Bum knee? Bum Social Security disability case
Physical conditions below the waist for those under the age of 50, make it almost impossible to be approved for Social Security disability benefits. Why?
Well, because there are so many different jobs a person under the age of 50 can perform sitting down, despite his or her impairment. There are even a lot of jobs that will accommodate sitting and standing at will.
Now, that's not to say that every case will be denied for those under the age of 50 and claiming this kind of impairment. There are lots of cases where a person under the age of 50 and having some kind of lower extremity impairment will be approved. For example, persons with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), or blood clots in the legs, or amputations meeting a medical listing. All I'm saying is that before you're sure you'll get approved for Social Security disability and you're under the age of 50, you may want to chat with an experienced disability attorney.
Okay, but what about those over the age of 50?
Well, you're chances of success start increasing as you get older.
But, there are other things taken into consideration as well. For example, what kind of work you did prior to needing to file for disability benefits? Was that a highly skilled job? Are you considered a skilled worker?
You could literally talk all day about someone over the age of 50 needing for file for Social Security disability benefits. But for fun, let's just invent a case study:
Karen, my wife's name is Karen, so we'll use Karen.
Karen needs bilateral knee replacement (both knees). She has worked as an Administrative Assistant since she was 25. She is now 53. She has good computer skills, admin. skills, etc. In other words, she's good at her job. She has a really hard time walking and standing, and needs to elevate her feet during the day because her knees take on fluid.
Is she going to be approved for benefits?
The answer is...............maybe.
In fact, it doesn't really matter if she is going to be approved or not. That isn't up to us. What is up to us is to discuss her case. So, let's do that. Here's what we know:
She's over the age of 50, but not quite yet 55. So, she is closely approaching advanced age.
She's highly skilled and she worked at a sedentary job for at least the last 15 years.
She has transferable work-skills she developed from her past work.
She has to deal with Step 4, because there may be the assumption she can still do her old job even if she needed to sit and stand at will (maybe).
Because of these transferable work-skills and the fact she is not yet 55, she maybe able to use some of those skills to do some other kind of work that would accommodate her impairment.
Lastly, because there is a need for complete replacement of her knees, we have to look at a medical listing.
So, even if you didn't catch a single thing about what we just discussed above, you do know this: Social Security disability is not easy and it's almost always complicated and two different people, given the same set of circumstances, will reach different conclusions. And, that's just the system we have to work in.
