 approaches were taken during the pilot stage of the survey. One, case 

 folders of beneficiaries from two samples were examined for indications of 

 suspected problems. Two, a mail questionnaire was sent to sampled benefi- 

 ciaries in current payment status. Since the only address available for 

 these beneficiaries was the address of the financial organization to which 

 their checks are sent, the questionnaires were sent to the financial organi- 

 zations with requests to forward them to the beneficiaries and, for possible 

 follow-up, to send to the study team the address to which the questionnaire 

 was forwarded, the date it was forwarded and the beneficiary's telephone 

 number . 



For beneficiaries in current payment status, the sampling frame comprised 

 all beneficiaries with the address of a financial organization indicated on 

 Treasury current payment tapes from the Chicago Disbursing Center. A random 

 sample of 200 beneficiaries was selected from this file. For beneficiaries 

 in terminated or suspended status the sampling frame was comprised of all 

 power-of-attorney beneficiaries in that status whose claims folders were 

 maintained in the Great Lakes Program Center. A random sample of 100 of 

 these cases was extracted from the MBR. An additional survey was made for 

 terminated and suspended power-of-attorney beneficiaries during the course 

 of the study. This survey was necessary since the number of cases examined 

 in the Great Lakes Program Center was insufficient to provide meaningful data 

 about suspected problems of terminated and suspended power-of-attorney 

 beneficiaries. 



At the time the pilot was conducted, it was planned to conduct the regular 

 power-of-attorney beneficiary survey by mail; however, after dicussions with 

 statisticians in SSA it was decided that the best method of collecting desirec 

 data would be via telephone interviews. Any follow-up necessary because a 

 person could not be reached by telephone would be handled with mail question- 

 naire. The survey was contracted to Chilton Research Services in Radnor, 

 Pennsylvania. 



The sampling frame comprised all power-of-attorney beneficiaries in current 

 payment status on the MBR. Based on the pilot selection experience that an 

 address that might appear to be that of a bank, may not in fact be a bank,* 

 a selection of 2,700 cases was made to assure a sample of 2,^00. The sample 

 size was determined by SSA's Office of Research and Statistics. It is reli- 

 able at the 95# confidence level, with an error of plus or minus two percent. 



* For example, #1 ABC Bank Building would be picked up as a bank. 

 Figure 4.1 shows the number of power-of-attorney beneficiaries surveyed. 



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