If you live with chronic illness or care for someone who does, check out Social Security's Compassionate Allowances program, an initiative designed to get benefits to seriously ill people as quickly as possible.

Compassionate Allowances is designed to fast-track the benefit approval process for people who live with a variety of severe conditions -- from ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) to Esophageal Cancer, Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease, Schizophrenia, Dementia and other illnesses.  This past summer the Social Security Administration increased the number of conditions covered to 100.

"We have reached a significant milestone," SSA Commissioner Michael J. Astrue said. "We have an obligation to award benefits quickly to people whose medical conditions are so serious they clearly meet our disability standards. We are now able to do precisely that for 100 severe conditions."

Click here for a link to the Social Security Administration's Compasionate Allowances program webpage.