Social Security requires disability claimants to follow medically prescribed treatment when it is reasonably expected to restore the ability to work. If a disability claimant does not follow this kind of medically prescribed treatment without a good or justified reason, Social Security will find them not disabled; or if they are already receiving benefits, they will likely have those benefits terminated. This is why it is especially important to listen to your doctors and at least give the medically prescribed treatment programs a try.
There are many “acceptable” reasons for failure to follow prescribed treatment. Such acceptable reasons include: medical treatment that is contrary to the established teachings and tenants of the claimant’s religion, surgery that was previously performed and did not result in significant improvement but is being recommended again, treatment that is very risky such as open heart surgery or organ transplants, and treatment that involves the amputation of an extremity or a major part of an extremity.
Generally, Social Security does not consider physical, mental, educational or linguistic limitations when determining if a claimant has an acceptable reason for failing to follow prescribed treatment. This issue, however, can become very tricky when you have multiple doctors that are prescribing or recommending different courses of treatment. This is also an area that judges frequently use to, in our opinion, unjustifiably deny disability benefits to claimants. They may cite failure to take certain medications as the reason for the denial. This is why we, at Mission Possible, recommend that you contact us so that we may argue good cause where necessary or try to prevent or bypass the issue altogether with.
~ Michael
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