A Macomb County Social Security disability attorney understands very well that disability benefits are difficult to obtain. This is due in part to the confusing and stringent requirements SSD outlines in the Medical-Vocational Guidelines.
What Are Medical-Vocational Guidelines Used for?
- To determine the number of jobs that exist for those with residual functional capacity (RFC) depending on the person’s age, work experience, and education
- In those cases where the rules do not firmly settle whether a person is disabled or not, the Medical-Vocational Guidelines are used to establish the constraints for evaluating disability based upon the impact of the person’s age, work experience, and education.
What Do the Medical-Vocational Guidelines Dictate?
- A vocational expert must conclude the number of jobs that a person is capable of performing based upon RFC if he or she is either: (a) younger than 50 years of age, or (b) illiterate or unable to converse in English and under age 45.
- The Medical-Vocational Guidelines claim that a person is not disabled if he or she can complete a significant number of jobs. If you are denied for this reason, a Macomb County Social Security disability attorney will help you appeal.
What Does a “Significant Number” of Jobs Mean?
- It is up to the vocational expert and an administrative law judge to determine what counts as a considerable amount of available jobs.
- According to the Medical-Vocational Guidelines, a disability applicant of a certain age, work familiarity, and education that is able to do a complete range of light work will not be found disabled.
- However, if the same claimant was only able to perform sedentary work, then he or she will be considered disabled.
What if the Claimant Does Not Fall into either Category?
- An administrative law judge and a vocational expert must determine an applicant’s disability status (although a Macomb County Social Security disability attorney will fight for your case).
- When a claimant is over 50 years of age, the vocational expert’s job is to provide an opinion to an administrative law judge about the number of jobs that an applicant is able to perform.
Just like many other rules, Medical-Vocational Guidelines are not always black and white; instead, vocational experts and administrative law judges use them to determine a claimant’s disability status. If you don’t want to get lost in the grey world of disability benefits, call Macomb County Social Security disability attorneys, J.B. Bieske and Jennifer Alfonsi, Attorneys at Law, at (800) 331-3530 now.
