The Social Security Administration (SSA) announced on Aug. 11 that it has added 14 severe medical conditions to a program that speeds disability decisions, expanding its Compassionate Allowances List (CAL) to now 314 conditions.
The additions include rare childhood disorders, aggressive cancers, seizure disorders, and other life-altering diseases.
Claims involving conditions on the list are eligible for an accelerated review because they meet SSA’s disability standard, the agency said. Meanwhile, standard disability determinations generally take six to eight months.
The newly added conditions are:
- Adenylosuccinate lyase deficiency—neonatal form and type 1
- Aicardi syndrome
- Baraitser-Winter syndrome
- Beare-Stevenson cutis gyrata syndrome
- Bohring-Opitz syndrome
- CASK-related gene disorders
- Hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma
- Lafora disease
- Malignant migrating partial seizures of infancy
- OPHN1 syndrome
- Primary cardiac sarcoma
- Primary intracranial malignant melanoma
- Uveal melanoma with metastases
- Warburg micro syndrome
The SSA said it uses technology to identify claims that have a listed condition. "If your condition is on the CAL list, we use technology to flag your application and speed things up. In some cases, we can even get your medical records electronically, which makes the process even faster," the SSA stated.
“Social Security is strengthening our disability programs and making the disability determination process better, faster, and higher-quality to serve the American public,” said Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano.
“The Compassionate Allowances initiative cuts through red tape and allows us to deliver support to individuals who experience life-changing diagnoses and need help fast,” he added.
Since 2008, more than 1.2 million people have received approvals through Social Security’s Compassionate Allowances program, which fast-tracks disability claims for certain severe medical conditions. The initiative began with 50 covered diagnoses, among them 25 cancers and 25 rare diseases, according to the SSA.
The latest expansion comes after Social Security added 13 medical conditions to the Compassionate Allowances list in August 2025, including progressive muscular atrophy, thymic carcinoma, Rasmussen encephalitis, pulmonary amyloidosis, and several rare childhood disorders. That update brought the total to 300 eligible conditions, following nine new additions in 2024.
The change also comes as Social Security expands online services for disability applicants. In July, the SSA launched new tools allowing users to track claims and appeals, submit certain medical and work-history forms, and access 26 additional hearing-related notices through their my Social Security accounts.
Social Security said in June that it had reduced its initial disability claims backlog from nearly 1.3 million cases in 2024 to 853,000. Disability hearing wait times had fallen to 266 days during fiscal 2026, according to the SSA.