The Compassionate Allowances program helps the Social Security Administration (SSA) identify people living with rare and serious medical conditions that render patients disabled. According to SSA Acting Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi, the Compassionate Allowances program is the SSA’s way of “reducing barriers and ensuring people who are eligible for benefits receive them.”

The SSA added 12 new conditions to the program in August 2023. The following conditions now qualify for the Compassionate Allowances program:

Ip36 Deletion Syndrome
Anaplastic Ependymoma
Calciphylaxis
Cholangiocarcinoma
FOXGI Syndrome
Leber Congenital Amaurosis
Metastatic Endometrial Adenocarcinoma
Paraneoplastic Cerebellar Degeneration
Pineoblastoma – Childhood
Primary Omental Cancer
Sarcomatoid Carcinoma of the Lung – Stages II-IV
Trisomy 9

Adding these conditions to the Compassionate Allowances list helps patients get the benefits they need more quickly. These conditions are rare and usually severe. The unpredictable nature of some of these illnesses makes fast approval of disability benefits more helpful to beneficiaries. Medical confirmation of one of these diagnoses is enough to qualify for Social Security disability benefits. Currently, 278 conditions qualify for Compassionate Allowances.