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Grundelwald12 karma

In my experience (I work for an SSDI attorney) ADHD is one that SSA sometimes doubts is accurately diagnosed. You'd need proof it onset before age 22 and needs to be diagnosed by a doctor.

That is the first hurdle. Your next problem will be proving the effects on your ability to work. Sounds like your main deficit is in what SSA calls Concentration, Persistence, and Pace. This alone would not meet the criteria, so you'd have to connect the dots back to employability. Getting statements from witnesses (teachers, professors, family) and ideally from medical professionals (doctors, therapists) can give you evidence to support work-preclusive limitations. For example, if you would be unable to sustain concentration for 2 hour increments, that rules out competitive work and would qualify you if SSA adopts that. You need evidence to convince them to do that though, and even with the evidence SSA is often rejecting that evidence in favor of their reviewing doc's opinions. The more the better.

Another issue with ADHD is treatment. SSA generally looks at how well you function WITH treatment/meds. So if you are not in treatment, you will need very good reasons for why not. If you're treated and this improves you enough to work they will deny you.

Grundelwald11 karma

Where do new chickens on your farm come from? I assume that your chickens are used for both eggs and meat, but where do you get new chicks from if the eggs produced are left unfertilized? Do you have separate eggs/chickens for fertilizing and eggs/chickens for consumption?

Grundelwald4 karma

Those Listing requirements are strictly followed, so your example would not succeed...but meeting a listing is just one way to qualify. If you don't meet one, SSA quantifies all of your workplace restrictions and then determines "the most you can do in a work setting". So SSA may find you don't meet that rule but accept you would have excessive absences or need excessive restroom breaks due to IBD and still approve you.

Grundelwald3 karma

Look for a local lawyer and try to find one specializing only in SSDI if possible

Grundelwald3 karma

I work on the lawyer end of this and see these FCE's every once in a while. In my experience they are ordered by a claimant's PCP as an alternative to the PCP filling out an opinion form when we request one. SSA doesn't order them, they have their own exams called a CE, which is basically a slightly more in-depth physical. The FCE is far more detailed.

BUT they don't tend to be automatically persuasive to SSA. Physical Therapists are not seen as "acceptable medical sources" so I have seen some judges actually ignore FCE's (this is legal error though and doesn't hold up on appeal), and generally they are not given much weight.

I have had some cases won thanks to an FCE because it's hard for a judge to disregard when a claimant is examined for 5 hours or whatever and is rated e.g. to <10% use of their hands across a workday. Not all FCEs produce disabling restrictions, of course, but since it is objective evidence it can really be a helpful piece of evidence.