The Social Security Administration (SSA) increased the number of diseases and conditions that are part of SSA’s Compassionate Allowance program to 200, which was commemorated by SSA Commissioner Michael Astrue on December 6 in Washington, D.C.
The Compassionate Allowance program is designed to fast-track disability cases for people who are suffering from life-threatening illnesses. Conditions such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease) already fell on the Compassionate Allowance list, which prior to Dec. 6 included 165 different conditions.
A majority of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security (SSI) cases can take the better part of two years before claimants might be approved to receive benefits. The Compassionate Allowance program was instituted in 2008 for people with rare diseases and life threatening conditions to expedite the processing of disability claims. Rather than take up to two years to receive benefits, people suffering from conditions found on the Compassionate Allowance list are supposed to receive disability determinations in a matter of days, not weeks or months.
In a December 5 article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune Astrue said it doesn’t make any sense for people with life-threatening diseases to have to wait month after month to be found disabled if the evidence shows they have a condition on the Compassionate Allowance list.
“If somebody’s got a confirmed diagnosis of ALS, you know that in essence, it’s not only a disability, it’s a death sentence, and there is no use in burdening them with paperwork,” he said.
The expanded list of Compassionate Allowance conditions can be found on the Social Security website by following this link: http://www.socialsecurity.gov/compassionateallowances/conditions.htm.
Speeding up the Disability Determination Process
Aside from the move to expand the Compassionate Allowance list, Social Security is also working on speeding up the process for everyone else. Since 2008 when it took an average of 509 days before applicants received a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge, according to SSA statistics, the Administration has made a concerted effort to speed up the process from beginning to end. One move Astrue has made to improve efficient processing and more thorough determinations at lower levels of Social Security disability cases is to award a grant of $1.5 million to Policy Research Inc., which will make stipends available to graduate students to research and suggest improvements to the disability determination process. For more information visit:
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/compassionateallowances/.
