Giving Medical Evidence Records for a Social Security Disability Case, scenario 1
Two are at least two separate scenarios we can work with here. One is when you gather medical evidence at the very start of your claim (meaning you may not have actually filed a disability application yet).
The second scenario is when your claim has been initiated. In the second scenario, your claim may be pending, meaning still being worked on, you may already have been denied, and you may have representation.
In this article, we'll deal with the 1st scenario.
The first scenario
1. If you have not yet filed a claim for disability, contact social security and get an appointment set up for your disability interview.
2. Prior to the interview, contact your medical treatment sources and ask them to supply you with copies of your medical records at least as far back as the time your condition became disabling which, to social security's point of view, is when your condition caused you to cease working completely, or caused your gross monthly earnings to dip below the allowable earnings limits known as SGA, or substantial gainful activity.
3. Be mindful of the fact that getting records from hospitals and doctor's offices can sometimes take a while. However, in some instances, patients can get their records faster than either social security or an attorney's office, particularly if they do some personal followup on the request.
4. Hopefully, however, if the timing works right, you'll have your records by the time you sit down for your social security disability interview or SSI disability interview (which, for all intents and purposes, are exactly the same thing since the social security administration does not process applications in either program differently from each other).
5. The benefit of submitting your medical records at the time you file your claim is potentially "time saved". Disability examiners, the individuals who process SSDI and SSI disability claims for the social security administration are rated by efficiency (as well as soundness of decisions). That means that the faster they get claims moved off their desk and out of the agency (which is Disability determination services, or DDs), the better they look.
Cases, of course, that come in with the medical records attached can shave off a ton of processing time by eliminating the need to request records and then wait weeks or months for them to arrive. This assumes, certainly, that the records submitted by a claimant at the time of application contain both current records and records going back far enough to address the claimant's alleged onset date.
6. Tip: if you manage to get your medical evidence together in time to submit them at the time of application, make sure you make a separate full copy.
Why? Because you need to have one full copy to keep and one full copy to give to the social security employee who takes your disability claim. Will the field office claims representative copy what you bring in (a big pile of medical records) if you neglected to make a separate copy and would like the originals back? Yes, but that may take, as one employee stated "a while", and will, of course, be done at their convenience. And that makes perfect sense. Social security field office workers tend to be very very busy individuals and copying large piles of paper simply takes time away from interviewing claimants and processing cases. As I said, make a full copy of your records before arriving at the social security office and give this copy to the social security representative.
Return to:
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The second scenario is when your claim has been initiated. In the second scenario, your claim may be pending, meaning still being worked on, you may already have been denied, and you may have representation.
In this article, we'll deal with the 1st scenario.
The first scenario
1. If you have not yet filed a claim for disability, contact social security and get an appointment set up for your disability interview.
2. Prior to the interview, contact your medical treatment sources and ask them to supply you with copies of your medical records at least as far back as the time your condition became disabling which, to social security's point of view, is when your condition caused you to cease working completely, or caused your gross monthly earnings to dip below the allowable earnings limits known as SGA, or substantial gainful activity.
3. Be mindful of the fact that getting records from hospitals and doctor's offices can sometimes take a while. However, in some instances, patients can get their records faster than either social security or an attorney's office, particularly if they do some personal followup on the request.
4. Hopefully, however, if the timing works right, you'll have your records by the time you sit down for your social security disability interview or SSI disability interview (which, for all intents and purposes, are exactly the same thing since the social security administration does not process applications in either program differently from each other).
5. The benefit of submitting your medical records at the time you file your claim is potentially "time saved". Disability examiners, the individuals who process SSDI and SSI disability claims for the social security administration are rated by efficiency (as well as soundness of decisions). That means that the faster they get claims moved off their desk and out of the agency (which is Disability determination services, or DDs), the better they look.
Cases, of course, that come in with the medical records attached can shave off a ton of processing time by eliminating the need to request records and then wait weeks or months for them to arrive. This assumes, certainly, that the records submitted by a claimant at the time of application contain both current records and records going back far enough to address the claimant's alleged onset date.
6. Tip: if you manage to get your medical evidence together in time to submit them at the time of application, make sure you make a separate full copy.
Why? Because you need to have one full copy to keep and one full copy to give to the social security employee who takes your disability claim. Will the field office claims representative copy what you bring in (a big pile of medical records) if you neglected to make a separate copy and would like the originals back? Yes, but that may take, as one employee stated "a while", and will, of course, be done at their convenience. And that makes perfect sense. Social security field office workers tend to be very very busy individuals and copying large piles of paper simply takes time away from interviewing claimants and processing cases. As I said, make a full copy of your records before arriving at the social security office and give this copy to the social security representative.
Return to:
Other Posts
How much medical evidence do you need to win disability?
Social security disability objective medical evidence
Social security disability and hepatitis
Social Security Disability and Liver Disease
Social Security Disability and Schizophrenia
Disability qualifications, how do you medically qualify
Filing for social security disability benefits, SSI
If I Win My Disability Benefits, When Do My Benefits Start?
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