Suffering from blindness or lack of vision can severely impair a person’s ability to find work, make money and manage their life. People who are having an especially hard time may want to apply for Social Security disability benefits, as it may help get them back on their feet. Those who want to qualify for benefits must be able to prove via medical records that they have a loss of peripheral field contraction, visual efficiency and visual acuity.
“To evaluate your visual disorder, we usually need a report of an eye examination that includes measurements of your best-corrected central visual acuity or the extent of your visual fields, as appropriate,” the SSA’s website said. “If you have visual acuity or visual field loss, we need documentation of the cause of the loss. A standard eye examination will usually indicate the cause of any visual acuity loss.”
For the most part, people who want to qualify for disability benefits must have visual problem in both eyes, with vision in both eyes needing to be affected. If one eye’s vision is bad and the other is even just a bit better, the claim may be denied by the SSA’s judge. To show the full extent of the problem, claimants will need extensive medical records proving their vision issues.
Often times, people believe if they are legally blind they will qualify for Social Security disability benefits. However, the SSA looks beyond such labels to attempt determining the individual’s ability to perform work activities, even if there are eye problems. If the SSA believes a claimant can perform sedentary work competitively even though the claimant has significant sight problems, they will not pay benefits.
With this in mind, it is important for a claimant to obtain expert legal to ensure a successful outcome for their disability claim. The Law Offices of Harold W. Conick and Associates have successfully represented numerous clients suffering from impaired vision.
