|
Social Security evaluates mental conditions in the same way they evaluate medical conditions. Social Security emphasizes evidence from treating psychiatrists or psychologists, because they are most likely to provide a detailed longitudinal view of your disabling mental condition and they can give a unique opinion as to the severity of your condition (a perspective that cannot be garnered from non-mental medical notes alone). In fact, your "treating mental health professional" (basically, your psychologist or psychiatrist) can provide a statement of opinion as to what you are able to do despite your mental condition, based upon their treatment of you. These statements can be very helpful to your disability claim if they provide a description of your ability to engage in work activities such as the ability to understand, remember, and carry out instructions, as well as your ability to react appropriately to coworkers, supervisors. Remember, a person's eligibility for Social Security disability or SSI benefits focuses on their ability or inability to perform some kind of work. If your mental residual functional capacity (what you are able to do in spite of the limitations imposed by your mental conditions) is so restrictive that it precludes substantial work activity, then you’re likely to be approved for disability. Social Security likes to have a longitudinal history of your mental condition, as well as a current status of your condition. Can you be approved for disability if you have no mental health treatment or no treatment at all in the past three months? The answer to this question is possibly. Social Security is obligated to evaluate all mental and physical impairments. Consequently Social Security disability examiners are likely to schedule a psychiatric or psychological consultative examination if they feel that the evidence provided by your own mental health sources is inadequate to make a disability determination. In theory, Social Security prefers to use your mental health treating source to perform the consultative examination. However, Social Security will use an outside source for your consultative examination in the following situations: 1) If your regular treatment source prefers not to perform your evaluation; 2) If you would prefer another source and have a reason to want someone else to do your examination; 3) If there are conflicts or inconsistencies in your medical source records that cannot solved by going back to your mental health professional; 4) If Social Security has had prior experiences with your treating source and have found them to be nonproductive. However, in actual practice, the state agency (usually known as DDS) that schedules a mental exam for you may not even attempt to schedule the exam with your own doctor, instead relying on a list of available psychiatrists and psychologists. If you have to have a consultative psychiatric examination...it is possible, but not extraordinarily likely, that the decision in your disability case will be determined by the results of the examination. This is why it is so important for you to have a good mental health treatment history, as well as current mental health treatment notes, if you are filing for Social Security disability on the basis of a mental impairment. Most often, your own psychologist or psychiatrist will have a better picture of how disabling your mental condition is versus an outside source that sees you all of fifteen minutes during a scheduled exam. 
Social Security Disability and SSI Disability Information
Disability Attorneys Help with Claims Free Case Evaluation |