Wegener's Granulomatosis

According to the Mayo Clinic, Wegener's Granulomatosis, also known as granulomatosis with polyangiitis (“GPA”), is a rare disorder that causes inflammation of your blood vessels. This inflammation restricts blood flow to various organs. 

There is no known cause for GPA, which is commonly treated with immunosuppressive therapy, in which case the patient is advised to avoid large groups of people. According to the American College of Rheumatology, GPA causes shortness of breath, joint pain, numbness and loss of movement in the extremities, among other things. 

I represent a 58 year old bookkeeper with GPA whose Social Security Disability application was approved today, five months after it was filed. The claimant was sent letters on four separate occasions demanding that she attend a consultative examination (“CE”) by IMA Disability Services that stated she needed to attend the CE in order to have her SSD application approved. 

The claimant declined each CE. The claimant’s rheumatologist and neurologist each submitted reports explaining that the GPA precluded her from being able to work. I advised the State agency that a CE was not needed because any medical information could be provided by the claimant’s specialists. I am confident that had the claimant attended the CE, which experience has shown is often cursory and even fraudulent, then the State agency would have relied on the CE to deny the application despite what the treating doctors said.