One of the first things people learn after they become disabled is that once you lose your job, it is an uphill struggle to find another one. Therefore, people with chronic illnesses or disabling conditions try to keep working for as long as possible. They know how much their medical bills are, and they know how devastating it would be to lose the medical benefits they have at work. However, at some point people may lose their jobs regardless of how hard they try to keep them. They may be downsized or they may simply become too sick to continue working.
At this point, many people turn to the Social Security Administration (SSA) for help in the form of disability benefits. To their dismay, many people find that they have to go through a lengthy application and disability evaluation process and that many times their applications are rejected multiple times. The wait can prove to be too long – some people die before they receive any help.
The SSA recognizes the backlog in the disability approval process. To help ease the situation for those who are gravely ill, the SSA maintains a list of conditions and diseases that are assumed to be disabling conditions that meet Social Security’s standards for disability. Called “compassionate allowances,” these disabling or life-threatening conditions clearly qualify a person for an automatic approval for disability benefits.
The original list of 50 qualifying conditions was expanded in February, 2010 to include 38 others. Some are rare, such as Patau Syndrome or Wolman Disease, while others are more common, such as early onset Alzheimer’s and many cancers. This is the list of the new compassionate allowances, as reported in the Senior Journal earlier this year:
- Alstrom Syndrome
- Amegakaryocytic Thrombocytopenia
- Ataxia Spinocerebellar
- Ataxia Telangiectasia
- Batten Disease
- Bilateral Retinoblastoma
- Cri du Chat Syndrome
- Degos Disease
- Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease
- Edwards Syndrome
- Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva
- Fukuyama Congenital Muscular Dystrophy
- Glutaric Acidemia Type II
- Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), Familial Type
- Hurler Syndrome, Type IH
- Hunter Syndrome, Type II
- Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
- Junctional Epidermolysis Bullosa, Lethal Type
- Late Infantile Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinoses
- Leigh’s Disease
- Maple Syrup Urine Disease
- Merosin Deficient Congenital Muscular Dystrophy
- Mixed Dementia
- Mucosal Malignant Melanoma
- Neonatal Adrenoleukodystrophy
- Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinoses, Infantile Type
- Niemann-Pick Type C
- Patau Syndrome
- Primary Progressive Aphasia
- Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy
- Sanfilippo Syndrome
- Subacute Sclerosis Panencephalitis
- Tay Sachs Disease
- Thanatophoric Dysplasia, Type 1
- Ullrich Congenital Muscular Dystrophy
- Walker Warburg Syndrome
- Wolman Disease
- Zellweger Syndrome
The original 50 compassionate allowance conditions can be seen on the Social Security website. If you or a loved one has any of these conditions, be sure to note on your application both your condition and the fact that it falls under the compassionate allowance rules. You can direct your SSA contact to the relevant section of the Social Security website that contains procedures for your SSA contact to follow in processing your particular compassionate allowance disability claim.
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