3 Things You Must Tell Your Doctor About Your Disability

In the video below Sharon Christie, a social security disability benefits lawyer provides you with important information regarding the 3 things you must tell your doctor about your disability if you want to be approved for disability benefits.  If you or someone you know is looking to apply for Social Security Disability Benefits contact Sharon Christie Law today. We are a social security disability benefits law firm dedicated to getting you the benefits you deserve.

Official Transcript: 3 Things You Must Tell Your Doctor About Your Disability

Hi, I’m Sharon Christie your nurse attorney for Social Security disability benefits. If you’ve been watching my videos you know that your medical evidence is a very very important part of your disability case. So what kinds of things should you be talking to your doctor about? This becomes really important in trying to show to Social Security that you meet their standard.

The first thing you want to remember is this when you go to your doctor’s appointments and the doctor will typically say to you how are you doing and most people by reflex will say I’m fine I’m okay you don’t want to answer that way. You want to tell the doctor whether you are better, you’re worse, or you stayed the same since the last time you saw the doctor. That helps the doctor because it puts things in context for him or her so stop saying I’m okay or I’m fine and be really specific about how your condition has changed for the better or for the worse or not at all since your last visit.

You want to make sure that you’re clear with your doctor about anything that you’re no longer able to do because of your health problems or things that you can do but they’re a lot more difficult for you to do. It may be that you have trouble getting up and down the stairs. Perhaps you have trouble getting the household chores done. Perhaps you can’t do your yard work anymore, you have to have someone else in your family do that for you. Okay maybe driving certain distances is difficult for you. You want to explain to your doctor how your condition affects your day-to-day activities and you don’t have to give great amounts of detail but you do want to make sure your doctor understands that you’re not living the normal life that you had before you got sick and we’re unable to work any longer.

And then finally make sure you talk to your doctor about any side effects from any medication that you take. One of the things that I find is that sometimes clients take medicines and there’s some bothersome side effects but they don’t mention that ever to their doctor and then when we talk about it getting ready for a hearing they’ll say oh yeah you know I take pain killers they really make me tired or I take a blood pressure medicine and sometimes I get really dizzy or some other medicine may make them very nauseous and yet I don’t see that anywhere in the medical records and it’s most likely because they’ve never told the doctors so you just want to make sure you are clear.

If you have any side effects from your medicines that you tell your doctor. Now when I say side effects let me make sure you understand what I mean. I don’t mean that long list that you see on the side of medicine bottles or in the paper that you get at the pharmacy and it lists all the possible side effects. That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is what side effects do you have you may not have any but if you do have some make sure you let your doctor know.