Medical Reasons That One Can Be Denied SSI and SSDI Benefits

Social Security Disability and SSI cases are mainly refused for one particular reason: a claimant's medical records fail to authenticate that the person has enough physical or mental constraints that will stop them from having the ability to return to work--either performing one of their previous jobs (past pertinent work potentially includes any job that was done within the last fifteen years) or performing some other type of work (that Social Security might declare that you're able to do based on your age, education, medical limitations, and skills and training).

Whenever Social Security finds that a person in St. Louis, Chesterfield, St. Peters, Warrensville, or St. Charles filing for disability benefits is disabled, this simply means they have determined that they've either A) fulfilled the requirements of a listing in the Social Security List of Impairments, or B) that they've successfully passed through the five-step evaluation process referred to as sequential evaluation.

Now, most individuals won't be accepted based on the acceptance criteria for a listing. The reason is many medical conditions aren't within the listing book. And when they are the criteria for approval can be quite high. The simple fact is that quite often a claimant's medical records won't contain the information necessary to prove that they qualify under a listing.

When a person is approved it is because they have gone through all five steps of the sequential evaluation process, which means that:
1) They are not presently working and earning a substantial and gainful income,
2) They have a severe handicap,
3), They don't fulfill a listing in the listing book,
4) Their condition or conditions prevent them from being able to do their previous work, and finally
5) Their condition or conditions are extreme enough that they can't do any other kind of work, work that, if they were not disabled, they may easily be able to change to.

We can distill the way the entire disability system functions by making this single statement:
Most claims are rejected because an SSA adjudicator--a disability social security adjudicator or a judge--will decide that the person may still do some sort of other work, even if they can no longer do their past work.

The trick to winning a disability claim, of course, is demonstrating that your condition is so severe that you can't do other work, as well as being unable to do your past work. This is where a social security or disability attorney can really come in handy. Kassin and Carrow are here for you if you have any further questions about filing for disability in the St. Louis and Metro St. Louis areas.