How Can A Social Security Lawyer Help Me Get Benefits for Mental Illness
An experienced disability attorney can greatly increase your chances for approval, especially for claims based on mental illness which require a lot of medical evidence and support to establish that the impairment prevents someone working.
A lot of people may be unaware that their condition qualifies them for a faster approval; The benefit of using a disability attorney is that we are trained to identify claims that may meet a listing. A lot of times, someone who is applying for benefits on their own are dealing with a lot of stresses and pressures that prevent them from looking at their case objectively and therefore do not egt the proper medical support to establish their claim. An Attorney can be a major help in this regard, in turn, saving valuable time and frustration.
Depression and anxiety are often the main reason for, or a part of, a person’s disability claim; however, these conditions are more often than not very difficult to prove because depression and anxiety are subjective evidence. Meaning, the evidence is based on how the person applying for SSDI Benefits, feels and how it affects them on a daily basis. Unlike physical conditions, which can be proven by hard evidence such as MRI's, CT Scans and X-Rays etc. Additionally, Social Security deals with so many of these claims, that if you are not able to objectively establish you claim it will be denied fairly quickly.
Social Security will assess your mental illness by completing what they call a Mental Residual Functional Capacity Assessment. (Mental RFC). Social Security will have you meet with one of their doctors to assess how your mental impairment affects you from doing any job in the local and national economy. The Mental RFC will evaluate the following:
how well you can follow simple directions
whether you can work in a normal job setting without extra supervision
whether you are disruptive to others in the workplace
if you can make simple work-related decisions
how well you interact with the public, and
how well you respond to criticism or direction from your supervisors.
Typically, a Mental RFC comes back showing that there's no impairment strong enough to prevent the person applying for benefits from working. An Attorney will be essential in pointing out the weaknesses in Social Security's evaluation and presenting evidence that contradicts the report.
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