Documenting Your Work
History
In the Social Security
Disability Decision-Making Process
Excerpted Tip From
DE Other Side
Newsletter (April 2006 issue)
Accurately completing your
work history form can mean the difference
between an allowance and a denial of your
claim, especially if you are aged 50 or over,
so always try to complete the work history form
throughly, including guessing at the amount of
time you spent standing, sitting, crouching,
crawling, etc., on any jobs you held within the
last 15 years.
One way to get a good estimate of this is to
go to the dictionary of occupational titles
(DOT) which lists the requirements of 1000s of
jobs in the national economy. This is what
Disability Examinerss use when you leave out
this section of your work history
form.
Remember that even if the DOT lists that
people in your occupation spend two hours
sitting in a particular job, but you are sure
you only got to sit for an hour, and spent most
of your time standing, you should list your
actual standing requirement. Disability
examiners will generally use your estimates if
they are reasonable.
And if you are in the middle of a claim and
have already completed the work history form,
you can always send in supplemental
information to your disability examiner.
Generally, work history is one of the last
items reviewed in deciding a claim (i.e. one of
the last steps in the Sequential Evaluation
process which is to determine if you can
perform your past work or if you can perform
any other work in the national economy based on
your current medical conditions, including your
physical and/or mental residual functional
capacity, which basically indicates what you
are still able to do despite your
impairments.)
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