Social Security is with you through life’s journey, often during times of personal hardship, transition, and uncertainty. We believe that compassion is the cornerstone of our public service commitment. If you suffer from a serious medical condition that prevents you from working, time is of the essence when it comes to receiving a decision on your disability application.

Our initial claims process typically takes three to five months, but in some cases, we’re able to expedite the application process through our Compassionate Allowances program. Social Security uses Compassionate Allowances to identify people whose medical condition is so severe that it clearly meets our definition of disability.

For 10 years, our Compassionate Allowances program has helped us identify and fast track cases where people have diseases that are most likely to be approved for disability benefits.

Here are five things you may not know about our Compassionate Allowances program:

1. Social Security uses cutting-edge technology to identify, evaluate, and quickly process applications with Compassionate Allowances conditions, bringing help to those with the most severe conditions.
2. Many of the claims in our Compassionate Allowances Program are approved based on medical confirmation of the diagnosis alone; for example, pancreatic cancer, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and acute leukemia diagnoses are fast tracked.
3. More than 500,000 people with serious disabilities have been approved through this fast-track disability process.
4. The list of Compassionate Allowances conditions is currently at 233 and growing with the addition of five new conditions in August of this year.
5. If you know about a condition that could be part of our Compassionate Allowances program, you may submit the name of the condition for consideration.

You can visit our Compassionate Allowances website for more information. Also, please help us spread the word on Compassionate Allowances by sharing this post with family and friends.

Tags: social security disability benefits