• 17
  • March
    2010
The wait for social security disability benefits can be a long one. According to the Social Security Administration, the initial application generally takes three to five months for processing, and for many applicants this is just the first step in the process. Compassionate allowances are designed to speed up claims processing for disability applicants whose conditions are almost certain to qualify them for SSDI benefits.

The Social Security Administration recently added 38 new compassionate allowances to its compassionate allowance list after a round of five public hearings designed to garner input from doctors, disability awareness advocates and the public.

The five public hearings each addressed a discrete category of disabling conditions: schizophrenia, early onset Alzheimer's and related dementias, brain injuries and stroke, cancers, and rare diseases.

The compassionate allowance list now contains 88 conditions. Social security disability applicants whose conditions are listed are not required to provide the extensive amount of medical documentation normally mandated due to the obvious severity of their disabilities. The claims processing is expedited, and the focus is on verifying the accuracy of the information provided by the applicant indicating that the impairment satisfies the eligibility criteria set out in the list of impairments.

Recently designated compassionate allowance conditions include early-onset Alzheimer's Disease, bilateral retinoblastoma, Hunter syndrome Type II, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, mixed dementia and Tay Sachs disease. A full list of the new compassionate allowances can be found on the Social Security Administration Web site.

Mishka Michon, Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis CEO, praised the addition of ideopathic pulmonary fibrosis to the compassionate allowance list. Michon's description of pulmonary fibrosis patients' struggle to get SSDI benefits is typical of the red tape encountered by many disability sufferers.

"Historically, most of our patients have been repeatedly denied disability by Social Security and much needed benefits have been delayed to them. Now, our patients will be able to receive their benefits before it is too late for them," Michon said.

On average, a pulmonary fibrosis patient survives only 2.7 years after being diagnosed. While the condition is as common as breast cancer, it has no known cause, no approved treatment and no cure.

The other conditions approved for compassionate allowance processing similarly involve severely disabling or deadly medical conditions from which patients cannot reasonably be expected to recover.