New Medical Conditions — Including Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease — Now Qualify for Automatic Disability Benefits

Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits are paid to individuals who, after having worked for many years, develop a disabling condition, prior to their normal retirement age, that is so severe that they are no longer able to work. Applicants for Social Security disability benefits often have to wait months, and sometimes years, for approval from the government, even if they are clearly eligible for benefits. However, in certain circumstances the Social Security Administration (SSA) will fast-track a disability benefits application through a process known as Compassionate Allowances, usually because the applicant is suffering from a severe disability that may be life-threatening.  If an applicant is suffering from any of the conditions on the Compassionate Allowances list, his application is fast-tracked because it is presumed that he is a person with disabilities. This speeds up the application process and assists people suffering from serious conditions by awarding benefits quickly, when they are most needed.

When a person with disabilities submits an application for benefits, the SSA normally passes the application through a rigorous five-step process to ensure that the applicant truly needs assistance. The SSA first checks to see if the applicant is working, and then assesses whether the applicant is suffering from a “severe” medical condition. In the third step of the process, the SSA compares the beneficiary’s condition to a list of impairments that normally qualify a person for benefits without further assessment. When a person’s condition matches a condition on the list of impairments, the SSA presumes that the applicant has a disability and typically awards benefits without proceeding through the final two steps.

Unfortunately, most applicants typically have to wait for a long time before arriving at this third step in the evaluation process. Compassionate Allowances speed this process up by defining certain specific conditions that “obviously meet disability standards.” Prior to this month, the SSA included 50 medical conditions on the list of conditions that qualified for a Compassionate Allowance.  As of March 1, 2010, the SSA has now added an additional 38 conditions to the Compassionate Allowances list, greatly expanding the number of people who are eligible for the Compassionate Allowances program.

Although most of the conditions on the revised list are rare, of tremendous importance for the aging population is the fact that the SSA has now included Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, Mixed Dementia, and Primary Progressive Aphasia among the new fast-track conditions, meaning that people who are diagnosed with any of these conditions can now receive disability benefits very quickly. In addition to a monthly disability payment, qualification for SSDI also allows earlier entry to Medicare health insurance benefits for those under age 65.  And for those under age 65 whose conditions are so severe that they must be placed in a nursing home, a disability determination from SSA also speeds up the Medicaid application process.

Please follow the links below to learn more about the Compassionate Allowance program:

Initial List of Compassionate Allowance Conditions

38 New Compassionate Allowance Conditions

Additional information about how compassionate allowances are processed

Statements from Family Members and Individuals with Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease