AN IMPORTANT WAY TO GET DISABILITY BENEFITS

 Helping Social Security to define your "residual functional capacity" (RFC) will help you get approved for disability benefits.

Your RFC is an estimate of how much work you are still able to do, in spite of your impairments.  Social Security is required by law to come up with an RFC before approving or denying your claim.  

Your residual functional capacity (RFC) estimates such things as how much you can lift, how long you can sit, stand or walk--and many other physical demands of work.  Your mental RFC will estimate how long you can concentrate, your ability to remember instructions, your ability to work around coworkers and supervisors, etc.

Important Rule:  You Always Want to Help Social Security determine your RFC

How do you help influence the RFC that Social Security assigns to you?

The best way is to get your doctor to provide a detailed statement about what you are able to do.  This statement must be very specific and very detailed.  Here are some things your doctor's statement should include:

EXAMPLES OF WHAT YOUR DOCTOR SHOULD PUT IN A PHYSICAL RFC FORM

• how many pounds you can lift at one time and throughout an eight hour work day
• how many minutes you can sit at one time in an office chair
• the number of minutes you can stand at one time in one position, like in a line at the store
• how far (or how long) you can walk before needing to sit down
• do you need to lay down during an 8-hour day and if so, for how long
• if you have breathing problems in a work environment with dust or fumes
• are you unable to stoop, bend, kneel, crouch, crawl, use a ramp, or reach in all directions
• being unable to use your hands to pinch, type, turn, push, pull, or use tools
• difficulty in seeing objects or loss of ability to hear
• the need to avoid heights or dangerous machinery

Social Security calls this type of evidence "opinion evidence."  Your doctor's professional opinions can go a long way in establishing your Residual Functional Capacity.  The more restricted your RFC is, the more likely you will be approved for disability.

For example, a claimant who is able to perform work at the medium exertion level is very unlikely to be approved.  Medium work is the ability to stand and/or walk up to 8 hours per day and repeatedly lift up to 50 pounds.  This is not very restrictive and there are millions of jobs in the Medium work field.

If a claimant is limited to work at the light exertion level, it is somewhat unlikely he/she will be approved for disability.  Light work involves standing/walking at least 6 hours per day and lifting up to 20 pounds during the workday.

Sedentary work is more restrictive and involves a job where you sit up to 6 hours per day, stand/walk about 2 hours per day and lift no more than 10 pounds. It's the easiest work there is, physically speaking.  A claimant limited to only sedentary work has a good chance of being approved.  If you cannot even do work at the sedentary level, you should be approved easily.

So, get your doctor involved in helping Social Security to determined which exertion level you are able to perform.  There are forms that disability attorneys send to doctors to help establish residual functional capacities.  This is one of the most valuable services an attorney can provide to claimants.  In hearings, your attorney can use your doctor's opinion to show that you meet the rules for disability benefits.

In the absence of your doctor's opinion, Social Security will make up their own residual functional capacity (RFC), which is almost never good for the claimant.

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Charles W. Forsythe is founder of The Forsythe Firm in Huntsville.  He has helped hundreds of disability claimants recover millions of dollars in Social Security disability benefits.  Free consultations are available at (256) 799-0297.