How to Apply for Social Security Benefits for a Child With Cancer

Receiving a diagnosis of cancer in your child can be devastating news for a parent. During this difficult time, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a disability benefit program for children of low-income families, can provide crucial financial support. Health insurance through Medicaid can also help keep doctors’ bills and oncology treatment from becoming overwhelming.

In order to qualify for disability benefits due to cancer, your child must be financially eligible to receive SSI as well as meet (or functionally equal) the childhood medical listings. Social Security understands that parents of children with cancer are going through a uniquely stressful time, and offers several methods for you to expedite the SSI claim process so that you can spend more time supporting your child as they undergo treatment.

What Social Security Benefits Are Available for Minors?

Children under the age of 18 can qualify for SSI benefits if their family has total income and assets that fall below certain low thresholds. For childhood SSI applications, Social Security will treat the parents’ earnings and resources as the child's own in a process called “deeming.”

The formula the agency uses to determine financial eligibility is complicated, but broadly speaking, the SSI resource limit is $2,000 for one parent or $3,000 for two parents. Keep in mind that Social Security doesn’t count a lot of valuable resources—like your house and a car—towards the limit. So for many applicants, the resource limit simply means how much cash they have in the bank.

Calculating how much income a family can have is even more complicated and depends on the number of children in your household as well as whether your income is “earned” or “unearned.” Social Security has a deeming eligibility chart that sets the highest amount a parent can earn monthly (before taxes) and still have a child qualify for SSI. For the details, see our article on how a parent's income affects a child's SSI eligibility.

When Does Cancer in Children Qualify for Disability Benefits?

Once Social Security has determined that your family meets the financial prerequisites for your child to receive SSI, the agency will then need to determine whether your child is medically disabled. That means that they can’t be working a substantial amount (this can be an issue with older teens or younger adults) and that they have functional limitations that last for at least 12 months.

The 12-month durational requirement can be challenging to prove in cases where your child’s treatment was effective enough for the cancer to go into remission (meaning there aren’t any more signs or symptoms of the disease). But if your child's treatment was lengthy, involved, or caused long-lasting side effects, Social Security may find that they are disabled by either meeting, equaling, or being functionally equivalent to the agency’s Blue Book listings for childhood cancer.

Medically Meeting a Listing for Cancer

Each listed impairment contains a set of criteria that, when present in your child’s medical record, are considered sufficient to award your child disability benefits. If your child’s application contains the exact medical evidence described by a listing, the agency will find that your child is disabled. Social Security refers to this as “medically meeting a listing.”

All types of childhood cancer are evaluated under section 113.00 for malignant neoplastic diseases, but each type of cancer requires you to provide different medical evidence. Certain specific cancers have their own listings:

• malignant solid tumors (listing 113.03)
• lymphoma (listing 113.05)
• leukemia (listing 113.06)
• thyroid cancer (listing 113.09)
• retinal cancer (listing 113.12)
• brain and spinal cord cancer (listing 113.13)
• neuroblastoma (listing 113.21), and
• skin cancer (listing 113.29).

For some types of cancers, like malignant solid tumors, lymphoma, and leukemia, just having a diagnosis can be enough for your child to receive disability for 24 months. For other diagnoses, Social Security will find the cancer to be disabling only if it has metastasized (spread to another part of the body) or it re-occurs after treatment. For these types of cancers, the agency will also consider the intensity and duration of the cancer treatment. Your child’s medical records should contain the following information:

• any records for medical procedures, such as a biopsy or surgery
• pathology reports
• treatment notes, including type, dosage, and frequency of drug administration
• hospital admissions
• Iab work
• imaging scans, such as X-ray or MRI, and
• schedule for radiation therapy.

Reviewing the listings lets you know what medical evidence is required for the agency to find that your child is disabled. If there are any gaps in the record or missing documents, you should obtain and submit them before you file for SSI benefits for your child.

Medically Equaling a Listing for Cancer

Even if your child’s records don’t contain exactly the right information to meet a cancer listing, the agency can still find your child disabled if your child’s cancer is causing significant medical issues in the affected body part. Social Security refers to awarding benefits this way as “medically equaling a listing.”

To determine if your child medically equals a listing, Social Security will review your child’s condition under the listing for the affected body part. For example, if your child has retinal cancer, the agency will look to see if your child’s vision has gotten bad enough to meet the low vision listing. Or, if your child has pain from chemotherapy-induced bone loss, the agency might award benefits due to abnormality of a major joint.

Examples of additional side effects that the agency will consider include stomach issues, ongoing weakness, heart complications, and mental health issues. Your child’s oncologist (cancer doctor) should document these and any other side effects.

Functionally Equaling a Listing

Some children may not satisfy the medical criteria to meet or equal a childhood disability listing but are still severely restricted by cancer symptoms and treatment. Social Security can find these children disabled if they have a lot of difficulty with their activities of daily living. The agency refers to this process as “functionally equaling” the listings.

In order to find that your child functionally equals a listing, the agency will look at how well your child is capable of performing six “functional domains.” You must show that your child has "marked" limitations in two of the six domains (areas) of functioning, or an “extreme” limitation in one area of functioning in order to be found disabled this way. These areas of functioning are:

• acquiring and using information
• attending to and completing tasks
• interacting and relating to others
• moving about and manipulating objects
• caring for personal needs, and
• health and physical well-being.

Social Security will determine whether your child’s development in these areas is around the average for children that age. For example, your child might be too tired after a round of chemotherapy to concentrate on finishing homework, to the point where they’re significantly behind most other students in the class. You’ll likely need reports from your child’s teachers, as well as doctors, who can help document your child’s problems in these functional domains.

For more information on the domains of functioning and how to prove your child has marked or extreme limitations in these areas, see our article on how to get SSI for a child by functionally equaling the listings.

Can My Child Get an Expedited Decision for Cancer?

Yes, in certain circumstances. Social Security has a Compassionate Allowance (CAL) program that will fast-track applications with evidence of certain very serious, difficult-to-treat childhood cancers. (SSA POMS DI 11005.604) When the agency receives your child’s application, if the medical records contain evidence of a CAL diagnosis, the file will be marked for expedited consideration.

Expedited consideration means that the agency might not ask you to submit any additional medical evidence and your child’s claim will likely be processed in weeks instead of months. Childhood cancers that qualify for expedited approval include:

• neuroblastoma (adrenal gland cancer)
• lymphoma (lymph node cancer)
• Ewing’s sarcoma (bone cancer)
• lymphoblastic lymphoma (blood cancer)
• rhabdomyosarcoma (soft tissue cancer)
• ependymoblastoma (brain cancer), and
• malignant brain stem gliomas (brain stem cancer).

Your child can also qualify for an expedited decision under the CAL program for cancers that are not specific to children, such as bladder, kidney, and intestinal cancers. You can find the current full list of compassionate allowance conditions on Social Security's official website.

How to Apply for Child SSI Benefits

You’ll need to contact the Social Security Administration to apply for benefits on behalf of your child. You can do this in two ways:

• Call 800-722-1213 Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (If you’re deaf or hard of hearing, call the TTY number at 800-325-0778.)
• Visit your nearest Social Security field office (you can locate your nearest office using the office locator tool).

Explain to the Social Security representative that you want to file an SSI application for your child. The agency provides a Child Disability Starter Kit that can help you prepare your child’s application.

Your child’s application will involve an interview with a Social Security representative. Review the agency’s Checklist for Childhood Disability Interview before you attend. Additionally, you can file a Child Disability Report online by providing information about your child’s cancer treatment so that the agency can obtain the medical records.

SSI Payments for Children

Children who qualify for SSI can receive up to the federal benefit rate ($994 per month in 2026) the same as adults do. This rate is set by the federal government and represents the maximum amount you can receive in SSI (save for a modest supplement payment in the states that provide them). Calculating the exact amount of a child’s SSI benefit can be complicated, however, since the payment is reduced if the child’s family has any countable income.

Additional Government Assistance for Parents Who Have a Child With Cancer

While SSI and Medicaid (the health insurance program that comes with SSI) are probably the biggest resources for parents of children with cancer, they aren’t the only ones available. If you don’t qualify for SSI because your family exceeds the financial thresholds but one of the child’s parents is retired or disabled—and the child is 18 or older—they may be able to qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) on the parent’s work record.

Another federal government program, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), is available to families who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid. You may also want to check with your state government about programs that can provide cash payments or Medicaid waivers that expands eligibility to families that are slightly over the income limit. For further information, check out our set of articles on government assistance and financial support for people with disabilities.