If you have anxiety or depression and are trying to get Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, you might be getting frustrated. It might seem like the Social Security Administration doesn’t understand how impactful having anxiety or depression can really be on your activities of daily living.
If you’re trying to get Social Security disability with anxiety or depression, it’s important that you have ongoing medical treatment. There aren’t often clinical objective signs for anxiety or depression. For example, anxiety and depression don’t show up on an x-ray.
Therefore, it’s important that your medical providers are willing to document your visits with them. It can also be helpful if you have a medical provider who is okay with writing out what they believe your limitations are – based on what you have told them and some of their own personal observations. Sometimes, those limitations can be recognized through neuropsychological testing or other psychological testing, and sometimes they’re just realized by a prudent provider who is basing it on their own interactions with you and the observations that they have from those interactions.
For anxiety and depression claims, Social Security often needs to see either an extreme limitation in one of the following (or a marked limitation in two of the following) areas of mental functioning:
- Your ability to understand, remember or apply information.
- Your ability to interact with others.
- Your ability to concentrate, persist or maintain pace.
- Your ability to adapt or manage yourself.
It’s important to remember that social security needs documented medical evidence to improve a claim for SSD or SSI benefits.
Therefore, the best thing you can do if you’re applying for disability with anxiety or depression is talk with your counselor, psychologist or psychiatrist, or your attorney about what kind of documentation they can help provide or suggest how to put your best foot forward.
