How To Get Disability Benefits For an Amputee

Approximately three quarters of applicants have their initial claims for Social Security Disability benefits denied or disallowed. An individual may file up to 4 appeals that are denied, and many people need to go through this entire process before the administration will consider the applicant disabled. Filing a claim for disability benefits for an amputee can be just as challenging as filing for benefits for any other disability, especially depending on how many limbs the individual has lost.

Getting Disability Benefits

If you want to prove that you have a disability that prevents you from working, you must have thorough medical documentation and records regarding the fact that your medical care provider considers you disabled.

• Any record or documentation regarding the cause of your condition, the effects of both the diagnosis and the treatment, any medical bills caused by the condition you suffer, or any written documentation relevant to your impairment that can assist a claim adjudicator in gaining insight into your specific condition.
• It’s also beneficial to keep your loved ones and close relatives and friends updated on your condition and status. The claim adjudicator will sometimes conduct third party interviews in order to determine how others refer to your impairment, whether they see you struggle with day to day tasks.

Disability Criteria

In order for the administration to grant your claim, they must first determine your level of disability.

• This is determined first by comparing your impairment or condition to common diagnoses contained in the Social Security Administration’s  “Blue Book”, or Listing of Impairments.
• This listing contains all of the diagnoses considered by the administration to be serious enough to warrant a disability claim’s acceptance.
• Generally speaking, if a claimant has a specific diagnosis that is listed on the listing of impairments, he or she won’t have a problem in obtaining an accepted claim.
• Another way to have a claim accepted through the listing of impairments is to have a specific diagnosis and condition that is either as severe or worse than any similar condition that is on the listing. This can only be accomplished by thorough and accurate medical documentation.

Medical Vocational Allowance

If your condition is in no way related to anything that is listed in the blue book, you may prove your condition severe enough to be credited with a medical vocational allowance. This allowance will grant you your disability claim based on your specific condition alone, and your diagnosed level of disability. You will have to be able to prove that you are permanently unable to perform any form of substantial work in order to obtain disability benefits.  

Getting Help

An amputee may benefit greatly from the assistance of a qualified attorney in proving that he or she is entitled to disability benefits. Your lawyer can help you gather the evidence you need to prove that your disability has rendered you unable to work and thus entitled to the benefits provided by the SSA.