Social Security has a date for a new set of heart-disease rules: October 30, 2026. From that day, the agency will judge disability claims for cardiovascular conditions against revised medical listings, including claims that were filed long before and are still waiting for a decision. The rule, “Revised Medical Criteria for Evaluating Cardiovascular Disorders,” was published in the Federal Register on July 2.

The Federal Register notice says the rule “will apply to new applications filed on or after the effective date of the rule, and to claims that are pending on or after the effective date.” It reaches adults and children, and both Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income claims.

Which claims the rule reaches

A claim filed in August and still undecided on October 30 will be judged under the new listings. So will a claim filed in November. Neither gets to keep the old criteria.

The published rule goes further and says the new criteria apply in any case in which SSA makes a determination or decision, including new applications, pending claims and continuing disability reviews, “as applicable.” A continuing disability review is the periodic check SSA runs on people already receiving disability benefits to see whether they still meet the medical standard. Someone with a heart condition who is due for a review after October 30 can expect it to use the revised listings.

The phrase “as applicable” is SSA’s own. The notice does not list which reviews or decisions fall outside it, so the agency’s local office or its national line, 1-800-772-1213, is where to ask about a particular claim.

For a person with a pending heart-related claim, the question is whether the medical evidence in the file fits the old listing, the new one, or both. A listing is SSA’s written list of medical findings for a condition.

A listing change rewrites the medical test, while SSI adds income and resource tests on top of it. The SSI & Disability Action Kit sets out the 2026 SSI income and resource limits and the review and reporting steps for claimants who are weighing both sides of a pending claim.

Get the SSI limits and review steps for a pending heart-condition claim →

What is changing in the heart listings

The Federal Register notice says the updates reflect advances in medical knowledge and public comments on the proposed version, which SSA published on June 29, 2022. Among the changes it describes:

• Heart failure: the listing is renamed chronic heart failure and separates heart failure with reduced ejection fraction from heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. Ejection-fraction thresholds are adjusted, with sex-specific measurements, and cardiac MRI is added as an acceptable imaging test.
• Ischemic heart disease: the instantaneous wave-free ratio is added as a measurement option next to fractional flow reserve, and the text expands on coronary artery disease without blockages.
• Peripheral artery disease: terminology is updated, including the ankle-brachial index, and the symptoms and diagnostic approaches are clarified.
• Congenital heart disease: pulmonary atresia examples are added.
• New listings: aortic valvular disease (4.07), cardiomyopathy (4.08) and cardiac allograft vasculopathy (4.16 for adults and 104.16 for children).

The listings now in use come from an older edition. SSA’s adult cardiovascular page is still labeled with an October 2008 date and covers chronic heart failure (4.02), ischemic heart disease (4.04), recurrent arrhythmias (4.05), symptomatic congenital heart disease (4.06), heart transplant (4.09), aortic aneurysm (4.10), chronic venous insufficiency (4.11) and peripheral arterial disease (4.12). That page has no notice about the October 30 revision.

Why the effective date is months after publication

SSA says in the rule that it set the October 30 date to give it time to update its systems and to provide training and guidance to all of its adjudicators before the rule takes hold. The notice also states how long the revised listings will last: the cardiovascular listings are set to expire on October 30, 2031, five years after they take effect.

SSA has not announced any change to the October 30 date, and the notice states it without conditions.

What does not change

The rule revises medical criteria. A claimant with a heart condition applies in the same way as before, through SSA’s disability page.

Heart-condition claims after October 30

People with a pending claim do not file anything new because of the rule. The useful step is making sure the medical record is complete, because SSA will measure it against the revised test. Because the changes above name specific tests, such as ejection-fraction measurements, cardiac MRI and the ankle-brachial index, the treating doctor is the one to say whether those results are in the record.

Anyone who is due for a continuing disability review should keep their cardiology records current and answer SSA’s letters promptly. The free source for the rule is the Federal Register notice, and the agency’s disability page and national line handle questions about a specific claim.

The rule’s effective date and its application to pending claims are both set out in the notice itself, and the 2031 expiration date in the same notice sets the next point when SSA must revisit the listings.

For the SSI side of a heart-condition claim, The SSI & Disability Action Kit includes the 2026 SSI income and resource limits and an income and resource organizer for keeping records straight while a decision is pending.

Get the SSI organizer for a claim caught by the Oct. 30 heart rules →

This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the Federal Register and Social Security pages linked above.