Social Security Holds First Disability
Hearing on Compassionate Allowances
Experts’ Testimony on Evaluating Rare
Diseases Available on
www.socialsecurity.gov
The Social Security Administration is making statements
from its two-day public hearing with some of the nation’s
leading experts on rare diseases available online at
www.socialsecurity.gov. The experts presented testimony
and shared their views about Social Security’s
efforts to identify and implement “compassionate
allowances” for children and adults with rare
diseases.
“We need to identify and fast-track disability
cases that are certain or near-certain to be allowed,”
said Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security.
“The compassionate allowances initiative will
allow the Social Security Administration to make decisions
on cases involving certain categories of conditions
in days or weeks instead of months or years.”
Compassionate allowances are a way of quickly identifying
diseases and other medical conditions that invariably
qualify under Social Security’s Listing of Impairments
based on minimal objective medical information. Compassionate
allowances will let Social Security quickly target the
most obviously disabled individuals for allowances based
on objective medical information that can be obtained
quickly. Many of these claims can be allowed based on
confirmation of the diagnosis alone; for example, acute
leukemia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and pancreatic
cancer. In these cases, allowances can be made as soon
as the diagnosis is confirmed or the other necessary
objective medical evidence is obtained.
This hearing, held on December 4th and 5th in Washington,
D.C., is the first of four public hearings that Social
Security plans to hold over the next year.
Please go to www.socialsecurity.gov/compassionateallowances
for testimony from many of the rare disease experts
and a photo gallery of the hearing.
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