Your Disability Benefits: Follow Medical Advice!

Hi, my name is Sean Good and I'm an attorney with The Good Law Group. In this video, we're going to talk about following medical advice. If you or a loved one needs help with their disability case, please give us a call at 847-577-4476. Probably the most important thing in any Social Security case is the medical records. When Social Security obtains your medical records, whether it's at the application phase, the reconsideration phase, or you're appearing before an administrative law judge at a hearing, the medical records are really where they make their decisions. I'm of the belief that Social Security really isn't going to listen to much about what you say about your daily life, and they only will to the extent that it matches up with the medical records. For example, if you have a back injury and you claim you're wheelchair bound, but the medical records say things to the contrary, the judge is not going to take what you say very seriously. Again, the medical records are the most important thing, and they must be consistent with what you say. On that note, I want to talk about doing what your doctors say or following medical advice. Doing what your doctors say in a Social Security disability case is very important for a few reasons. First, for example, if you are having psychiatric issues and you've been told to go to the hospital, but you refuse inpatient hospitalization and you refuse further treatment, well, it's going to be hard to convince an administrative law judge that you're deserving of the benefits because you're not following prescribed treatment. You're not following medical advice, and if you had, you might have gotten better and not needed the Social Security benefits. These sorts of things happen in all types of cases. That's just one example, but it is very important not only for your health to follow medical advice, but for your Social Security case, if you're doing things against medical advice or you're checking yourself out of a hospital early because you don't want to be there, these are going to present challenges. Thanks for watching this video. If you or a loved one needs help with their Social Security case, please give us a call at 847-577-4476. Thanks.