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Social Security Disability – Compassionate Allowances

Social Security has an obligation to provide benefits quickly to applicants whose medical conditions are so serious that their conditions obviously meet disability standards.

Compassionate allowances are a way of quickly identifying diseases and other medical conditions that invariably qualify under the Listing of Impairments based on minimal objective medical information. Compassionate allowances will allow Social Security to quickly target the most obviously disabled individuals for allowances based on objective medical information that we can obtain quickly.

Commissioner Astrue has held two Compassionate Allowance public outreach hearings. The first was on rare diseases and the second was on cancers. A third hearing on brain injuries was held on November 18, 2008.

The initial list of Compassionate Allowance conditions was developed as a result of information received at public outreach hearings, public comment on an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, comments received from the Social Security and Disability Determination Service communities, and the counsel of medical and scientific experts. Also, we considered which conditions are most likely to meet our current definition of disability.

A modest 50 conditions have been selected for the initiative’s rollout. The list which follows may expand over time.

List of Conditions

  1. Acute Leukemia
  2. Adrenal Cancer – with distant metastases or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
  3. Alexander Disease (ALX) – Neonatal and Infantile
  4. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
  5. Anaplastic Adrenal Cancer – with distant metastases or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
  6. Astrocytoma – Grade III and IV
  7. Bladder Cancer – with distant metastases or inoperable or unresectable
  8. Bone Cancer – with distant metastases or inoperable or unresectable
  9. Breast Cancer – with distant metastases or inoperable or unresectable
  10. Canavan Disease (CD)
  11. Cerebro Oculo Facio Skeletal (COFS) Syndrome
  12. Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) – Blast Phase
  13. Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) – Adult
  14. Ependymoblastoma (Child Brain Tumor)
  15. Esophageal Cancer
  16. Farber’s Disease (FD) – Infantile
  17. Friedreichs Ataxia (FRDA)
  18.  Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), Picks Disease -Type A – Adult
  19. Gallbladder Cancer
  20. Gaucher Disease (GD) – Type 2
  21. Glioblastoma Multiforme (Brain Tumor)
  22. Head and Neck Cancers – with distant metastasis or inoperable or uresectable
  23. Infantile Neuroaxonal Dystrophy (INAD)
  24. Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC)
  25. Kidney Cancer – inoperable or unresectable
  26. Krabbe Disease (KD) – Infantile
  27. Large Intestine Cancer – with distant metastasis or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
  28. Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome (LNS)
  29. Liver Cancer
  30. Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL)
  31. Metachromatic Leukodystrophy (MLD) – Late Infantile
  32. Niemann-Pick Disease (NPD) – Type A
  33. Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer – with metastases to or beyond the hilar nodes or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
  34. Ornithine Transcarbamylase (OTC) Deficiency
  35. Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) – Type II
  36. Ovarian Cancer – with distant metastases or inoperable or unresectable
  37. Pancreatic Cancer
  38. Peritoneal Mesothelioma
  39. Pleural Mesothelioma
  40. Pompe Disease – Infantile
  41. Rett (RTT) Syndrome
  42. Salivary Tumors
  43. Sandhoff Disease
  44. Small Cell Cancer (of the Large Intestine, Ovary, Prostate, or Uterus)
  45. Small Cell Lung Cancer
  46. Small Intestine Cancer – with distant metastases or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
  47. Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) – Types 0 And 1
  48. Stomach Cancer – with distant metastases or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
  49. Thyroid Cancer
  50. Ureter Cancer – with distant metastases or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent

Bob Kraft

I am a Dallas, Texas lawyer who has had the privilege of helping thousands of clients since 1971 in the areas of Personal Injury law and Social Security Disability.

About This Blog

The title of this blog reflects my attitude toward those government agencies and insurance companies that routinely mistreat injured or disabled people. As a Dallas, Texas lawyer, I've spent more than 45 years trying to help those poor folk, and I have been frustrated daily by the actions of the people on the other side of their claims. (Sorry if I offended you...)

If you find this type of information interesting or helpful, please visit my law firm's main website at KraftLaw.com. You will find many more articles and links. Thank you for your time.

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