Social Security Administration July 2009 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

We are extending for two years our rule authorizing attorney advisors to conduct certain prehearing procedures and to issue fully favorable decisions. The current rule is scheduled to expire on August 10, 2009. In this final rule, we are extending the sunset date to August 10, 2011. We are making no other substantive changes.

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.'' We will hold a hearing on July 29, 2009, to obtain information about possible methods of identifying adults with Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease and related dementias and the advisability of implementing compassionate allowances for people with these diseases.