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Do You Need Better Support to Take Care of Yourself?
Everyone knows you’ve got to breathe. But most people don’t truly understand how your life can be limited by breathing disorders until it happens to them.
If your breathing is constricted by lung disease—you’re wheezing, coughing, short of breath, feeling chest pain, gasping—then you can’t exert yourself much. Your strength is sapped. You’re quick to lose stamina. It’s hard to concentrate. In short, it’s hard to work.
When you can’t work because of lung disease, Social Security Disability benefits can be crucial to supporting yourself economically, being able to rest and worrying less while you undergo treatment.
Benefits include income support and access to health care through Medicare or Medicaid.
But applying for benefits is strenuous in itself. Most people can expect to be denied for disability and then need to file an appeal.
For your lung disease disability claim, talk to an experienced disability attorney. In West Texas, disability lawyer Baynetta M. Jordan has helped thousands of people for over 30 years.
We’re the disability law firm that says, “Nobody Pushes West Texans Around™.”
Which Lung Diseases Qualify for Social Security Disability?
Several types of lung disease are specifically covered by Social Security Disability in a category of impairments called “Respiratory Disorders.”
Other lung ailments, lung cancer for example, qualify under the Social Security Administration (SSA) listing for other diseases, like cancers.
The Social Security list of impairments that can qualify for disability benefits provides helpful information about what you need to be approved for benefits, such as the types of symptoms you can document and types of medical records you can submit to back up your claim.
For respiratory disorders, these are some of the major conditions that Social Security recognizes:
- Asthma (wheezing, coughing, shallow breathing, chest tightness)
- Bronchiectasis (damage to airways connecting to the lungs)
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, (includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis)
- Chronic pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the vessels between the heart and lung)
- Chronic respiratory failure (inability of your lungs to get enough oxygen into your bloodstream)
- Cystic fibrosis (genetic disorder that causes breathing problems)
- Lung transplant (which can come with multiple side effects)
Ultimately, you must prove to Social Security that your lung condition requires you to stop working almost completely.
The seriousness of your breathing problems are obvious to you, but how do you get this across to a big government program?
Talk to the disability lawyers at Baynetta M. Jordan, P.C., for an initial look at your situation and what your disability claim will take.
Your case consultation is always complimentary.
Evidence You Need to Qualify for Disability with Lung Disease
The core of every Social Security Disability claim is medical evidence.
Social Security is always under pressure to make sure it only awards benefits to people who truly need them. So it requires proof from expert sources, like your doctors.
It has thousands of rules. And it requires you to put in extensive legwork to gather the needed records from your doctors and other health care providers.
With lung impairments, the good news is that the medical evidence is often pretty concrete, which helps your case.
These are some of the common types of medical records you can submit:
- Images of your lungs (like x-rays)
- Strength of your breathing (spirometry tests)
- How your lungs process gases (DLCO tests)
- Oxygen in your blood (oximetry tests)
- Oxygen and carbon dioxide in your blood (ABG tests)
The Social Security guidelines for these tests, how they should be conducted and what results you should get, can be highly technical.
Your Social Security Disability lawyer, who handles cases like this every day, will know what types of medical test reports and results to collect.
And your disability lawyer can help you gather another type of evidence of the non-medical type: testimony from friends, family, co-workers and others about how they have personally witnessed the way your lung condition limits your daily activities.
A disability lawyer eases the burden of applying for benefits, and helps you get closer to financial relief and a higher sense of peace when you can’t work because of lung disease.
You pay no attorney fee until you win benefits. Even then, your lawyer gets paid from back benefits you are awarded after waiting for approval, not from your pocket or your monthly disability checks going forward.
To pursue disability benefits for lung disease in Lubbock, Plainview, Levelland, Midland-Odessa, or anywhere else in West Texas, talk to us.