By Robert J. Osborne, Esq.
The Social Security Regulations provide that, “residual functional capacity is the most you can still do despite your limitations.” The Social Security Regulations require the Social Security Administration to “consider all of your medically determinable impairments of which [the Social Security Administration is] aware, including medically determinable impairments that are not ‘severe’ . . . .” You may recall from an earlier blog that a medically determinable impairment “is not severe if it does not significantly limit your physical or mental ability to do basic work activities.” So, in reviewing a person’s eligibility for Social Security Disability, the Social Security Administration will look at all of an individual’s impairments of which it is aware, even those that do not have an affect on your ability to do basic work activities.
The Social Security Administration will review all relevant evidence to assess an individual’s residual functional capacity. Although a claimant has the responsibility to provide evidence for the Social Security Administration to make a finding about the claimant’s residual functional capacity, the Social Security Administration is responsible for developing the claimant’s complete medical history. This means that the Social Security Administration may need to arrange for examinations of a claimant by the Social Security Administration’s doctors, and that the Social Security Administration may have to help a claimant get medical reports from the claimant’s doctors.
The Social Security Administration will consider statements about an individual’s abilities provided by medical sources, friends, family and other persons. Thus, the Social Security Administration will review medical evidence, such as a claimant’s medical history, statements by a claimant’s doctors, and descriptions and observations provided by friends, family and other persons.
The Social Security Regulations require the Social Security Administration to first “assess the nature and extent of [an individual’s] physical limitations and then determine [an individual’s] residual functional capacity for work activity on a regular and continuing basis.” According to the Social Security Regulations, limitations in an individual’s abilities to do things like “sitting, standing, walking, lifting, carrying, pushing [or] pulling . . . may reduce [an individual’s] ability to do past work and other work.” Additionally, the Social Security Administration will look at an individual’s mental abilities.
As with physical limitations, the Social Security Regulations provide that limitations in an individual’s mental abilities “may reduce [an individual’s] ability to do past work and other work.” Such limitations include “limitations in understanding, remembering, and carrying out instructions, and in responding appropriately to supervision, co-workers, and work pressures in a work setting . . . .” So, the Social Security Administration will look at an individual’s physical and mental abilities to determine that individual’s “residual functional capacity for work activity on a regular and continuing basis.”
When an individual has a severe impairment, or a combination of severe impairments, the Social Security Administration “will consider the limiting effects of all of [an individual’s] impairments, even those that are not severe, in determining [an individual’s] residual functional capacity.” Remember that “residual functional capacity is the most you can still do despite your limitations.”
The Social Security Administration will review all of the medical and non-medical evidence provided to the Social Security Administration. While an individual has the responsibility to provide evidence for the Social Security Administration to make a finding about the individual’s residual functional capacity, the Social Security Administration is responsible for developing the individual’s complete medical history. The Social Security Administration will then look at an individual’s physical and mental abilities to determine that individual’s “residual functional capacity for work activity on a regular and continuing basis.”