Doctors used to get a blue book from Social Security with many diseases or illnesses listed in it. Social Security will find you automatically disabled if you have such a “listed” impairment and all the necessary medical proofs that go with it. But it is not the condition itself that makes you disabled but all the clinical findings that go with it. So it is not enough to have congestive heart failure to give one example—you must have all the testing that goes with it, all the laboratory results. To be find disabled because of a Listed Impairment is pretty rare—these conditions are felt to be so severe that there is no need to even think about your case since it is so obviously disabling but “listed” cases are very rare. The only one that requires nothing but the diagnosis is Lou Gehrig’s disease—every other listing requires extensive medical documentation and testing, some of which you may not have or your doctor may have felt was unnecessary. So having a condition “listed” in the book is helpful but not as helpful as a doctor may think. And quite often the fact that your doctor says you have a condition with everything documented is still not enough—Social Security may still deny you or say they don’t agree with your doctor’s opinion.
If you have such a condition, come talk to us. We can make sure your doctor supplies everything you need to win but it is never enough for him to say “you have a condition in the blue book.” We need to prove you have every requirement.