Compassionate Allowances provide expedited review of applications for disability benefits by quickly identifying those that meet Social Security’s standards. This is especially important for people with rare diseases who, historically, have encountered problems when applying for assistance because those making decisions are not familiar with their diseases.

The program was established in 2008 with a list of 50 diseases. Both initially and as the list was later expanded, patient advocates were given an opportunity to submit diseases for consideration, along with input from medical experts at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and leading medical centers.

The NORD Medical Advisory Committee—a group of rare disease physicians providing guidance to NORD on medical matters—has submitted input to SSA for this program. There are approximately 7,000 diseases considered rare in the U.S., and many of these are lifelong and severely disabling.

The majority of the 100 diseases on the Compassionate Allowances list are for rare conditions. They include, for example, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and several devastating rare diseases affecting infants and children. http://www.rarediseases.org/advocacy/initiatives-updates/compassionate-allowances.
To read about the program and view the entire list of conditions, go to:

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The judges who decide Social Security disability cases are members of the Administrative Law Judge Corps, an independent body that helps assure that independence from the Social Security Administration in deciding cases. While that is a good thing, sometimes there seems no way to remove a really bad apple from the Corps.

“Two congressional committees took aim today at the Social Security Administration for how its administrative law judges decide disability claims, following reports that a handful of judges fall well outside the norm.

“During a hearing, lawmakers sparred over the scope of the problem and whether Social Security’s leadership has enough authority to discipline judges who apply disability standards incorrectly. Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.) said many of the judges are conscientious and hard-working, but that they enjoy a “near-complete lack of accountability” because of the cumbersome process for removing them.

Coble is chairman of a House Judiciary subcommittee on the federal courts that held the joint hearing with a House Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security. He said Congress should consider several changes to the law governing the Social Security judges, including how they are selected and how they are reviewed.” Review the article here:

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Tis Baltimore blog illustrates the vast disparity among judges. Even within hearing offices, judges vary in the opinions they bring to their decisions. It makes it even more important to have a good representative, a lawyer who knows the ropes and the personalities of a local office can make a big difference.

…”In San Anto­nio, Texas, peo­ple hop­ing to get Social Secu­rity dis­abil­ity pay­ments could see their cases assigned to any of 17 judges. The luck of this draw mat­ters a lot. One of the judges grants ben­e­fits in just 14 per­cent of cases. Another judge hands over benefits—which range from about $700 per month to about twice that—92 per­cent of the time.

“That 78 per­cent dis­par­ity rate makes San Anto­nio the sec­ond most lottery-like sys­tem in the Social Secu­rity Administration’s arch­i­pel­ago of hear­ing offices, accord­ing to a data analy­sis by the Trans­ac­tional Records Access Clear­ing­house, a non-profit research orga­ni­za­tion housed at Syra­cuse Uni­ver­sity. (Dal­las is num­ber one, with 83 per­cent disparity).”
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The Baltimore CIty Paper reports that the number of applicants for disability has exploded during the past two decades, and waiting times increased to an average of more than 500 days. Baltimore is the site for the largest processing components of the Social Security Administration. The long wait times have left some desperately poor applicants with virtually no income for years. The system is complicated enough that many applicants hire lawyers to steer their cases through it, at a cost of thousands of dollars (“Hardly Working,” Feature, June 1). In 2007, Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue vowed to cut the backlog, and appeared to be making progress—despite yet another spike in applications owing to the economic downturn.

In the administration’s performance and accountability report for fiscal year 2010, Astrue said he had “made elimination of our hearings backlog our number one priority” and had “steadily reduced the hearings backlog despite receiving nearly 100,000 more hearing requests than we did in [fiscal year] 2009.” He said the Social Security Administration had by September 2010 reduced average hearing processing time to “below 400 days for the first time in six years.”

But Astrue also moved the goalposts, according to TRAC, which is headquartered at Syracuse University and, since 1989, has used private grants to pursue Freedom of Information Act requests of federal agencies. “In 2007 [SSA] set a goal of permanent elimination of the ‘backlog’ by 2012, modified during 2008 to eliminating it by 2013,” TRAC’s report, which is available online at tinyurl.com/ See article here:

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In today’s USA Today, this article discusses the growing numbers for pending cases. In spite of everything SSA is doing to reduce these times and numbers, it can’t seem to keep up with new applications:

“More than 728,000 Americans are awaiting appeal hearings for Social Security disability benefits, a 5% jump in pending cases during the last year, a new report shows.

“The increase, partly a result of more disabled persons unable to find jobs during the recession, may make it harder for the Social Security Administration to continue reducing waiting times for benefits rulings, according to the analysis.
“History shows that if this growth is unchecked, as hearing dockets become more and more clogged, wait times will grow,” said the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research organization at Syracuse University that studied the data through March 31.

“Social Security Administration Commissioner Michael Astrue questioned the significance of the increase in pending appeals, which new data from the agency shows have jumped to 740,998 as of May 27. While TRAC officials said that buttressed their report’s findings, Astrue said the more meaningful measure was the faster processing and decision-issuing times produced by his agency’s improvement efforts.

” However, he said it was uncertain whether the agency would meet its goal to reduce the average waiting time for benefits — 367 days on average nationally for October through April — to 270 days by 2013. The TRAC report cites agency statistics that show wait times peaked at an average of 514 days for cases disposed of in federal fiscal year 2008…” More details here:

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Today is the last day to enter comments on a detrimental rule change that SSA proposes involving consultative examinations. As we all know, many of these purchased exams are inexpert and confusing, and allow a denial to be issued when the decision maker has no other evidence. This change would allow SSA to give up after the first contact with an unresponsive treating source.

SSA has proposed to eliminate the current requirement to recontact treating sources before referring a claimant to a consultative examination. 76 Fed. Reg. 20282 (Apr. 12, 2011). An article about the proposal appears in our April newsletter. Ask us for a copy of the proposed comments and we will email that to you.

NOSSCR’s comments opposing the change appear on our webpage: www.nosscr.org. We are concerned that the proposed change will diminish the role and weight of medical evidence from treating sources.

Midnight tonight is the close of the comment period. We hope you will weigh in with your own comments, however brief.

You can file comments by:

1. Internet on www.regulations.gov. Use the search function to find the docket number SSA-2010-0044. On the home page, under “Begin a search by choosing a task or entering a keyword,” select “Submit Comments.” In the space for “Enter keyword or ID,” type in SSA-2010-0044 and click on “Search.” When you get the result, click on “Submit a comment” (the far right-hand column).
2. Fax comments to 410-966-2830

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Millions of Americans receive disability benefits from Social Security and there could be good news for many of those who want to work. A free and voluntary program called Ticket to Work gives individuals who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) access to meaningful employment while maintaining control over benefit choices.

Ed Bairos, a farmer and mechanic, went back to the work he loved with the help of the Ticket program. Ed went on SSDI after suffering from severe arthritis, complicated by a knee injury that would require 20 surgeries. He was concerned about losing the cash payments and health care he needed to survive and worried that employers might not want to hire him.

Then Bairos learned about the Ticket to Work program when he received a notice in the mail from Social Security. The notice was a “Ticket” that Bairos could use with an Employment Network of his choosing. Employment Networks are organizations that offer specialized services such as career counseling, job search assistance, vocational rehabilitation and training. Bairos decided to use his ticket with the Ticket to Success/Tulare County Office of Education and returned to work.
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•Most people don’t know that a veteran may be eligible for both Social Security benefits and Veterans’ benefits – and this is particularly true for survivors’ benefits. Although both disability systems have their problems and delays, often Social Security will be granted sooner than VA disability benefits and payment are based on work history outside the military, a benefit source for many of our new 30-something wounded warriors. The VA may only grant payments for the service connected part of a disability, which may not be the whole story. Looks at the stats from a recent study:

More than one-third of America’s 54 million Social Security beneficiaries are veterans or family members living with them. Social Security currently pays benefits to more than 9 million veterans — or about four in 10 veterans. See full story here:

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The Washington Department of Social and Health Services has launched a website that will help workers with disabilities find employment.

Pathways to Employment allows users to create resumes, find the names of businesses in their area, and view videos of success stories.

A benefits calculator enables workers to determine how much money they can make without jeopardizing Social Security payments or other benefits.

“Many Washingtonians with a disability want to work,” said Stephen Kozak, a Medicaid purchasing project manager who led the team that developed the site.

But many fear that job income could cut them off from Social Security, he said.

In Spokane County, more than 33,000 report some kind of disability. Of those, more than 9,500 work, 2,700 are out of work but looking, and 21,250 are out of the labor force.

The program was developed with a $416,305 federal grant. See link here:

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The commissioner of the Social Security Administration for the first time publicly acknowledged yesterday that there are major flaws with the $10 billion children’s disability program his agency oversees and said he was aggressively seeking congressional approval to conduct an independent scientific study of the program’s weaknesses.

In an extensive interview at the Globe, Michael Astrue said that such a study, which would cost about $10 million, could provide a dispassionate, scientific basis for changing aspects of the children’s Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which can be overhauled only by congressional decree. See article here:

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