Let’s talk about medical source statements.
A medical source statement is a statement from your treating doctor regarding whatever your physical or mental limitations are that prevents you from working.
Oftentimes in medical records, they’ll indicate that there’s severe problems but it’s not clear if you would be off task at work through these problems, you’re going to miss work due to these problems, you’re going to be able to complete work tasks or whether or not you’re going to be able to last for a full eight hour workday is not discussed in medical records. And what these medical source statement forms can do is provide the SSA with information regarding not just what your medical diagnoses are, but statements from your doctors regarding what your actual physical and mental limitations are, the SSA doesn’t necessarily have to adopt the opinions of your doctors in deciding whether or not you’re disabled. But generally speaking, these types of statements from your doctor can be the strongest evidence that you can have in your Social Security Disability claim file.
Now, getting your doctor to complete these forms can be tricky. What you want to avoid is getting a statement from a doctor that’s going to hurt your case. Ideally, you would go with your doctor and say I’m applying for Social Security Disability. Do you think that’s a good idea? Do you think that’s right for me? If they’re supportive of that, then hit it with a follow up question. Would you be willing to complete a statement to help my Social Security Disability claim.
Do not to try to just submit the statement to your doctor’s office for their staff to handle it. Oftentimes, those forms will get completed by a nurse which the SSA will then disregard or if your doctor is completing the forms in haste and not paying enough attention to it. Maybe the form gets filled out incorrectly or unhelpfully.
Ideally what you want to do is make an appointment to see your doctor in person. And then whenever you’re having your one on one consultation with your doctor have that paperwork with you have the conversation to them about completing it with you at that time, that way, you’re able to make sure your actual doctor completes the form and you’re able to impress upon that your doctor how important it is the form get completed and completed correctly.
If your doctor refuses to complete the paperwork or expresses that he thinks it’s a bad idea. Don’t push it any further. What you want to avoid is creating bad evidence for your Social Security Disability case that could negatively affect your claim.
There are two major types of medical source statements.
There are physical medical source statements and mental medical source statements. For the physical side of things. The form is going to focus on how much you’re able to sit and stand in a work day, how much you’re able to walk in a work day, how much you’re able to use your hands in a work day, how much you’re able to lift and carry, and then also the amount of time that you would be off task and how many workdays you would miss in a month. So if your limitations are related to those issues, use a physical medical source statement.
There’s also a mental medical source statement which focuses on your ability to be around crowds of people because on tasks that are in front of you deal with workplace stress, a complex of tasks that you can complete, you know ranging from very complex, only simple tasks. If your impairments are focused with those types of issues, then use a mental medical source statement to ask your doctor to complete for you.
The SSA doesn’t accept statements from just anybody. It really has to be a medical doctor I’ll put a note appear on the screen about what types of doctors the SSA does approve.
The SSA only considers statements from the following kinds of doctors: physicians (medical or osteopathic doctor), psychologists, optometrists, podiatrist, speech-language pathologists, audiologists, licensed advanced practice registered nurse, and licensed physician assistants
If you want to get a copy of these magical forms that can help your Social Security Disability case I have them available for free for download on my website Bradthomasdisability.com Visit my website scroll about halfway down the page click a button that says “Gimme Gimme Gimme” you’ll be prompted to enter your email address once you do a copy of the form it will be emailed to you at the back of my social security disability guide.
Thank you so much for your time. If you have questions, leave them in the comment section below.