SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY AND SPEAKING WITH YOUR DOCTOR

A "proper" statement from your doctor can have a dramatic effect on your disability case

Tip 7:

Your doctor knows what's wrong with you but do they know how it affects you and your remaining functional capacity, i.e. ability to work?

If you have not applied for disability yet, but you think that sometime in the future you may be filing a claim for disability, you may find it beneficial on visits to your doctor to mention specific ways in which you are having difficulty.

In other words, difficulty engaging in certain physical activity such as bending, reaching, stooping, lifting, crouching, or any area (physical or mental) in which you are experiencing reduced functionality.

The reason for this is that the medical records that can have the greatest impact on your case will often be those that come from your own doctor, i.e. your treating physician.

However, unfortunately, it is often the case that doctors will not make reference to your physical or mental functional limitations in their treatment notes--even though this is exactly the information that the Social Security administration is looking for: evidence of specific limitations.

By mentioning--during your office visits to your doctor--how your condition is specifically affecting you, this information regarding your functional limitations may get recorded in your treatment notes for Social Security to later find.

Many people are surprised to learn this, but Social Security Disability cases are not won on the basis of simply having a specific condition. Instead, they are won or lost on the basis of the extent to which you are "limited" by a physical or mental condition.

The condition itself does not matter; in fact, in most cases except when a claim is approved on a listing (see definition link below under "terms discussed"), it is almost irrelevant.

Social Security has the primary goal of determining how you are limited, and in what ways, and how this affects your ability to go back to your past job, as well as your ability (if you cannot do your past work) to do some type of other work.

Just as the records from your treating physician's office can be deemed to have higher importance than other medical records, so, too, can a statement that is obtained from your doctor.

Social Security actually grants special significance and deference, and sometimes what is called controlling authority, to the opinion that is given by your doctor, i.e. your treating physician.

And of course your doctor will be in a much better position to rate your functional limitations i.e. your ability to sit, stand, walk, lift, carry, reach, etc. if they actually know--from you--what those limitations are.

Terms discussed:

Should you get a Statement from a Personal Physician for your SSD or SSI Disability Case?

Proving Functional Limitations and why this is Important on a Disability Case

List of Impairments for Social Security Disability and SSI Benefits