Schizophrenia

Including: Paranoid and other Psychotic Disorders

In order to be granted Social Security Disability or SSI benefits your Schizophrenia must be affecting you to the point that you will not be able to do any kind of work for at least 12 months. If you are unable to do the work you currently do, consider whether or not you could reasonably do another job. If you still feel like you couldn’t, then you may have a good claim. Schizophrenia will be very hard to prove without medical documentation. You should be seeing doctors, especially a psychologist or psychiatrist regularly to substantiate this claim.

We’ll have to be able to prove that the Schizophrenia, or this combined with your other disabilities has lasted, or will last at least 12 months. When your disability claim for Schizophrenia is reviewed, Social Security will want to know if your schizophrenia has caused delusions or hallucinations, catatonic or other grossly disorganized behavior, incoherence, loosening of associations, illogical thinking, poverty of content of speech, emotional withdrawal, restriction of activities of daily living, difficulties socializing, difficulties maintaining concentration, persistence or pace, or repeated episodes of decompensation. Also, if there is a current history of 1 or more years’ inability to function outside of a highly supportive living arrangement. The more of these symptoms you display, and the more severe, the higher the chances are of your case being granted. Schizophrenia combined with other disabilities can be a strong claim.

As with any disability, your chances of being granted increase if you have consistent medical records of your condition. If you have not seen any doctors within a few months of your application, you may be sent to a doctor who will evaluate your condition. It is best to have your own doctor.

If you are not sure whether or not your claim would qualify for benefits, give us a call. It is always best to get an application in if you are unsure. Some people wait so long that they lose their eligibility for Social Security, and many lose months of benefits for waiting to apply.

The medical listing that describes the criteria for Schizophrenia is; 12.04 Schizophrenic, Paranoid and Other Psychotic Disorders – Adult.