Can I Get Disability Benefits If My Impairments Are Psychiatric Only?
Posted January 29, 2021 by Premier Disability Services, LLC®The answer is, it depends. While you can collect disability for both physical and mental medical conditions, it can be harder to collect disability for a mental illness than for a physical illness. Why? Part of the answer to this lies in the nature of mental illness itself. Symptoms of mental illness are not easily evaluated, and the severity of a condition may therefore be hard to measure objectively. About a quarter of applicants for Social Security disability list mental illnesses or disorders as their primary impairment.
Disability claims examiners who work for Social Security are not licensed psychiatrists, and do not always understand the full scope of the limitations imposed by certain mental illnesses. For instance, some disability examiners do not recognize the cyclical nature of mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder (manic depression), and may assume a patient is cured because he or she does not currently display certain symptoms. But in reality, those symptoms may have just dissipated for the moment and could return in the near future.
In addition, some disability examiners may be biased against disability claims for mental illness. There are those who believe that some disability applicants who claim mental illness are lazy or malingering (faking their illness for benefits). This is unsettling since there are so many individuals who suffer from mental illness worldwide, but it is partially due to the fact that the criteria for evaluating most mental disorders is subjective. There are very few tests to evaluate the severity of an individual’s mental condition. Only mental conditions such as intellectual disorder (low IQ), memory impairments, or other neurocognitive disorders can be tested objectively (using IQ and memory impairment testing).
In attempting to evaluate a condition, a disability examiner will first refer to Social Security’s official listing of impairments, often referred to as the blue book. The disability listings contain medical conditions that Social Security recognizes as inherently disabling; in other words, Social Security accepts that anyone suffering from a listed condition would be unable to work (earning an amount equivalent to substantial gainful activity).
If your condition isn’t as severe as the listing requires but you have been diagnosed with a chronic mental condition that is preventing you from working, you may still be eligible for disability benefits. If your mental RFC (residual functional capacity) shows you have intellectual, social, or functional limitations that affect your productivity or your ability to sustain full-time work, you may be eligible for a medical-vocational allowance, depending on your mental limitations, age, education level, and job skills.
For psychiatric illnesses that may improve with treatment, such as anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia, the most important things that you can do to improve your chances of getting approved are to see a doctor regularly (preferably a psychiatrist or psychologist), to let your doctor know how your condition affects you on a daily basis, and to take the medicine that the doctor prescribes to you.
Contact our office today if you or anyone you know would like to learn more about qualifying for Social Security Disability benefits.
SSA’s Psychiatric listings: https://www.ssa.gov/disability/professionals/bluebook/12.00-MentalDisorders-Adult.htm
By: Joyce Trudeau of Premier Disability Services, LLC®
