Medical Source Statement

A medical source statement is an official statement from a healthcare professional or personal doctor about your physical or mental health ailments. The statement focuses on how your health affects your working ability and ability to complete work-related activities.

Your medical source statement will play a major role in determining whether or not your Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) claim will be approved. Also, disability adjudicators might consider the medical source statement completed by your personal doctor with more weight than the opinion of their own medical examiners. This is because a medical source statement from your personal doctor is most likely to provide a detailed, longitudinal picture of your medical impairment(s), and could provide a unique perspective to your impairments which cannot be obtained from objective medical findings only, or from reports of medical sources that only provided one examination.

When applying for SSDI, the more recent the medical source statement is the better. The statement needs to include any new changes in your medical conditions and should be specific in terms of your condition. For example, the statement should not just state that you have pain in your wrist but indicate that such pains prevent you from lifting objects and so on. In addition, your medical source statement needs to be supported by the information in your medical records.

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