For years, the Social Security Administration has worked to reduce the backlog of appeals cases for Social Security Disability. The Social Security Administration has made progress but a backlog of applicants who are appealing their cases still exists. The backlog is a problem for folks in Louisiana and elsewhere who feel they have wrongly been denied and for the terminally ill. Sometimes, people who are terminally ill pass away before the disability benefits case is decided.

One man who applied for disability benefits in February 2009 after begin diagnosed with colon cancer unfortunately suffered such a fate. The man's initial Social Security Disability application was denied and so was his first appeal on the grounds that it lacked sufficient medical evidence.

The man a mason who did not have any experience with the bureaucratic and legal process turned to a local legal aid clinic for help. The 50-year-old man did not understand how terminal cancer did not qualify him for disability benefits. A legal aid lawyer helped the man collect additional records from multiple hospitals.

Seven months after his initial diagnosis, the man's cancer progressed to stage-four. He lay in the hospital with few resources. Meanwhile, the Social Security Administration was still trying to determine whether the man was healthy enough to work.

In the middle of December 2010, the 50-year-old man received notice that he had been granted benefits; however, the award of benefits was too late. The man passed away nine days earlier.

While the Social Security Administration has created programs to shorten the application process for those with certain diseases and disabilities, it is clearly still too long for some. Since 2005, there have been more than 15,000 applicants who died while waiting for their appeals case to be concluded.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, "Growing case backlog leaves the terminally ill waiting," Damian Paletta and Dionne Searcey, Dec. 28, 2011