Yesterday, Cathleen Weber of the Community Health Education department at Bloomington Hospital advertised this piece of news:
The Social Security Administration has, for some time, had a list of 50 diagnoses that allowed people to get a "quick review" and immediate social security income or disability benefits (days vs. months or years). As you can imagine, this is imperative for some people with a limited life expectancy, children who need significant medical care, some cancers, etc.
Today the Social Security Administration released the attached news release adding an additional 38 diagnoses to the initial list, including early onset Alzheimer's Disease. This was a huge lobbying effort and a great success and will benefit many families.
The SSA press release is linked below, along with a National Public Radio blog segment about it. For those of you working in areas that help diagnose people (they had added several diseases affecting children) keep these handy and use the list to educate and advocate. Please feel free to share widely.
Link to initial list of 50 diagnoses: http://www.socialsecurity.gov/compassionateallowances/conditions.htm
Link to SSA Press release and expansion list of 38 added effective March 1, 2010: http://www.socialsecurity.gov/pressoffice/pr/cal021110-pr.html
NPR Blog segment Link: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/02/social_security_expands_disabi.html?ft=1&f=103943429
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