Cardiovascular Disability: Updating the Social Security Listings

摘要

The Social Security Administration (SSA) asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to conduct a 1-year study and make recommendations for improving the cardiovascular disability criteria in the SSA Listing of Impairments. The Listings, as they are known, contain criteria for determining incapacity to work due to the effects of more than 120 adult and 90 childhood diseases and conditions that cause disability. SSA uses the Listings as a screening tool early in the disability determination process to identify applicants (referred to as claimants in this report) for benefits who are so severely impaired that further information about their vocational capacity or other factors, such as age, educational attainment, and work history, is not needed to rule favorably on their claims for disability benefits. This screening device shortens the decision process, which gives claimants a more rapid decision and saves SSA substantial administrative costs. There are different criteria that are not based on work for children under age 18 in the Supplemental Security Income program. However, as for adults, the Listings for children are meant to identify the most severely impaired claimants, so that SSA does not have to go through the entire disability evaluation process.