Learn how to be persuasive at a Social Security Disability hearing by presenting your testimony clearly, explaining your limitations, and helping the judge understand how your condition affects your ability to work.
Transcript
Your goal at your hearing is to give a relevant, honest testimony which neither exaggerates nor minimizes your impairments. Your testimony should be filled with anecdotes, details, and examples of your limitations in a straightforward manner. You should provide facts about your strengths as well as weaknesses.
More specifically, you should:
Number one, recognize that it is your symptoms that keep you from working. Do not provide a medical diagnosis like arthritis when the judge asks what keeps you from working. Lots of people with arthritis work. Your symptoms and limitations from arthritis are what the judge will want to hear about, not that your doctor says your symptoms are caused by arthritis.
Number two, describe your pain accurately. Few claimants have disabling pain. Your pain need not be disabling in its severity for you to be found disabled. Similarly, few claimants have pain that ranks as a 10 on the 1 to 10 scale used by doctors and therapists. If your pain varies in intensity, state how long it persists at each level. If your pain comes and goes, explain how often this happens. Be precise. Sometimes is not as descriptive as twice a week.
Number three, describe your limitations. Focus on how your pain prevents you from doing things. Maybe you can't sit, stand, or walk for prolonged periods. Maybe you need to lie down at some point during every 8-hour stretch. Maybe your pain prevents you from consistently concentrating or paying attention.
Number four, provide examples. Pretend you are talking to an old friend who wants to be brought up to date on the problems caused by your impairment. Explain what you now have to do differently, going through a typical day almost hour by hour. How long are you active and how long do you rest? Do you rest sitting or lying down? Where do you rest? What activities must other people help you with? Who are those people?
Number five, provide details. Say the judge asks how far can you walk. An answer of two blocks is not as good an answer as one that provides a lot of detail, such as: I can't walk more than two blocks without stopping to rest. Yesterday, I walked to a store a block and a half from my house. Upon arriving, I had a stabbing pain in my back and soon I was limping. I stopped three times on the return and once home sat down and elevated my legs before putting the groceries away.
