Stay Away From Ticks This Summer! Filing For Social Security Disability Is Possible If You’ve Contracted Lyme’s Disease.
With the weather getting warmer and the days significantly longer, we like to spend a lot of time outdoors here on the Eastern Coast. Whether you’re hanging out in your backyard, or hiking through the woods beware of tall grass! It’s the season for parasitic insects, such as ticks to be meandering through the Earth looking for a host to latch onto. These guys can carry a very unpredictable, chronic, and devastating bacterial infection called Lyme’s Disease. Transmitted by infected deer ticks, one bite from the wrong one will leave you with a nasty fever, headaches, body aches, swollen joints, and sometimes vertigo. In severe, chronic cases the bacterial infection is completely debilitating. Referred to as Chronic Lyme’s disease, the worst cases are often misdiagnosed. A malady that is completely physically, and mentally disabling the long-lasting fatigue, excruciating joint pain, serious vision problems, the risk of kidney or liver damage, and impaired cognitive functioning could leave you bedridden and out of work. Because Chronic Lyme’s disease has such lasting, extensive physical ailments it does affect your ability to make a living. Fortunately, filing for disability benefits is possible if you or a loved one has suffered a serious blow to their income. Enjoying the outdoors this summer is important! Actively avoiding tick bites and being aware of the devastating effects of Lyme’s disease will ensure your well-being for the years to come.
Filing for SSDI Involves Adequate Analysis
Filing for Social Security Disability benefits is a lengthy, complicated process, especially when dealing with a sickness such as Lyme’s Disease, which little research has been conducted on. If you meet the 5-part sequential analysis associated with your claim, Social Security Disability Insurance can be granted. Let’s take a look at the requirements necessary for the consideration of you or a loved one’s legal benefits package.
Substantial Gainful Activity
In terms of earned income, substantial gainful activity is set at $1,130.00 a month. If the symptomatic effects of your Lyme’s disease have severely diminished your monthly earnings, you can file for Supplemental Security Income benefits if income dips below SGA. If you’re making more than $1,1300.00 a month, you’re considered not disabled and will likely not be granted government subsistence.
Proven Severe Impairment
Those with Chronic Lyme’s Disease often experience a lot of difficulty with this part of the analysis. The hurdle involves proving medically determinable signs and symptoms associated with your inability to work. The proof is providing specific documentation such as diagnostic tests. Chronic Lyme’s Disease can lay dormant in one’s system for an extended period and flair up randomly, negatively affecting job performance. Therefore, because flair ups are so unpredictable and hard-hitting, it’s difficult to prove the disease’s ‘medical determinability.’ Submitting articles and treatment guidelines will give tangible evidence that your ailment should be taken seriously.
The Listing of Medical Impairments
Found in the Code of Federal Regulations for Social Security, if Chronic Lyme’s disease is featured in The Listing of Medical Impairments, it is possible to seek government assistance for its physical debilitation. Unfortunately, it is not, but maladies similar to those associated with the disease are. A few examples of those you could prove to affect your ability to work are inflammatory bowel disease, musculoskeletal diseases, or neurological disorders. If you are able to prove that your Chronic Lyme’s disease fits into a description associated with a listed impairment, your claim will be approved for the third part of the social security disability sequential analysis.
Residual Functional Capacity Analysis
Residual functional capacity involves the social security administration determining whether or not you can perform past work. Coming to this conclusion is a complicated, multi-layer, fact-specific series of testing divided into sedentary, light, medium, and heavy work classifications. They will assess your ability to sit, stand, lift heavy equipment, and make decisions. All mentally and physically debilitating claims are evaluated in this step. If you pass, and the analysis shows you can no longer perform at your previous places of employment your claim will be further considered.
The Performance Of Other Work?
Especially with Chronic Lyme’s Disease, the Social Security Administration will assess your ability to perform low-level work. They could see work that requires little to no exertion as a feasible solution to your physical impairments. However, proving and documenting cognitive disruptions such as vertigo, memory loss, daily processing etc. will show them that even sitting at a desk or doing work from home is a daunting task.
Need representation for a Social Security Disability claim? Call JBA.
When choosing an attorney to guide you through the process of Social Security Disability it’s important to hire an individual experienced with the program and its requirements. Consulting an individual who has insight on Social Security and the application process will prove to be extremely valuable in the long run, especially when questions or uncertainty arise on how to proceed.
Before trying to work out intricate Social Security qualifications on your own, especially while in the throws of your Chronic Lyme’s Disease, contact our office to make sure you understand the program and process. Protect yourself, know your rights: call us and Get JBA First!
Jenkins Block & Associates has 40+ years of experience in successful SSD/SSI cases in Maryland & Virginia, in addition to being a member of The National Organization of Social Security Claimant’s Representatives. Call us at 1-800-243-2439 or contact us online to begin the process of filing your Social Security benefits!