When you suddenly get hurt or experience a chronic illness, your new medical condition can have a profound impact on your life. If your condition limits your mobility, affects your cognition or causes severe, chronic pain, you may no longer be able to continue the lifestyle and job you enjoyed before.
People struggling with a serious diagnosis often need to consider whether they might qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits. There are certain qualifying medical conditions that the Social Security Administration (SSA) frequently approves claims for, but it is impossible for a list to contain every potentially disabling condition. Further, often it is a combination of impairments that make you unable to sustain work.
There are thousands of conditions an diseases, and individuals can have unusually severe or mild forms of impairing conditions. In order to make the most reasonable, appropriate, and fair determinations regarding disability benefits the SSA analyzes all impairments to determine if they qualify for benefits instead of only approving people with specific conditions. A 55 year-old laborer with a chronic spine condition may be disabled but a computer programmer with the same condition may not be.
How to tell if your condition is disabling in the eyes of the SSA
If you can demonstrate that your medical condition, whether it’s physical or mental, meets certain standards, you can potentially secure SSDI benefits to help you, as long as you’ve made enough payroll contributions during your working life. Specifically, you need to show that:
- You can’t do the same work you once did
- Your condition will last a year or is terminal
- You cannot do other work because of your condition
Your medical issue needs to have lasted or expected to last for at least one year and affect your ability to work both the job you currently have and other jobs that someone of your age, education and work experience may be expected to do. If your condition will last at least a year and prevents you from working, you could very well qualify for benefits.
Don’t let a denial stop your pursuit of benefits
A noteworthy portion of people who have a valid claim for SSDI benefits receives a denial of their initial application. It is only on appeal with an in-depth review that these individuals secure the benefits that they need.
While it can be frustrating to have to wait to prove that you need and qualify for SSDI benefits, when you receive an approval you can receive back benefits dating back to a time close to when you first became disabled, which is the light at the end of a long and difficult tunnel after your diagnosis. We can help at any stage of the application process.
