Getting Disability Benefits for Cervicalgia (Neck Pain)

Cervicalgia (sur-vuh-KAL-gee-ah) is the medical term that describes neck pain in the first seven vertebrae of the back (called the cervical spine). Depending on the source of the neck pain, cervicalgia can be mild and easily treatable with low doses of pain relievers, or it can cause severe physical limitations that require surgery. When these limitations are significant enough to interfere with your ability to work full-time, you may qualify for disability benefits.

What Neck Problems Qualify for Disability?

Cervicalgia can result from many different neck disorders, such as muscle strain, wear and tear of the vertebrae, nerve compression, and injury. Some sources of cervicalgia commonly seen on disability applications include:

• cervical radiculopathy (a pinched nerve in your neck that affects your arms and hands)
• cervical stenosis (a narrowing of the spinal cord)
• cervical spondylosis (age-related wear and tear on the vertebrae in your neck)
• abnormal cervical lordosis or kyphosis (a malformation of your spinal curve)
• cervical spondylolisthesis or retrolisthesis (slipped vertebrae)
• occipital neuralgia (shooting pain in the nerves running from your neck to your head)
• whiplash, and
• Klippel-Feil syndrome (a genetic disorder where two or more neck vertebrae are fused).

Symptoms of the conditions listed above can include sharp, shooting pain when you turn your head, chronic neck stiffness, numbness in your arms or fingers, trouble swallowing, dizziness, headaches, and dull pain in your face and shoulders. These symptoms can make it difficult to perform many kinds of work activities, such as driving a car, lifting heavy items, reaching overhead, swinging a hammer, or typing while seated.

Getting Social Security Disability Benefits for Cervicalgia

If you're unable to work full-time for at least one year due to a medically determinable neck problem, you may qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI). You can get SSDI or SSI by meeting the requirements of a listed impairment or by showing that your functional limitations rule out all work.

Meeting a Musculoskeletal Disability Listing for Neck Problems

The Social Security Administration (SSA) maintains a list of around 100 medical conditions that the agency considers especially severe. If you have medical documentation of a disorder that meets the criteria of one of these "listings," the SSA won't even have to determine whether any jobs exist that you can perform—you'll be approved for benefits right away.

Cervicalgia can often be evaluated under Listing 1.15 for disorders of the skeletal spine resulting in compromise of a nerve root. Nerve roots exit from the spinal cord through the vertebrae and connect to peripheral nerves that send signals to your outer extremities. When your nerve roots are "compromised"—meaning they're compressed or damaged—you may experience numbness, tingling, or pain in your shoulder, arm, hand, or fingers. This is known medically as cervical radiculopathy.

You can meet the requirements of listing 1.15 if you can provide evidence of all of the following:

• pain, paresthesia (numbness or tingling), or muscle fatigue in the part of the body that corresponds to the affected nerve root
• muscle weakness and signs of nerve compression that can be seen on physical examination or diagnostic tests, along with sensory changes or reduced reflexes
• objective medical imaging showing cervical nerve compromise, and
• an inability to use your arms or hands to perform fine and gross motor movements.

"Fine and gross motor movements" include activities such as pressing buttons, using a pen, typing, and turning keys. The SSA will need to see how well you perform basic tasks such as holding a mug, using utensils, zipping a jacket, pushing a vacuum cleaner, sorting mail, and lifting groceries. If you can't do these things without significant help from somebody else, you'll likely meet the last requirement of listing 1.15.;

Qualifying for Disability by Being Unable to Work

Even if you don't meet or equal the requirements of listing 1.15—which is very difficult to do—you can still qualify for disability benefits if your cervicalgia symptoms keep you from working at any job. The process by which Social Security determines what, if any, jobs you can do is called assessing your residual functional capacity (RFC).

Your RFC is a set of restrictions on what you can and can't do in a work environment. Social Security looks at your medical records, your doctors' opinions, and your daily activities to decide what restrictions to put in your RFC. A typical RFC for somebody with cervicalgia will likely include limitations in the following areas:

• how much weight you can lift and carry, safely and without pain
• how long you can use your hands to manipulate small objects or type at a time
• how often you can turn your head from side to side or up and down
• how often you can reach overhead, to your sides, or below your waist, and
• how often you'll be unable to maintain concentration due to pain or headaches.

You may be able to get your doctor's help by asking them for their opinion on your limitations. Social Security values the opinions of your treating medical providers, so long as the opinion isn't inconsistent with the rest of your medical records. You can click on the thumbnail below to see what a helpful RFC from your doctor might look like:

Once Social Security has assessed your RFC, the agency compares your current limitations to the demands of your past work to see whether you can do those jobs today. If you can't, Social Security then looks at your age, education, and work experience to determine whether somebody with your RFC and vocational background can do any other work. For most applicants under 50, this means having an RFC that rules out even the easiest, sit-down jobs, while those 50 years of age or older may have an easier time getting benefits using the medical-vocational grid rules.

VA Disability Ratings for Cervical Spondylosis and Related Disorders

Veterans who have a service-connected neck injury or spinal disorder may qualify for disability compensation from the VA. Unlike the SSA, the VA will rate disabling conditions on a scale of 0% to 100% based on how severe they are and pay disability benefits according to the percentage rating.

The VA uses the Schedule of Rating Disabilities (38 CFR 4) to assign disability percentages. Neck pain is evaluated under the General Rating Formula for Diseases and Injuries of the Spine. Your disability percentage is typically linked to how much your range of motion is reduced. For example, if you have a "forward flexion" (ability to bend your neck towards your chest) range of 35 degrees, your VA rating will be 10%. But if your range of motion is much smaller—say, less than 15 degrees—you'll get a disability rating of 30%.

Evidence You Need to Get Disability for Cervical Spine Conditions

Neither the SSA nor the VA can award you disability benefits based on self-reported symptoms alone. You'll need to show objective evidence of an abnormality in your neck that's causing your cervicalgia. Objective evidence includes medical imaging, like an X-ray, MRI, or CT scan, that shows the source of the pain, such as arthritis between the vertebrae, bony growths on the vertebrae, or a herniated disc in the upper spine.

These images should have medical interpretations at the bottom from a doctor who's made a diagnosis about the degree of the impairment. For example, if you have "severe spondylosis in the C3-C5 vertebrae," you're more likely to qualify for benefits than if you have "mild spondylosis" in the same area.

Your medical records should also contain notes from your doctor about what they've found during physical examination, such as observations about your range of motion or other sensory and strength tests specific to the affected nerve root (like a positive Spurling's maneuver). It's also important to have a comprehensive history of any physical therapy, medications, or injections you received, along with how well you responded to treatment.

How to Apply for Disability for Neck Problems

If you have enough work credits to be eligible for SSDI, you can file your entire claim online using Social Security's web portal. If you don't have enough work credits and you have limited resources, you can apply for SSI by speaking with a Social Security representative at 800-772-1213 from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday. Both SSDI and SSI applications are accepted in person at your local Social Security field office.

Veterans can file for disability using the VA electronic Form 21-526EZ, Application for Disability Compensation and Related Benefits, or by printing out the completed form and bringing it to their local VA office or faxing it to 844-531-7818 (248-524-4260 if you're outside the United States). You can also mail the form to the following address:

Department of Veterans Affairs
Claims Intake Center
PO Box 4444
Janesville, WI 53547-4444

If you're not quite sure which approach to take, read more in our articles on the best way to apply for Social Security disability and filing for veterans' benefits. And if you'd like help with your application, think about working with an experienced disability lawyer. According to a survey of our readers, applicants who filed an initial application without expert help were denied 80% of the time. Many disability attorneys will give you a free case evaluation to help determine whether your back pain is severe enough to qualify for benefits.