Social Security has a process for expediting certain disability claims for people with some rare diseases and diagnoses that often have poor outcomes. It is called the Compassionate Allowance program (they abbreviate it as CAL). A list of the conditions which qualify for the program is here.

Although Social Security uses the same criteria to determine disability in compassionate allowance cases as other cases, the CAL cases move quickly through the system. I did not realize how quickly the claims moved until this past week, when I helped a new client with a compassionate allowance condition with their disability application. Look at the speed with which the claim was handled:

• Wednesday, January 22 – application filed online; I faxed documents to the Portland, Maine Field Office that day.
• Thursday, January 23 – a specialist at the field office conducted a non-medical review of the claim.
• Friday, January 24 – the case is transferred to DDS. They assign a disability examiner that day, who orders the claimant’s medical records and sends forms to the claimant that day (Work History Report, Cardiac Questionnaire).
• Weekend – I download those forms from the electronic claim file, email them to the claimant who completes them and emails the completed forms back to me. I submit the forms to Social Security electronically, so they are in the claim file for Monday morning.
• Monday, January 27 – I tell the disability adjudicator about one more source for medical records, because the claimant takes part in a clinical trial at the Brigham in Boston. The disability adjudicator orders those records that day.
• Tuesday, January 28 – requested medical records arrive in the electronic file.
• Wednesday, January 29 – expedited medical review. No waiting in the queue for medical evaluation.
• Thursday morning, January 30 – case closed! Allowance issued. Case is picked up by Federal Quality Review.
• Friday, January 31 – FQR completed. Case transferred back to the local office. Payment is processed that day.

To recap, the claim went from a disability application to payment of benefits in 10 days. Remarkable! And the money has already landed in the client’s account via direct deposit.

Every Social Security employee involved in the claim, particularly the specialist at the field office and the DDS adjudicator, acted expeditiously to make this result possible. They deserve great credit for it.