subject: Social Security Disability is Full Not Partial Disability [print this page] Social Security Disability is Full Not Partial Disability
When creating a Social Security disability decision, disability examiners--the individuals who actually process SSD and SSI claims at state-level disability determination services for the social security administration--must gather data from the medical sources provided by the individual claimant at their initial disability interview. If the medical, and sometimes faculty, records gathered by an examiner are insufficient to form a disability determination, SSA can get a private to attend something called a CE or consultative examination. Consultative exams are performed by freelance doctors who have agreed to conduct them in exchange for compensation. The purpose of consultative examinations is to determine A) if the individual does indeed have a medically determinable impairment and B) the severity of the impairment (s).Within the social security disability and SSI disability system there's no concept of partial incapacity, therefore disability examiners must use the offered information gained from medical record documentation and, if applicable, consultative examinations, and information about a personal's past substantial and gainful work activity to see if their purposeful capacity (what they're ready to try to to despite their limitations) is so restrictive that it precludes all alternative sorts of substantial gainful work activity they will have performed in the past fifteen year period, plus any other kind of labor performed in the overall economy.Most federal incapacity selections are a complex mix of medical and vocational factors that will either support the very fact that the individual's condition is completely disabling, or not. If there's a possibility that an individual is in a position to perform substantial work activity with the constraints imposed upon them by their medical or mental condition, their incapacity claim will be denied.The SSA definition of incapacity clearly states that an individual should are unable to perform substantial work activity for twelve months; or they expect to be unable to perform substantial work activity for twelve months; or their condition is expected to result in death due to a medically determinable mental or physical impairment. So as you can see, the definition of disability for Social Security will not enable for partial incapacity compensation, just as it will not give for temporary disability advantages, or percentage-of-disability benefits.