Medical Criteria to Qualify as Disabled

To qualify as disabled according to the Social Security Administration (SSA) during the sequential evaluation at step 3, you must meet or “medically equal” an impairment in the SSA’s disability regulations. The SSA medical criteria comes from the Listing of Impairments. If you don’t understand the medical criteria or need help understanding how you might meet the SSA requirements, you may need to consult with a Sacramento Social Security disability attorney.

The most straightforward way to qualify as disabled according to the Listing of Impairments is to directly meet one set of criteria. Each set of impairment criteria considers the applicant’s medical signs, symptoms, and findings.

If the applicant’s medical signs, symptoms, and findings do not directly fit one set of criteria in the Listing of Impairments, it is still possible to qualify as disabled if the applicant’s impairment is “medically equivalent” to one of the impairments described by the SSA. The applicant can show medical equivalence in one of four ways: 1) the applicant lacks one of the essential findings in a set of criteria from the Listing of Impairments, but the applicant does have other findings; 2) the applicant has all essential findings in a set of criteria for an impairment, though one or more of those findings is on the weaker side, and the applicant does have other findings; 3) the Listing of Impairments does not include the applicant’s impairment but the applicant’s impairment may be severe enough to qualify as an analogous impairment; or 4) the applicant has several impairments, none of which are severe enough on their own to meet the Listing of Impairments criteria, but which cumulatively equal one of the impairments.

When the SSA considers whether an applicant’s condition is medically equivalent to the disability criteria in the Listing of Impairments, the applicant may need to present medical signs, symptoms, and findings. The SSA will likely also require the opinion of a medical expert hired by the agency.

If you need to show medical equivalence in order to qualify as disabled according to the Listing of Impairments, you may benefit from the preparation and assistance of Sacramento Social Security disability attorneys Smolich & Smolich.