Match of Washington Death Information Against Social Security Administration Records
May 25, 2018
Office Affiliation: The Office of Audit
Audit Report Number: A-06-17-50172
Our objective was to determine whether death information in Washington State Department of Health (WSDH) death data files was recorded in Social Security Administration (SSA) records.
We obtained WSDH data files that contained approximately 1.8 million Social Security numberholders who died in Washington during Calendar Years 1968 through 2014.
We matched the data files against SSA payment records and identified beneficiaries in current payment status and representative payees whose personally identifiable information matched that of a deceased individual listed in the WSDH files. We also matched the data files against SSA’s full file of death records to identify individuals who were not receiving payments (that is, non-beneficiaries) and had unrecorded deaths in SSA’s Numident system.