Your health has been problematic for a while. You have several different medical conditions that seem to compete for attention, and your limitations have been piling up. You might be able to work around (or through) your flares with some workplace accommodations, but the chronic pain, crushing fatigue and depression you’ve developed are overwhelming. You find it hard to make it through a full shift, let alone a full week.
You also can’t point to any one specific condition that you have and say, “This is why I’m disabled.” The reality is that it’s all of your conditions together that make it impossible for you to keep working. What does that mean for a Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) claim?
Whether it’s one condition or five, SSA looks at your overall situation
The Social Security Administration (SSA) considers how all your conditions affect you together, even if each condition on its own isn’t severe enough to stop you from working.
SSA does maintain a list of impairments that, at a described level of severity, are considered automatically disabling. However, many people qualify for benefits without exactly meeting the listing based on the unique combination of conditions and limitations they experience.
It’s far more important to focus your application around your residual functioning capacity, which shows how your various symptoms limit your ability to make it through an ordinary day, than to focus on specific diagnoses.
Your medical records may tell your story in pieces, especially if you have different specialists who treat different conditions. When you file your claim, make sure that you list every condition you have – not just the major ones. When you describe your limitations, give specific examples, such as how long you can stand or sit before pain forces you to take a break or change positions, why you are unable to concentrate for 8 straight hours at a desk and how your fatigue makes it difficult to even stay awake.
Attendance records or documentation of reduced hours over time can also help show what happened when you were still trying to keep working. If you’re unsure whether your claim for SSD benefits captures the full picture, an SSDI attorney can help you identify gaps and explain how to overcome them.