When you apply for disability through Social Security, you can expect to be inundated with strange terms and acronyms that probably won’t make much sense at first. SSA. ALJ. DSM. GAF. If you don’t have someone knowledgeable on your side who can explain things, it’s something that can quickly become overwhelming. Some people simply shut down because there’s just too much to take in, and that’s one of the reasons I started this blog – to explain things in plain language whenever I can.
One acronym that used to be vital is GAF . It stands for Global Assessment of Functioning, and it’s basically a report from your doctor that talks about what you can and can’t do on a daily basis. The GAF was one of the big things that the Social Security Administration used to decide whether or not a claimant should get benefits.
Why am I using the past tense? Because some recent developments have caused questions about how much the GAF will be used going forward. Eliminating the GAF or having it count for less could lead to big changes in how disability claims are decided and argued.
No GAF in the DSM-5
What’s caused all these questions? The American Psychiatric Association (APA) publishes a guidebook called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Until recently, this guidebook always included the GAF, but in the most recent version – DSM-5 – it didn’t make an appearance.
Because the GAF has been so important in disability determinations, this exclusion has led to lots of confusion, head-scratching, and even panic among both those fighting for benefits and the people deciding whether or not to award them. Should they use the GAF? Should they ignore it? How much importance should they give it?
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Value of the GAF Going Forward is Unclear
The official answer from the SSA is that GAF ratings are still going to be used, but only under certain circumstances. If you want to know whether or not it applies to your case, the best thing you can do is talk to an expert. This is important to know going in, because it tells you how much time and effort you should spend focusing on the GAF rather than looking into other ways to prove your disability.
In fact, the best way for anyone to win their claim is to ask an Social Security disability attorney as many Social Security questions ahead of time as possible before applying. Where disability is concerned, knowing is more than half the battle, which is why you should download our free eBook and keep following this blog
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