As noted earlier in this series, disability for Social Security or the separate Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is about an applicant’s ability to work.
Before determining the severity of your medical condition, you are asked if you are working. Then, defined in terms of ability to work, to be severe a medical condition must significantly limit your ability to do basic work-related activities for at least one year. If your condition is considered severe, the DDS determines if it is on the list of disabling conditions.
Which eventually brings us to Question 4: Can you do the work you did previously?
How do the examiners at the state Disability Determination Services (DDS) know about your previous work? You told them on the SSA Adult Disability Report – Form SSA-3368) when you listed the types of work performed over about the previous 15 years. Much more than a list of employers, you explained your specific job tasks and responsibilities, specialized knowledge and other details about your work experience. This detailed information showed knowledge, skills and abilities required for your work.
The demands of your recent, relevant, past work are compared with the DDS assessment of your remaining ability to do basic work activities. A determination is made of your capacity for that work as you performed it and as how that work is generally completed in the national economy.
When discussing Is your condition “severe”?, I said that the Adult Disability Report asks how your injury or illness affects your ability to work including health related changes or reasons for stopping. Here is where that is important. Determining if you can do the work you did before includes knowing the work requirements that caused you to change how you did the work or that you could not meet because of your medical condition.
If the Disability Determination Services (DDS) decision is that you can still do your past work as you actually did it, you will not be found disabled. You also will not be found disabled if considered able to do your past work as it is generally done in the national economy. National occupational information is used in making this decision.
However, if the DDS decision is that you are not physically or mentally able to do any of your past relevant work, either as you did it or as it is generally done in the national economy, your application will proceed to Step 5, the final step of the initial Social Security disability process.
Before ending today, I will cover a popular question. When making the decision about if a person can or cannot do their past work, does the DDS consider whether he or she can get a job doing that work? The answer is no. The disability decision does not consider whether a job opening exists or whether a person would be hired. The decision evaluates ability to do the physical and mental activities that were required to do in the past work.
