Authority Extended To Expedite Disability Decisions

Under a special rule published in 2010, disability examiners at the Social Security Administration's (SSA) Disability Determination Services (DDS) have had the authority to make expedited decisions for claimants diagnosed with the most severe medical conditions without the need for approval from a medical or psychological consultant. This temporary authority was set to expire in November 2014.  However, SSA recently announced they have extended this authority an additional year to November 2015.

This is good news for severely disabled claimants that fall under either of SSA's two primary fast-track processes: Compassionate Allowances (CAL) and Quick Disability Determinations (QDD). SSA describes Compassionate Allowances as "a way of quickly identifying diseases and other medical conditions that invariably qualify under the Listing of Impairments based on minimal objective medical information. Compassionate Allowances allow Social Security to target the most obviously disabled individuals for allowances based on objective medical information that we can obtain quickly."  Quick Disability Determinations use "a computer-based predictive model to screen initial applications to identify cases where a favorable disability determination is highly likely and medical evidence is readily available."