Generally, it is the claimant’s duty to prove to Social Security that they are in fact disabled. This means that Social Security requires all known medical evidence that relates to the claimant’s medical conditions or potential disability to be submitted. All medical records and other forms of admissible evidence must be submitted in their entirety; they cannot be cherry-picked or have certain portions submitted and other portions withheld. This blog post is to explain the nature of the evidence, duties on submissions, timelines, and responsibilities.
The claimant must inform Social Security, if asked, about medical sources, age, education and training, work experience, daily activities before and after the alleged onset date, efforts to work, and any other factors showing how the impairments affects the claimant’s ability to work.
The submitted evidence must be detailed enough to allow Social Security to determine: the nature and severity of the impairments, whether the duration requirement is met, and the claimant’s physical and/or mental residual functional capacity (RFC). The state disability determination agencies will generally submit requests for medical records to any medical facility or doctor that they are told about and for the time/date periods that you tell them you have been seen.
Before a hearing, the Office of Hearing Operations will request records for claimants that do not have a representative. These offices, however, will not send requests for records if you do have a representative. Thus, you need to keep your representative informed about any medical records that you forgot about in the previous filings or about any new medical records that you may have since the Reconsideration denial. Contact us for more details on obtaining a representative.
– Michael
Recent Comments