Social Security Administration October 12, 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

We are considering ways to quickly identify diseases and other serious medical conditions that obviously meet the definition of disability under the Social Security Act (Act) and can be identified with minimal objective medical information. We are calling this method ``Compassionate Allowances.'' In December 2007, April 2008, November 2008, July 2009, and November 2009, we held Compassionate Allowance public hearings. These hearings concerned rare diseases, cancers, traumatic brain injury and stroke, early-onset Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, and schizophrenia, respectively. This hearing is the sixth in the series. The purpose of this hearing is to obtain your views about the advisability and possible methods of identifying and implementing compassionate allowances for both adults and children with cardiovascular diseases and multiple organ transplants. We plan to address other medical conditions at subsequent hearings.