On October 13, 2010, SSA announced new rules effective on November 12, 2010 that will allow SSA personnel to fast track disability claims.   Now there are two programs that will allow SSA personnel to quickly approve cases there the medical evidence for disability is overwhelming.

The first program is called the “compassionate allowance” program, and it identifies specific diseases that produce work activity limitations that meet SSA’s definition of disability – in other words, if someone has one of these medical conditions, they would not be able to engage in substantial gainful activity and the symptoms will last 12 consecutive months or result in death.  I discussed the compassionate allowance program in a previous blog post, and you can review the diagnoses on the list by clicking on the link.

The second and newer program is called the Quick Disability Determination (QDD) program.   This program uses a computer program to analyze the electronic claim files to identify “cases where there is a high likelihood that the claimant is disabled” so that a claims representative within Social Security can approve a case without the need to review the claim with a medical or psychological consultant.  In a regular claim adjudication the claims rep, or “Adjudicator” must get a medical or psychological consultant to sign off on an approval, a process that takes time and can yield inconsistent results. Continue reading →