(Bloomberg) -- The American retirement system needs a plumber.Everything is built so the pipes don’t connect.

That's how Lew Minsky of the Defined Contribution InstitutionalInvestment Association, a group representing the 401(k) industry describesit.

Workers hop from job to job, collecting 401(k)s andindividual retirement accounts (IRAs)along the way. Rolling those assets into one convenient account canbe a full-time job of its own, since the companies that run 401(k)plans and sell IRAs all use different systems.

Here's what happened when I tried to roll a 401(k) at a formeremployer’s plan into an IRA.

It took visits to three websites and two phone calls--which wereonly answered during business hours--before a letter and check weremailed from the 401(k) plan.

Yes, that’s a paper letter and check, sent through the U.S.Postal Service.

Then, when the money finally arrived at the IRA provider, ittook two more calls, totaling 23 minutes, before the firm wasable to invest my money.

The whole process took two full weeks, which happened to be anunlucky time to have my money out of the stock market. I missed a 6percent rise in the S&P 500 and a 10 percent jump in emergingmarkets.

That was nothing, the experts tell me.

For most people, Michael Kreps of Groom Law Group in Washingtonsaid, “it’s too complicated and difficult to do the rolloverthemselves.”

An expert on retirement policy, Kreps wasable to find a way to roll over his old 401(k) into an IRA.But only after a series of bureaucratic mishaps.

He needed to ask his former employer for forms and a letter, andhe had to visit a bank to get a special form.

“I’m a pension lawyer and it took me forever,” he said. And a401(k)-to-IRA rollover is easy compared to the near- impossibilityof a “roll-in,” moving money from an old 401(k) to a current401(k).

So Americans end up with 401(k)s and IRAs all over the place,some with tiny balances.

This isn’t just a hassle that makes it harder to plan. Strandedaccounts are also hurting Americans’ retirement security, the U.S.Government Accountability Office recently warned.

When workers leave jobs with 401(k) balances of less than$5,000, employers can automatically unload that money into a newIRA.

These small balances often end up sitting in cash, where theirvalue gets whittled away to nothing by inflation and fees. Or,worse, people just cash the things out and spend the money.

As many as two in five workers cash out small 401(k) balances asthey leave their jobs. Their savings never get a chance to grow,and they pay taxes and penalties in the process.

A Charlotte, North Carolina-based company called RetirementClearinghouse thinks it has the answer.

It's offering to build the technological pipes needed to connect401(k) plans and IRAs, and it's pushing "auto-portability"so retirement savings would follow workers from job tojob.

Under auto-portability, when workers left a job with a smallbalance in their 401(k), employers would send the money to aclearinghouse rather than creating a new IRA.

The clearinghouse would hold on to the worker’s cash, for asmall fee, and then send it on to their new employer's 401(k) whenthey got a new job. The whole process would be automatic, thoughworkers could stop it at any point -- if, for example, they'drather send the money to an existing rollover IRA instead.

Minsky’s group, which is made up of large employers, 401(k)providers, and investment firms, is enthusiastic about the idea.It’s the rare case of a proposal with hardly any enemies.

Investment companies and 401(k) providers would get more moneyto manage. Plan administrators would have fewer hassles keepingtrack of tiny accounts and, another common problem, uncashedchecks. Workers would get more retirement savings.

“It’s a common sense solution that we really should have done along time ago,” Kreps, the pension lawyer, said.

But retirement plan regulations are complicated, and RetirementClearinghouse is waiting for a ruling from the U.S. Department ofLabor making clear that it’s legal to transfer savingsautomatically in this way.

The ruling would apply only to accounts of under $5,000.

An account of $15,000, for example, would still stay at anold 401(k), in whatever investments a worker has chosen.

Such a system could soon have a broader impact,however--assuming the Labor Department gives its blessing and largeretirement plan providers then get serious about solving therollover problem.

Once a system is built that standardizes how small accounts aretransferred, it gets much easier to move even the largestaccounts.

That could effectively end your retirement rollover hassles.

Savings from one job would follow you to your next,automatically or just by checking a box during new-employeeorientation.

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