If you have applied for Social Security Disability Insurance, it may be months or even years before you receive a decision regarding your case. In fact, more than one million people across the nation are currently waiting for SSDI approval and funds that will help them live while they are unable to work. In some cases, people die before they are able to get the money needed to pay for medical expenses and to make ends meet. In an attempt to decrease the backlog of applications waiting for SSDI processing, the Social Security Administration created the Compassionate Allowances Program. This program is designed to streamline the SSDI application process for people who suffer from certain conditions and diseases that are easily identifiable as being approved for benefits.
The Social Security Administration consistently updates information received from medical experts, the Social Security and Disability Determination Service community, the public and the National Institutes of Health to determine which conditions to place on the Compassionate Allowances list. The list includes certain cancers, such as acute leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, angiosarcoma, brain cancer and gallbladder cancer, as well as conditions, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease.
When Social Security Administration employees see the listed condition, they are able to contact medical professionals to verify the information and process the application through more quickly. For applications dealing with conditions not listed in the Compassionate Allowances Programs, the employees may have to go through a longer process of verifying the information and determining if the condition is severe enough to be covered under SSDI.
This information is intended to educate and should not be taken as legal advice.
