Qualifying Conditions & Medical Proof
How Social Security judges whether your condition is disabling: the Listing of Impairments, meeting versus equaling a listing, your residual functional capacity and the grid rules, how age changes the odds, and what it takes to win with back pain, mental illness, or chronic pain.
All Qualifying Conditions & Medical Proof guides
- Compassionate Allowances and Terminal Illness
How Compassionate Allowances and TERI speed up Social Security disability decisions for severe or terminal conditions, and how to flag your case.
- Getting Disability for Back and Musculoskeletal Problems
How Social Security evaluates spine, joint, and post-surgical disability claims, and why most win on functional limits, not a Listing.
- How Age Affects Your Disability Claim
SSA's grid rules ease the disability standard at 50 and 55, since retraining for new work gets harder with age.
- The Medical-Vocational Grid Rules
How Social Security's "grid rules" combine your RFC, age, education, and work history to decide disability at Step 5 — and why age 50 and 55 matter.
- Getting Disability for Depression, Anxiety, and Mental Illness
Depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses can qualify for SSDI/SSI. How the mental Listings, records, and RFC work.
- Residual Functional Capacity (RFC), Explained
RFC is the most you can still do despite your impairments—here's how SSA builds it and uses it to decide your disability claim.
- The Listing of Impairments (Blue Book), Explained
SSA's Blue Book Listings can mean an automatic disability finding at Step 3 - and not meeting one still leaves Steps 4-5 open.
- Meeting vs. Equaling a Listing
Meeting a Listing means checking every box; equaling means your combined impairments are just as severe. Here's how each works.
- Getting Disability for Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain
How Social Security evaluates fibromyalgia and chronic pain claims under SSR 12-2p, and how to build the medical record you need.