Medical Evidence

An application for any type of disability benefits requires submitting medicaI evidence of the alleged disability. There are three basic kinds of medical evidence: treatment records, diagnostic tests, and functional assessments. The failure to submit all three sorts of medical evidence generally results in an application being denied.

I represent a 60 year old alarm system installer with back pain, whose application for Social Security Disability (“SSD”) benefits application was approved three months after it was filed. Not only did I submit the treatment from the claimant’s neurologist and neurosurgeon, but I also provided functional assessments from each, together with the diagnostic tests that each relied upon.

According to statistics from the Social Security Administration, over 60% of SSD applications are denied initially. Submitting treatment records, diagnostic tests, and functional assessments will not guarantee approval. However, the SSD applications that I submit are approved more frequently than 40% of the time, which I attribute to, among other things, submitting the three types of medical evidence.