If you meet certain conditions, you do not have to meet the five-step sequential evaluation for the SSA to find you disabled. To find out if you are exempt, you should consult with a qualified Albuquerque Social Security lawyer.
An Albuquerque Social Security Lawyer Discusses the Three Special Profiles of Exception
Your Albuquerque Social Security lawyer will tell you that if you fit at least one of the three medical-vocational profiles, you can be found disabled without meeting the standard five-step sequential evaluation process and avoid consulting the Medical-Vocational Guidelines.
An Albuquerque Social Security Lawyer Explains the Profile #1
The SSA will find you disabled if you:
- Have a severe impairment that is medically determinable;
- Are age 55 or older;
- Have received only a 11th grade level education or less; and
- Lack past relevant work experience.
An Albuquerque Social Security lawyer Discusses Profile #2 (AKA the worn-out worker)
The SSA will find you disabled if you:
- Have a sixth grade level education or less;
- Have worked at least 35 years at a hard unskilled labor, and
- Is currently incapable of doing the hard unskilled labor you have performed in the past.
An Albuquerque Social Security Lawyer Explains Profile #3
The SSA will find you disabled if you:
- Are not working at SGA level;
- Have devoted at least 30 years of your life to a field of work that is unskilled or is skilled or involves at least a modicum of skills that are not transferrable;
- You are not unable to perform this past work;
- Are nearing retirement age, age 60 or older; and
- Have received a negligible amount of education.
Your Albuquerque Social Security Attorney Will Explain How You Can Be Found Ineligible for Benefits Despite Being Found Disabled
You can be found ineligible even after you completed the five-step sequential evaluation process and the SSA ruled that you are disabled. Your Albuquerque Social Security attorney will elaborate on the two ways this can happen.
- You stop following prescribed treatment without an acceptable justification. The SSA can only use this cause to find you not disabled only if:
- It finds that you are otherwise disabled; and
- The treatment was prescribed by your own doctor and is “clearly expected to restore” your ability to work.
- The SSA finds that drug addiction or alcoholism is “a contributing factor material to the determination of disability.” The SSA will handle this matter only after ascertaining that you are disabled taking into account all impairments, which include drug addiction or alcoholism-related impairments. Afterwards, it will reexamine your impairments to verify if you would continue to be disabled once you discontinued the drug or alcohol use.
Therefore, you should reveal any of your drug or alcohol addiction to your Albuquerque Social Security attorney as you complete the sequential evaluation process.
An experienced disability lawyer can to help you meet the sequential evaluation process and any other requirement to obtain your SSD benefit. For a free initial consultation with a qualified Albuquerque Social Security lawyer, please call the law offices of Michelle Baca Attorney at Law at 1-505-872-1142.
