Alongside retiree and survivor benefits, the Social Security Administration (SSA) also pays out disability benefits to individuals who have become disabled or blind and are unable to work as a result. When an individual applies for the disability benefit, the agency will first have to obtain the applicant’s medical records in order to accurately process the claim.
In order to streamline this process, the agency offers Compassionate Allowances. The Compassionate Allowances List now consists of 300 conditions following an update from the agency on Monday which added 13 more conditions to the list. If an applicant has any of the conditions found in the Compassionate Allowances List, their claim could be approved faster. Here is what you need to know about Compassionate Allowances, as well as the 13 new conditions that have been added to the list.
What are Social Security Compassionate Allowances?
In order for an applicant to claim disability benefits, they must have a disability or blindness that will either impact their ability to work for at least a year, or will result in death, according to the SSA. Furthermore, since the Social Security program is an insurance program, the applicant will also be required to have worked for at least 5 of the last 10 years if they are above the age of 24.
With the aim of identifying which illness or condition meets the requirements of Social Security disability benefits faster, the SSA introduced Compassionate Allowances. The conditions or illnesses on the Compassionate Allowances List ranges from cancers to brain disorders, as well as rare conditions that affect children. The Compassionate Allowance program allows for a faster disability determination and as a result, wait times can be reduced for the applicant, especially for those with the more serious disabilities.
The Compassionate Allowance program is implemented “by incorporating cutting-edge technology, the agency can easily identify potential Compassionate Allowances to quickly make decisions,” according to the SSA. Additionally, when evaluating for both the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs, the agency uses the same rules as it does for Compassionate Allowances conditions.
The agency also accepts submissions from the public for conditions to be added to the Compassionate Allowances List. According to the SSA, the agency “receives information from the public, comments received from the Social Security and Disability Determination Service communities, counsel from medical and scientific experts, research with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and information received from past public outreach hearings regarding potential CAL conditions.”
List of conditions added to the Compassionate Allowances List
A Monday, August 11th press release from the agency revealed that the agency has added an additional thirteen conditions to its Compassionate Allowances List bringing the total number of conditions on the list up to 300. The newly introduced conditions are listed below:
- Au-Kline Syndrome
- Bilateral Anophthalmia
- Carey-Fineman-Ziter Syndrome
- Harlequin Ichthyosis – Child
- Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation
- LMNA-related Congenital Muscular Dystrophy
- Progressive Muscular Atrophy
- Pulmonary Amyloidosis – AL Type
- Rasmussen Encephalitis
- Thymic Carcinoma
- Turnpenny-Fry Syndrome
- WHO Grade III Meningiomas
- Zhu-Tokita-Takenouchi-Kim Syndrome
The SSA has also shared that more than 1.1 million individuals have received accelerated approval for their claims since the inception of the Compassionate Allowances initiative.
“Although not available in every claim, through the Health IT program, Social Security securely receives electronic medical records, allowing for adjudicators to make faster and more accurate decisions,” the SSA wrote in the Monday press release.
“We are constantly looking for ways to improve our disability programs and serve the public more effectively,” SSA Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano shared in the same press release. “By adding these 13 conditions to the Compassionate Allowances list, we are helping more people with devastating diagnoses to quickly receive the support they need. This is part of our broader commitment to making the disability determination process as responsive and compassionate as possible.”