Video Blog - A Combination of Impairments

Natalia Jofre:	Welcome to the Social Security Disability blog by Hill and Ponton. I’m Natalia Jofre, the Social Security Section Director for our law firm.
Shelly Mark:	My name is Shelly Mark. I’m the senior Social Security attorney with the firm.
Natalia Jofre:	So today we’re going to be talking about medical conditions and what they’re defined as, how they’re evaluated and one of the biggest things that we see is like people come in and say I want to file for disability for physical disability or I want to file for mental disability or I only want to file for my back or I only want to file because I have bipolar disorder and that’s not really how it works.
Shelly Mark:	That’s correct. So just like Natalia is saying, with Social Security they’re going to be looking at a combination of your symptoms and how a combination of everything would or would not prevent you from working on a full time basis.
Natalia Jofre:	So the more ailments you have, as silly as that may seem, the more likelihood … It’s almost as if, though, it starts checking off you can’t do this job, you can’t do that job. So for example, let’s say you were a secretary or an administrative assistant because you have a wider scope. So in other words, you have to be writing reports, plus you have to be answering the phones, plus you have to be dealing with people as they come in. All these other things.
	And so if you have severe carpal tunnel syndrome and let’s say you’ve had failed surgeries and you still have severe numbness and tingling and weakness in your arms and you really can’t type for prolonged periods of time without it becoming excruciating, well, that knocks off that job duty.
Shelly Mark:	Right.
Natalia Jofre:	And then you have an anxiety disorder and suffer from depression. So it’s hard for you to get out of bed in the morning to begin with and then on top of that every time you talk to people you start to get anxious or if you have too many people come in at once you get very frazzled and you start having heart palpitations because it causes anxiety. Well, you really can’t do that aspect of the job anymore either.
Shelly Mark:	Right.
Natalia Jofre:	And then what else did I say?
Shelly Mark:	No, that’s a good example because that’s an example where you have physical limitations that prevent certain type of work and then you also may have some behavioral or emotional conditions that may prevent or limit other types of work. Just it is always a combination of everything that Social Security is looking at and there is a lot of times when people are injured or something happens to where they’re no longer able to work, people may get sad, become depressed, have a lot of anxiety about the fact that they don’t have any income or whatever, their family, how they’re going to provide. And I have a lot of people tell me I’m not depressed. I don’t have depression. I’m just upset because I can’t work.
	That would be situational depression but it’s still going to be taken into consideration because it is still a real thing even though it may be for a shorter duration of time. It may have just started. But we do want to talk about that with social security too because it is going to have an impact.
Natalia Jofre:	We see that a lot with people that have back claims. They’ve always been very physically fit or active or able to work. A construction worker is a perfect example. They’re used to, you know, doing a man’s man’s job. And you know hard labor and all that stuff and all of a sudden they find that they have an accident on I-4 or wherever they may be and they can’t get off the couch and they can’t work and all of a sudden they’re severely depressed because they can’t do anything.
	That’s still a problem.
Shelly Mark:	Definitely.
Natalia Jofre:	And don’t you find that sometimes the side effects from the medications also cause some of these-
Shelly Mark:	Absolutely.
Natalia Jofre:	-effects? Yeah.
Shelly Mark:	Yeah, definitely. Side effects of medications are definitely going to be taken into consideration as well because you know, a lot of times they cause a lot of fatigue, confusion, fogginess. So, that’s definitely going to impact the ability to work as well.
Natalia Jofre:	We have actually had clients, even clients that have won by the way, and they’ll get very upset. They’ll say I filed for disability for my heart condition. Why is Social Security asking me about my back? I’m not filing for disability for my back. Yeah, my back hurts and I have a hard time with it and I have to take medication for it but that’s not why I’m filing for disability. I’m filing for disability because I had to have open heart surgery.
Shelly Mark:	Right.
Natalia Jofre:	Well, the truth is that you have a small window of time where a cardiac condition will actually be considered. I’m just using this as an example. I mean you can have a multitude of different examples and different combination of impairments. But Social Security is going to look at it and they’re going to say you know what? After you have your open heart surgery, now that your arteries are clear and your blood is pumping and your ejection faction has, you know, improved, why can’t you work anymore?
	Well, if you have to have a very sedentary job, but now you also have this back condition which precludes you from sitting for a prolonged period of time, boom, there you have it. You really can’t do any type of work or maybe any other type of work you’ve done in the past.
Shelly Mark:	Right.
Natalia Jofre:	So, that just kind of shows how the different conditions affect the different abilities to do a job.
Shelly Mark:	Right.
Natalia Jofre:	Right.
Shelly Mark:	Exactly. Even if it’s not your primary disability or it’s not what you believe prevents you from working the most, it still needs to be evaluated. That way it can be used when they are determining whether or not there is any other work you could do.
Natalia Jofre:	Yeah. So the take away is when you’re filing for disability benefits, make sure that you list each and every one of your disabilities, even if you don’t feel like they’re a disability. If it’s just a condition, you know. You have some ringing in the ear, and you have mild carpal tunnel, and I have two bulging discs in my neck, and I sometimes lose sensation in my feet, but my real problem is bipolar disorder. You list it all and then let Social Security figure it out. Let the doctors figure it out. Let us figure it out, whether, you know, it’s going to affect you or help you with your claim. Most times than not it’s going to help.
Shelly Mark:	Definitely.
Natalia Jofre:	Yeah.
Shelly Mark:	Yes.
Natalia Jofre:	All right. Well, thanks for watching. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. Our website is HillandPonton.com, and we’ll see you next time.
Shelly Mark:	Thank you.