The Social Security disability requirements change from year to year, and 2018 had its own set of updates. As outlined in our last blog post, the impairment listing manual that the Social Security Administration uses is called “the blue book,” and it indexes the ailments and conditions that could qualify an individual for benefits.
These blue book listings are valid for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security disability benefits (SSDI), but for the sake of this article we will focus on Social Security disability.
Filing For SSI and SSDI Benefits
If you are filing for benefits, your condition does not necessarily need to match the blue book listing exactly. If Social Security considers aspects of your situation to be equivalent to the listing’s criteria, from a medical standpoint, they may be able to award you benefits for that related condition. They call this “equaling a disability listing.”
What might make your condition “medically equivalent”?
First, you must show that the impairments are as severe and long-lasting as the comparable listing for an impairment. Here are the ways they might compare:
- If you have a combination of impairments, but individually neither of them matches a specific blue book listing
- If you have an unlisted impairment that is similar to one of those mentioned in the blue book
- If your impairment is listed, but your condition does not meet one of the criteria – if this is the case, you may have other impairments that are comparable in “medical value” to the criterion you are missing
If you would like to talk with us about your application for disability benefits, please call us at 513.721.6500.