Meeting A Disability Listing For Diabetic Complications
The Social Security Administration has a listing of impairments that tells you how severe an illness must be to qualify for disability benefits. Unfortunately, diabetes is no longer included as a separate disability listing, so showing you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes won’t automatically get you disability benefits.
But, if you have complications arising from your diabetes that fall under another disability listing, you might get approved for benefits. Following are some listings that people with complications from diabetes often suffer from:
Because Social Security’s disability listings require that these complications be quite severe to qualify for disability, Social Security finds that most people who apply for disability due to diabetes do not meet a listing. The agency then goes on to do an RFC analysis to see if the applicant can do any type of work.
Role Of Medical Assessments In Your Disability
If you have type 1 or type 2 diabetes and you have symptoms that are preventing you from leading a normal life, you may be eligible for disability. There are specific medical assessments that can help you become eligible to receive benefits. Along with a diabetes diagnosis, you will need to provide proof that your symptoms are uncontrollable or that you suffer from co occurring conditions.
Diabetes and disability share a relationship that is slightly complex, and the disability cases of individuals vary from one to another. It is advisable that you work closely with your health professional to properly present your case and provide the necessary proof. They can help you with providing the proper medical documentation and suggest certain tests to prove your disability.
Diabetes Rights And Protections
Those living with diabetes deserve fair treatment in:
- Other activities
Under federal law, children have the right to receive diabetes and other care they need in order to participate in school life the same as any other child. Under federal law, schools are required to provide:
- A trained staff member who can administer insulin and glucagon and monitor blood sugar levels
- A trained staff member or members who can provide care specific to diabetes during all school activities including field trips and extracurricular activities
- Permit capable students to self-manage their diabetes at any time and in any place
Under federal law, schools cannot:
- Insist family members attend school to care for the needs of a student with diabetes
- Transfer students with diabetes to a different school in order to receive appropriate care
- Stop students who have diabetes from attending any school-sponsored activity, including field trips and sports days
State laws can be complicated and can be unclear regarding who should care for a child with diabetes at school. Some states give more protections than others.
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Gestational Diabetes And Disability:
Diabetes during pregnancy is the most complicated diabetes that may result in disability in both babies and mothers. By taking preventive measures, you can avoid diabetes complications.
- Take a proper diet rich in vitamins and minerals.
- Avoid too much physical exercise.
- Drink a lot of water.
- Check sugar level repeatedly.
- Avoid sugar and dairy products.
- Walk regularly.
Social Security Disability Insurance
This is for people who have worked for five of the last 10 years and meet the Social Security Administrations definition of disability .
SSDI offers assistance to help you return to work and provides ongoing income if you do not get better. When you receive SSDI you can also qualify for Medicare and prescription drug assistance, explains the ADA.
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Need Legal Help File A Disability Claim For Diabetes
If you are finding it challenging to prove your disability and are lacking legal help, you might want to hire a diabetes disability lawyer. They will have years of experience that enable them to understand the ins and outs of your case. They can assist with all aspects of the process including paperwork, valuable advice, collecting medical evidence, and more.
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Protections Under The Americans With Disabilities Act
The Americans With Disabilities Act is a federal law that protects disabled people from discrimination in the workplace and by public services.
If you’re legally considered to be disabled, the ADA requires employers with fifteen or more employees not to discriminate against someone because of one’s disability as long as they can perform their job duties satisfactorily.
This means that if your employer thinks you might be unable to fulfill your job duties, they must first offer reasonable accommodations that can allow you to stay on the job, otherwise it will be considered discrimination.
For people with diabetes, this can be simply accommodating the need to inject insulin, eat more frequently to maintain your proper blood sugar levels, or other challenges.
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Does The American Disability Act Protect People With Diabetes
For those living in the US, as we mentioned, the American Disability Act recognizes diabetes as a disability. It provides people with diabetes protection from discrimination at work and school.
An employer cannot refuse to hire you based solely on your diabetes. You do not even have to tell the employer that you have diabetes. Once you are employed however, your employer must provide reasonable accommodations for you. The accommodations can include changes to your workplace or routine that can help you to manage your diabetes.
The American Disabilities Act also protects the rights of children to inject and check their blood sugar levels in a classroom setting.
Understanding The Difference Between Type 1 And Type 2 Diabetes
Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes have similar challenges — elevated blood sugar levels, and the symptoms that follow, including obesity, elevated blood pressure, heart disease, and the potential for organ, vision, and nerve damage.
However, their causes are different, and either way, you can overcome these challenges!
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Diabetes Type 2 And Disability:
Diabetes type 2 is chronic than type 1. If you dont know about it, it can prove to be a threat to your future. Traditional complications are common in this type and malfunctioning of body parts that mediate towards disability.
Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disease associated with a wide range of comorbidities and complications, including retinopathy and loss of vision, nephropathy, end-stage renal disease, peripheral neuropathy, cardiovascular diseases, and lower extremity amputations due to diabetic foot.
All these long-term medical complications shorten the life expectancy of the affected people and cause physical decline, which leads to disability. The importance of the problem also results from the prevalence of the disease. According to the estimation, diabetes can increase from 135 million to about 3.5 million from 1995 to 2025.
In Poland, according to the estimation, there are about 2 million inhabitants who have diabetes, and half of this population is unaware of the condition. These literature reviews aim to show all positive associations between diabetes and its complications leading to limitations and disability.
The prevalence of the disability in the population of people with diabetes is the sum of all diabetic complications and the process of aging. The diabetes epidemic affects the entire age range, and the greatest absolute increase is occurring among the elderly.
Is Diabetes A Disability Well Yes And No
When people think of diabetes, there’s often a sense of dread that comes not far behind. But is diabetes a disability? We say ‘no!’, and here’s why.
While there are two different types of diabetes, and one is not currently curable, you have an incredible amount of control and power over how much diabetes affects your life.
This ranges from completely reversing type 2 diabetes to turning type 1 diabetes into a superpower that gives you fine-tuned control of your body on par with top Olympians. Definitely not the life-shattering disability it was made out to be!
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Protection Under The Law
There is no right answer to the question of whether or not T1D is a disability, which is what makes it such a rich topic of debate.
Many people with T1D, myself included, struggle to identify with the disabled label. This reluctance likely has a lot to do not with T1D itself, but about what it means to have a disability in our society. The stigma around disability is very powerfulthough that is a topic for another day.
Accessing disability services can also feel like an unfair advantage for people who, like me, feel they can succeed without these services. As an able-bodied person who is able to work, move freely, and support herself, I dont usually feel I deserve extra help.
Still, T1D comes with a dependence on life-sustaining therapy, and this therapy has severe side effects that can be disruptive at best and life-threatening at worst. It can temporarily impair an individuals ability to perform in work or school, and it causes a great deal of daily stress.
Its true that on average, people with T1D are living longer, healthier lives than ever before. However, T1D can still affect livelihood, mobility, and quality of life. Diabetic retinopathy remains the leading cause of blindness in American adults, diabetes and high blood pressure are the leading causes of kidney failure, and T1D increases the risk of lower extremity amputation by 40 times, for just a few examples.
How Type 1 Diabetes Qualifies For Disability Benefits
The Social Security Administration is the organization that determines what qualifies as a disability.
A condition must appear in the SSAs Listing of Impairments to count as a disability. In this manual, the SSA describes the conditions that it considers severe enough to prevent an adult from maintaining gainful employment.
In the section on endocrine disorders, the organization notes that both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are chronic disorders that can have serious disabling complications that meet the duration requirement.
Unseen disabilities are impairments that are not easily identifiable to anyone else.
People with some disabilities require the use of assistive devices, such as wheelchairs, glasses, or hearing aids.
However, there may not be any visible evidence of type 1 diabetes. A person can look and act the same as other people while participating in typical activities each day, managing their symptoms and condition privately.
It is important to note, though, that unseen disabilities may be no less serious or life hindering than those with visible manifestations.
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Qualifying For Disability Benefits Based On A Medical Listing
Social Security can find you disabled without having to decide that you can’t work if complications from your diabetes meet or equal standards from its Listing of Impairments, a collection of disorders that the agency considers to be particularly serious. Getting disability based on a listed impairment requires a strong medical record with lots of specific evidence.
While diabetes isn’t one of the listed impairments, the SSA can find you medically disabled based on the effect diabetes has on the rest of your body. Depending on the location and intensity of your symptoms, you might qualify for benefits under a listed impairment if your record contains evidence of the following:
- Diabetic ketoacidosis occurs when your body runs out of insulin to break down glucose for energy and uses fat cells instead. DKA is life-threatening when left untreated and almost always requires hospitalization. DKA can cause irregular heartbeat, liver damage, brain swelling, seizures, and eating disorders.
- Chronic hyperglycemia is the cause of many of the diabetic complications mentioned above. The SSA has medical listings for peripheral neuropathy, kidney damage, vision loss, and heart disease.
- Hypoglycemia is the opposite of hyperglycemiayour glucose levels are too low instead of too high. Severe hypoglycemia can lead to seizures and cognitive deficits.
Receive Your Diabetes Entitlements
Although diabetes is a common condition, its still formally recognized as a disability in the United States. While diabetes doesnt need to hold you back from living your life, a diabetes diagnosis protects you from discrimination because of your health. It could also mean youre eligible for benefits and compensation.
If you have diabetes, research potential benefits thoroughly to ensure youre claiming everything youre entitled to.
Zia Sherrell is a digital health journalist with over a decade of healthcare experience, a bachelors degree in science from the University of Leeds and a masters degree in public health from the University of Manchester. Her work has appeared in Netdoctor, Medical News Today, Healthline, Business Insider, Cosmopolitan, Yahoo, Harper’s Bazaar, Men’s Health and more.
When shes not typing madly, Zia enjoys traveling and chasing after her dogs.
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How Diabetes Qualifies At A Disability
Like many serious diseases, Diabetes varies in severity from person to person. Many people lead full, active lives and work full time with a Diabetes diagnosis. Others suffer tremendously from the effects of Diabetes. In this blog post, we explain how to tell where your case falls on this wide spectrum.
Requirements of Every Disability The Social Security Administration applies the same definition of disability to every SSD and SSI application. A disability can qualify for benefits when it is a medically determinable physical or mental impairment that has lasted or is expected to last at least 12 months , and that prevents the claimant from performing substantial gainful activities.
Diabetes Is Recognized in the Disability Blue Book The SSA publishes a manual in which it lists categories of illnesses and injuries that it recognizes as qualifying disabilities when the impairment meets certain criteria. The Blue Book listing of Diabetes is found under endocrine-related impairments in Part A, Section 9.00.
For either Type 1 or Type 2 Diabetes to be approved as sufficiently severe to support your SSD benefits claim, your medical records, doctors reports, and other supporting material need to show one of the following findings:
1). Diagnosis of Diabetes mellitus and one of the following conditions:
- A). Diabetic acidosis
- C). Diabetic Retinopathy
Diabetic Acidosis:
Neuropathy:
Retinopathy:
Disability And Diabetes Prevention
It is important for people with disabilities to know their diabetes status to help them make the best decisions for their health. If you have a disability, learn what you can do to prevent or managetype 2 diabetes.
Join the conversation on social media about preventing and managing diabetes among people with disabilities by searching #DisabilityandDiabetes
About 1 in 6 people with disabilities in the United States in 2020 had been diagnosed with diabetes, compared to 1 in 14 people without disabilities . Differences are also observed across various states, races/ethnicities, and age groups. For example, diabetes is more common among people with disabilities who live in Mississippi compared to those who live in South Dakota .1
You are at risk for developing type 2 diabetes if you:
- Are 45 years or older
- Have a parent or sibling with type 2 diabetes
- Are physically active less than 3 times per week
- Have ever had diabetes while pregnant or given birth to a baby who weighed more than 9 pounds
- Are African American, Hispanic/Latino American, American Indian, or Alaska Native
Visit the Disability and Health Data System to learn more about diabetes among people with disabilities in your state and nationwide.
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Are Adults With Type 1 Diabetes Eligible For Ssi
According to the American Diabetes Association , there must be serious complications from type 1 diabetes to get Supplemental Security Income or Social Security Disability Insurance as an adult.
The ADA further states that Social Security Disability Insurance , is for people who have worked for five of the last 10 years and meet the SSA definition of disability. SSDI offers assistance to help you return to work and provides ongoing income if you do not get better. When you receive SSDI you can also qualify for Medicare and prescription drug assistance.
Supplemental Security Income program , is available to individuals who have limitedincome and resources, and are considered disabled by the Social Security Administration. SSIprovides a monthly assistance check. Medicaid is a health care program for people with lowincomes.
Against Private Employers And State/local Governments
Any person who believes that his or her employment rights have been violated on the basis of disability and wants to make a claim against an employer must file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC. A third party may also file a charge on behalf of another person who believes he or she experienced discrimination. For example, a family member, social worker, or other representative can file a charge on behalf of someone who is incapacitated because of diabetes. The charge must be filed by mail or in person with the local EEOC office within 180 days from the date of the alleged violation. The 180-day filing deadline is extended to 300 days if a state or local anti-discrimination agency has the authority to grant or seek relief as to the challenged unlawful employment practice.
The EEOC will send the parties a copy of the charge and may ask for responses and supporting information. Before formal investigation, the EEOC may select the charge for EEOC’s mediation program. Both parties have to agree to mediation, which may prevent a time consuming investigation of the charge. Participation in mediation is free, voluntary, and confidential.
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Can I Qualify For Disability Benefits With Diabetes
While diabetes is a disability, that doesnt mean every individual with diabetes is eligible for disability benefits.
In most cases, your health must severely limit what you can do in your daily life. The Social Security Administration removed diabetes from its Listing of Impairments, known as the Blue Book, in 2011.
To qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income as someone with diabetes today, you must also have at least one of the following diabetic complications:
- Acidosis: Abnormally acidic bodily fluids
- Diabetic neuropathy: Difficulty moving your hands, feet, arms or legs
- Severe diabetic retinopathy: Damage to your eyes blood vessels, leading to vision impairment or loss
- Poorly healing skin and bacterial infections: These must last longer than three months
- Diabetic nephropathy: Impairs kidney function
- Cardiovascular problems: Including coronary artery disease, chronic heart failure, peripheral vascular disease or irregular heartbeat
- Foot amputations: Due to nerve damage and poor circulation triggered by diabetes
In most cases, your health conditions should prevent you from working for at least a year before you become eligible. However, you may get disability insurance earlier if doctors believe diabetes may end your life within a year.