SSA Announces 13 New Compassionate Allowances Conditions Involving the Immune System and Neurological Disorders

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, today announced 13 new Compassionate Allowances conditions involving the immune system and neurological disorders. The Compassionate Allowances initiative identifies claims where the nature of the applicant’s disease or condition clearly meets the statutory standard for disability. Social Security states that with the help of sophisticated new information technology, the agency can quickly identify potential Compassionate Allowances and then quickly make decisions.  This makes me wonder if this “sophisticated new information technology” is what was discussed in an Indianapolis Star article that I previously reported  here. Added to the list are the following:

Malignant Multiple Sclerosis
Paraneoplastic Pemphigus
Multicentric Castleman Disease
Pulmonary Kaposi Sarcoma
Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma
Primary Effusion Lymphoma
Angelman Syndrome
Lewy Body Dementia
Lowe Syndrome
Corticobasal Degeneration
Multiple System Atrophy
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy
The ALS/Parkinsonism Dementia Complex

The agency announced a small grant program for graduate students that will help Social Security improve its list and has recently awarded an approximately $1.8 million grant over a five-year period to Policy Research, Incorporated (PRI) through the Disability Determination Process Small Grant Program.  This new program aims to improve the disability process through innovative research by graduate students who will receive small stipends for their work.  In addition, the agency recently streamlined its online disability application for people who have a condition on the Compassionate Allowances list.

Information about prior announcements may be found in the archives of out blog. For a complete list of all of the compassionate allowance conditions, please clickhere.