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If you are prescribed meds, try try try to be compliant--because if you don't, your claim for disability benefits may suffer as a result. First of all, what do we mean by compliance? Compliance, in the view of the social security administration, simply means that a claimant is A) taking the medications that have been prescribed by a treating physician and B) is taking prescribed medication as instructed. The reasoning behind the issue of medication compliance is fairly simple and logical. After all, how can social security measure the severity of a claimant's condition and the extent to which they are able to function (another way of saying this would be "determine if a claimant is disabled and unable to persist in a work environment) if they are not taking their medication? Two medical conditions that serve as good examples of medication compliance are asthma and epilepsy. With either condition, a patient who is not taking medication as prescribed, and as directed, may find that their condition becomes both more severe and more limiting. Taking their medication, by contrast, may render their condition either A) non-disabling or B) possibly less severe but still disabling. There is simply no way to know, however, which will be the case if a patient is not taking his or her medication. And this is how the social security administration views such situations. Therefore, by all means, a person who is filing for social security disability or SSI should endeavor to take all medication as prescribed and as directed by a doctor. Because failing to do this can serve to weaken the case in the eyes of the decision-maker (who, depending on the level the claim is at will be either a disability examiner or disability judge). 
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