How to Apply for Social
Tips for Applying for Disability
Benefits: Working with Your Doctors
The core of qualifying for Social Security Disability is your medical evidence.
That means medical test results, medical imaging (X-rays and MRIs), and reports from your doctors.
But getting the severity of your health situation across to Social Security isn’t simple. Social Security has its own way of looking at health conditions. It’s difficult to understand if you don’t deal with it all the time.
For example, many people think if they get a letter from their doctor telling Social Security they cannot work, Social Security will accept the letter and decide they have a qualifying disability.
In reality, the rules say Social Security has to ignore letters like this from doctors and instead base their decisions on other medical information.
The disability attorneys at Barnes Disability coach you through this. Our top tips for applying for disability benefits include these three steps to take with your doctors:
Step No. 1: Tell your doctor a story about your struggle. When you see your doctors, tell them about moments from your daily life when your medical condition showed that you couldn’t work. Give them an event they can picture, like you tried to grab a gallon of milk out of the fridge but couldn’t lift it and spilled milk everywhere.
Step No. 2: Make sure your doctor documents what you say. Ask your doctor to write it down in detail. On their own, doctors may not write down your story of how your health limits you because it’s not part of their process—it’s for Social Security. Doctors aren’t thinking the way Social Security thinks, looking for concrete examples of your health impairing your everyday functioning.
Step No. 3: Double-check to be sure your doctor captured your story. You’ve got to stay on top of them. Next time you go for a doctor’s appointment, ask for a copy of the notes from your last visit. If they didn’t write down—thoroughly and correctly—what you said about your impairments impacting your life, ask them to add it.
If you have a skilled disability lawyer guiding you, you have confidence that you’re getting the information you need for a successful benefits claim—and better financial grounding to take care of yourself.
Another important tip: Apply as soon as you realize you can’t work. If you wait, Social Security could see that as a sign you don’t really need benefits. And as time passes, it gets harder to find the medical records you need from old doctor visits.
Start with a free consultation from the Barnes Disability Advocates team to see what you’ll need for your case.
How Our Lawyers Who Help You Get Disability Make It Easier
Another major part of applying for Social Security Disability benefits is explaining your work background so Social Security understands how your health problems get in the way of your work.
You can download work history forms from Social Security, but they’re full of blanks to fill in without any tips on how to apply successfully.
At Barnes Disability, we’ve created our own forms that explain in plain English what you need to tell Social Security.
These include:
- Advice on how to fill out the Social Security forms, which Social Security itself doesn’t tell you.
- Examples of what to include and what the answers on your forms should look like.
- Prompts to help you provide the kinds of details you need about your daily job duties and how bad your health interferes.
The Barnes disability lawyers have even created forms for your doctors to provide the right information, over 60 of them covering different medical conditions, so you’ll have information highly personalized to your case.
The path to getting disability benefits is rough. Social Security denies the vast majority of people when they first apply.
Barnes Social Security Disability attorneys are here to make it easier for you to move forward with your life.
Do You Want to Know More About Our Disability Lawyers in Utah?
Barnes Disability also helps with long-term disability claims when you have a private insurance policy to protect your finances if you lose the ability to work. Our disability attorneys have decades of experience and a mission to help everyday people find peace and dignity in difficult times.
