The Role Permanent Disability Rating Plays in Determining Disability

A permanent disability rate play a very important part in determining if an individual is legally considered disabled.  There are two categories that the blanket term of “permanent disability” fits under – one is simply permanently disabled and the other is “permanent impairment.”  The latter of the two includes the notion of physical impairment.  In order to understand the role that permanent disability plays, it is important to define exactly what a permanent disability is.

Definition of a Permanent Disability

Not only a medical condition, a permanent disability occurs when an individual has reduced or completely absent capability to engaged in certain activities.  This is a direct result of an impairment which shows that no tangible change or improvement will be expected in the future.

Your Permanent Disability Rating

Coinciding with the notion of permanent disability is that of the permanent impairment.  This diagnosis is consistent with being a completely medical condition.  The impairment comes as a loss in which the physician believes is a non-progressive condition.  In order to get the disability rating a doctor must perform a thorough assessment via asking several questions in order to adequately diagnose the disability rating of the patient.  Some of the questions include:

• -has the pain been consistent since the injury?
• -how does the pain interfere with the ability to work?
• -what is the severity of the pain?

Doctors grade a patient’s paint on a 1-4 scale with 1 being mild and 4 being very severe. 

How a Permanent Disability Rating Affects your Benefits

Back to the question at hand – which is what role does permanent disability rating play on disability? The permanent disability rating plays a very important role on whether or not an individual is considered to be disabled by law.  One reason is that it is compiled by a physician – not just any physician but your personal physician .  Based on the questions, and overall diagnosis, your disability rating will be one of the  leading factors in determining true disability. 

The other factors of course include the assessment of the disability insurance company’s claims representatives.  Upon submitting all of the qualifying paperwork, and cross referencing it with the doctor’s report, a person with a solid permanent disability rating will inevitably be declared legally disabled.

Getting Help

If you have a question or concern about your disability rating, you should speak with your physician first, however if that yields not results then you should contact a disability attorney. Your attorney can act as your advocate throughout the process of applying for disability and can explain things every step of the way.