Can I Get Social Security Disability Benefits for Diabetes?

Residual Functional Capacity Assessment for Diabetes

What Is RFC?

If your diabetes is not severe enough to meet or equal a listing at Step 3 of the Sequential Evaluation Process, the Social Security Administration will need to determine your residual functional capacity (RFC) to decide whether you are disabled at Step 4 and Step 5 of the Sequential Evaluation Process. RFC is a claimant’s ability to perform work-related activities. In other words, it is what you can still do despite your limitations. An RFC for physical impairments is expressed in terms of whether the Social Security Administration believes you can do heavy, medium, light, or sedentary work in spite of your impairments. The lower your RFC, the less the Social Security Administration believes you can do.

Some people can have diabetes for many years with no significant symptoms or functional limitations. While serious organ damage—such as to the kidneys or eyes—may appear as soon as 10 years after diagnosis, some Type 1 diabetics are highly functional after more than 30 years of insulin dependency.

Brittle Diabetes and Residual Functional Capacity

If you have brittle diabetes you will likely be limited to light work and work that does not expose you to environmental extremes of heat and cold. If your blood glucose is already unstable, and you have numerous fluctuating symptoms, medium and heavy work would probably be unsustainable.

Diabetic Neuropathic Foot Ulcers and RFC

Neuropathic foot ulcers that develop in about 15% of patients with diabetes are a frequent cause of hospitalization and account for 85% of the reasons for amputation. They are also expensive to treat—a single foot ulcer costs about $28,000.00 over a period of two years.

If you have a foot ulcer as a result of your diabetes that has not required amputation, the Social Security Administration will need to assess your RFC. Foot ulcers are extremely debilitating in their effect on the ability to stand and walk for prolonged periods. Pain is not necessarily an issue—pain may be minimal as a result of neuropathy (nerve damage). But standing will put pressure on an ulcer and make it worse. If you have an unhealed ulcer on the bottom of your foot, you should be precluded from even sedentary work, and be eligible for disability benefits provided that the ulcer has lasted or is expected to last at least 12 months.

If you have a history of recurrent diabetic foot ulcers anywhere else on the foot, there is a good chance that the Social Security Administration will find that your RFC is limited to sedentary work, even if you have no current ulceration. It is well-established that healing cannot take place without protecting an ulcer from mechanical pressure. Various methods have been used to relieve pressure from ulcers, such as casts, boots, special shoes, and foam padding. It is doubtful that any of these measures could be effective in the healing of a current ulcer with prolonged standing and walking 6 to 8 hours daily, or in the prevention of recurrent ulceration in a susceptible foot with a history of easy recurrence with prolonged standing and walking.

Getting Your Doctor’s Medical Opinion About What You Can Still Do

Your Doctor’s Medical Opinion Can Help You Qualify for Social Security Disability Benefits

The Social Security Administration’s job is to determine if you are disabled, a legal conclusion based on your age, education and work experience and medical evidence. Your doctor’s role is to provide the Social Security Administration with information concerning the degree of your medical impairment. Your doctor’s description of your capacity for work is called a medical source statement and the Social Security Administration’s conclusion about your work capacity is called a residual functional capacity assessment. Residual functional capacity is what you can still do despite your limitations. The Social Security Administration asks that medical source statements include a statement about what you can still do despite your impairments.

The Social Security Administration must consider your treating doctor’s opinion and, under appropriate circumstances, give it controlling weight.

The Social Security Administration evaluates the weight to be given your doctor’s opinion by considering:

  • The nature and extent of the treatment relationship between you and your doctor.
  • How well your doctor knows you.
  • The number of times your doctor has seen you.
  • Whether your doctor has obtained a detailed picture over time of your impairment.
  • Your doctor’s specialization.
  • The kinds and extent of examinations and testing performed by or ordered by your doctor.
  • The quality of your doctor’s explanation of your impairment.
  • The degree to which your doctor’s opinion is supported by relevant evidence, particularly medically acceptable clinical and laboratory diagnostic techniques.
  • How consistent your doctor’s opinion is with other evidence.

When to Ask Your Doctor for an Opinion

If your application for Social Security disability benefits has been denied and you have appealed, you should get a medical source statement (your doctor’s opinion about what you can still do) from your doctor to use as evidence at the hearing.

When is the best time to request an opinion from your doctor? Many disability attorneys wait until they have reviewed the file and the hearing is scheduled before requesting an opinion from the treating doctor. This has two advantages.

  • First, by waiting until your attorney has fully reviewed the file, he or she will be able to refine the theory of why you cannot work and will be better able to seek support for this theory from the treating doctor.
  • Second, the report will be fresh at the time of the hearing.

But this approach also has some disadvantages.

  • When there is a long time between the time your attorney first sees you and the time of the hearing, a lot of things can happen. You can improve and go back to work. Your lawyer can still seek evidence that you were disabled for a certain length of time. But then your lawyer will be asking the doctor to describe your ability to work at some time in the past, something that not all doctors are good at.
  • You might change doctors, or worse yet, stop seeing doctors altogether because your medical insurance has run out. When your attorney writes to a doctor who has not seen you recently, your attorney runs the risk that the doctor will be reluctant to complete the form. Doctors seem much more willing to provide opinions about current patients than about patients whom they have not seen for a long time.

Here is an alternative. Suggest that your attorney request your doctor to complete a medical opinion form on the day you retain your attorney. This will provide a snapshot description of your residual functional capacity (RFC) early in the case. If you improve and return to work, the description of your RFC provides a basis for showing that you were disabled for a specific period. If you change doctors, your attorney can get an opinion from the new doctor, too. If you stop seeing doctors, at least your attorney has one treating doctor opinion and can present your testimony at the hearing to establish that you have not improved.

If you continue seeing the doctor but it has been a long time since the doctor’s opinion was obtained, just before the hearing your attorney can send the doctor a copy of the form completed earlier, along with a blank form and a cover letter asking the doctor to complete a new form if your condition has changed significantly. If not, your attorney can ask the doctor to send a one-line letter that says there have been no significant changes since the date the earlier form was completed.

There are times, though, that your attorney needs to consider not requesting a report early in the case.

  • First, depending on the impairment, if you have not been disabled for twelve months, it is usually better that your attorney wait until the twelve-month duration requirement is met.
  • Second, if you just began seeing a new doctor, it is usually best to wait until the doctor is more familiar with your condition before requesting an opinion.
  • Third, if there are competing diagnoses or other diagnostic uncertainties, it is usually best that your attorney wait until the medical issues are resolved before requesting an opinion.
  • Fourth, a really difficult judgment is involved if your medical history has many ups and downs, e.g., several acute phases, perhaps including hospitalizations, followed by significant improvement. Your attorney needs to request an opinion at a time when the treating doctor will have the best longitudinal perspective on your impairment.

Medical Opinion Forms

Medical opinion forms can be great time savers for both your attorney and your doctor, but they must be used with care. Forms may not be appropriate at all in complex cases; and they need to be supplemented in many cases so that all issues are addressed. The best forms are clear and complete but not too long.

When the time is right, here is a form for your disability attorney to use:

Medical Data Form for Diabetes Mellitus

Continue to the full version of the Diabetes Mellitus Treating Physician Data Sheet.

Go back to Winning Social Security Disability Benefits for Diabetes by Meeting a Listing.