HeartBrothers Spreading Word About Compassionate Allowances
- natashakblanchard
- Dec 10, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 4, 2023
People diagnosed with heart failure face a challenging and frightening health journey—and the last thing they should have to worry about is finances. Many heart failure patients rely on Social Security disability benefits to help cover living expenses while they can’t work to support themselves and their families.
That’s why it’s so important for people with heart failure to know about Social Security’s Compassionate Allowance (CAL) initiative, which helps patients get the financial support they need as quickly as possible.
The nonprofit HeartBrothers Foundation is spreading the word about Compassionate Allowances. HeartBrothers serves hundreds of heart failure patients and their families with financial and emotional support, including accommodations at their HeartBrothers House.
The HeartBrothers House is located in downtown Boston’s beautiful Back Bay and features luxury, furnished suites with superb amenities for $30 per night. That’s a major saving from the average Boston hotel price of more than $300.
At a recent HeartBrothers symposium, Kevin Reino from the Social Security Administration (SSA) spoke about Compassionate Allowances, explaining that Social Security can expedite payments to patients whose medical conditions are so severe they obviously meet SSA’s disability standards.
People who apply for a Compassionate Allowance can receive their benefits in as soon as 10 days, rather than months. The CAL program covers 254 conditions, including Heart Transplant Wait List 1A/1B and Heart Transplant Graft Failure.
More than 700,000 people have benefited from the CAL program, including about 11,000 cardiac-related claims. You can learn more about CAL and all the conditions it covers HERE.
How to Apply for a Compassionate Allowance
There is no separate application for a Compassionate Allowance. When you apply for disability benefits, be sure to clearly state on the application that you are seeking a CAL so the SSA can expedite your case. To learn more about the SSA’s disability programs visit socialsecurity.gov.
About the HeartBrothers Foundation
Launched in 2014, the HeartBrothers Foundation is the brainchild of Pat Sullivan and Bob Romer, who each spent a year in the same Boston hospital waiting for a transplanted heart. They promised each other that if they survived, they would dedicate themselves to helping other heart failure patients and their families. Eight years later, they are growing, adding new initiatives, and serving more and more people. Learn more about all the HeartBrothers Foundation has to offer at heartbrothers.org.
Facts About Heart Failure
Heart failure is a chronic, progressive condition in which the heart muscle is unable to pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs for blood and oxygen. More than 6.2 million Americans suffer from heart failure and 3,500 are currently waiting for transplants. It is estimated 600,000 new heart failure cases are diagnosed each year.
Black Americans are nearly three times more likely to die from heart failure than White Americans. COVID-19, which can damage the heart, is expected to increase heart failure rates in the future.
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