BALTIMORE — The Social Security Administration has added 14 medical conditions to its Compassionate Allowances program, expanding the list of severe diseases eligible for expedited disability claims to 314 conditions, the agency said.
The program is designed to accelerate decisions for applicants whose medical conditions clearly meet Social Security’s statutory standard for disability. The latest additions include rare genetic disorders, severe neurological diseases and cancers, according to the agency’s current Compassionate Allowances list.
The 14 newly listed conditions are adenylosuccinate lyase deficiency, neonatal form and type 1; Aicardi syndrome; Baraitser-Winter syndrome; Beare-Stevenson cutis gyrata syndrome; Bohring-Opitz syndrome; CASK-related gene disorders; hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma; Lafora disease; malignant migrating partial seizures of infancy; OPHN1 syndrome; primary cardiac sarcoma; primary intracranial malignant melanoma; uveal melanoma with metastases; and Warburg micro syndrome.
Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano said the expansion was intended to improve the speed and quality of disability determinations. “The Compassionate Allowances initiative cuts through red tape and allows us to deliver support to individuals who experience life-changing diagnoses and need help fast,” Bisignano said, according to the agency.
Under the Compassionate Allowances process, Social Security reviews medical evidence to determine whether an applicant has a qualifying condition. The agency uses technology to identify potential Compassionate Allowances cases and can expedite claims when the required medical evidence is available.
The latest expansion follows the addition of 13 conditions in August 2025, which brought the list to 300. At that time, Social Security said more than 1.1 million people with severe disabilities had been approved through the accelerated process since the program began.
The agency said the Compassionate Allowances program does not replace the requirement to establish eligibility for disability benefits. Rather, it identifies certain severe conditions for faster processing when medical documentation supports the diagnosis.
The expansion comes as Social Security has reported broader efforts to reduce disability-processing delays. In June, the agency said its backlog of initial disability claims had fallen by more than 30% from a peak of nearly 1.3 million in 2024 to about 853,000, while the average wait for disability hearings had declined to 266 days.
The 14 conditions are now included on Social Security’s official Compassionate Allowances list, which contains the agency’s current 314 qualifying conditions.
