Communicating your medical conditions

Recently I was told by someone that he knew “for a fact” he was disabled and was astounded that the SSA denied the claim for disability benefits. The unfortunate “Fact” is that the SSA is supposed to take many things into consideration when making their determinations on disability claims but sometimes they aren’t fully aware of all the disabling conditions an individual is dealing with. For that matter, sometimes the other parties involved aren’t always clued in either.

In order for the SSA to make a determination in the Initial or Reconsideration levels of the process, they need to collect and review medical records as well as forms they have sent with the purpose of collecting more details about how your conditions affect you. Considering the SSA representatives must review the information on an application which lists the disabling conditions, and the medical records from the physicians treating those conditions, and anything else like forms or statements, can you know “for a fact” that the info the SSA has is really in sync?

A general rule of thumb is to communicate your conditions with your doctors – ALL your doctors and ALL your conditions. Does your PCP know what your Rheumatologist is treating you for? Does your Neurologist know that you’ve had blood work done that shows you have thyroid issues that might affect what he’s treating you for?

Granted, nobody thinks about these things as they are getting sick & sicker. Nobody thinks that all this stuff is going to result in no longer being able to work and ultimately having to file a disability claim. But if you do find yourself in that very frustrating predicament, you might want to consider listing our all your ailments and making specific appointments with each of your doctors, therapists & what-not and make a point to discuss your list with each one.

You might also want to consider giving each of the facilities permission to collect copies of each other’s medical records for review so they can see what each of them is prescribing for treatment. Occasionally Rheumatologists and Neurologists might differ in treatment but that’s because they don’t each know the whole story. You might even find your Primary Care Physician is completely clueless in what else is going on with your medications. Having all this sorted out as soon as possible will help get the larger picture clear as far as what exactly is going on and what “the Facts” really are.