Social Security Administration Fast Tracks Decisions on over 50 Medical Conditions

In recent years, the Social Security Administration has created a list of medical impairments that are to be fast-tracked for favorable decisions.  Compassionate Allowances are a way of quickly identifying diseases and other medical conditions that invariably qualify based on minimal objective medical information. Compassionate Allowances allow Social Security to quickly target the most obviously disabled individuals for allowances based on objective medical information.  Today, SSA announced the addition of 52 new medical impairments to the list of the “compassionate allowances”.  These conditions involve cancers, neurological, and immune system disorders affecting adults and children.  New additions include Ewings Sarcoma, Juvenile Onset Huntington Disease and Child Neuroblastoma.

What is intriguing is that although SSA has identified these diseases as automatically disabling based on information they have gathered through public hearings, they are not fully included in the list of diseases until August 13, 2012.