Social Security Disability for COPD in Wisconsin

How to Prove Severe COPD Qualifies You for Disability Benefits

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease affects millions of Americans and can be caused by pollution, exposure to noxious gasses or smoking. It’s progressive, meaning it will continue to worsen over time.

COPD comes in different forms—such as emphysema or chronic bronchitis. It restricts your airways and saps your strength.

The most common symptoms of COPD, according to the American Lung Association, include chronic coughing, shortness of breath, phlegm or mucus production, chest tightness and fatigue.

Proving you have COPD for the purposes of getting disability benefits requires extensive testing by your doctor, who will evaluate:

• Your airflow
• How well your lungs filter different gasses
• The level of oxygen and other gasses in your blood and your hemoglobin
• How your lungs perform while you’re resting and exercising

To win your claim, you may be required to provide the results of these tests and other medical evaluations, including:

• X-rays of your lungs
• Physical exams
• Lab tests
• Your medical history, including hospitalizations
• The impact of treatments you’ve undertaken

Every case is different and you may not need all this information to win your case, but you still must prove you can’t work and that your condition has progressed to severe or very severe stages.

An experienced disability lawyer can collect the evidence and organize it in the best way to tell your story to Social Security. To learn more about how this process works, contact Geary Disability Law today.

There is no charge for your initial consultation.

Can it Be Difficult to Win Social Security Disability Benefits for COPD?

To win your disability claim, you must prove COPD keeps you from working. But COPD is common enough that many effective treatments exist.

Your doctor may get you the medication and therapy you need to manage your condition and live a close-to-normal life. That’s wonderful, but could mean Social Security will deny your case.

You don’t have to let them dismiss you outright, though. There may be more you can show Social Security and still be approved for financial relief.

Social Security, in fact, denies most first-time claims—up to 80 percent—for all kinds of health problems. People typically need to appeal denials to get benefits.

An experienced disability lawyer can be vital for both filing and combating a denied claim by finding those key factors in your case that can win you the benefits you deserve. These can include:

• Your “residual functional capacity,” which is the limit of any work you can do with whatever medical impairments you have. This assessment can be based on your medical records as well as statements from friends and family.
• Your age, which Social Security weighs when determining if you could do different kinds of work from what you’ve done in the past, even with your condition.
• And whether you have other medical conditions that, when combined with COPD, rule out working.

COPD can leave you deflated, physically and financially. Under that kind of stress, it can seem overwhelming to figure out a massive government system like Social Security.

If you live in Wisconsin, Geary Disability Law is here for you.

Our compassionate, determined team of disability lawyers knows how to approach disability claims for COPD, so you can get back to what matters most: caring for your health.