My wife feels disabled. She used to teach junior high school Spanish full time for over $60,000 per year. She can no longer work as a full-time teacher, because the stress triggers mania. Believe me, she tried several times to return to teaching, and each time she experienced a serious breakdown.

She did receive some disability payments from the Social Security Administration for several months when she was completely unable to work. Now she’s working as a teaching assistant earning about $15,000 per year.

She can’t do the job she wants to do and was trained to do. She no longer has the same earning potential. That makes her feel disabled, but that’s not how the Social Security Administration sees it. Here’s the five-step process that the SSA uses to determine whether a person is disabled:

1. You are working and earning more than $900 per month. If you are working and your earnings average more than $900 per month after allowable deductions, you generally will not be considered disabled. If you are not working, or are earning less than $900 per month, the SSA looks at your medical condition.
2. Your medical condition is “severe.” For the SSA to consider you disabled, your impairment or combination of impairments must significantly limit your physical or mental ability to do basic work activities—such as walking, sitting, seeing, and remembering—for at least one year. If your medical condition is not that severe, you will not be considered disabled. If it is that severe, the SSA goes to the next step.
3. Your medical condition is found on the Listing of Impairments. The SSA has a Listing of Impairments that describes medical conditions considered to be very severe. If your condition, based on your impairment or combination of impairments, is not on this list, the SSA then decides whether it is as severe as a condition that is on the list. If it is, then the SSA will decide that you are disabled. If it is not, the SSA prepares an assessment of what your medical condition still allows you to do and proceeds to the next step.
4. You can do the work you did before. At this step, the SSA decides whether your medical condition prevents you from being able to do the work you did before you stopped working. If it does not, they will decide that you are not disabled. If it does, the SSA goes on to the next step.
5. You can do any other type of work. If you cannot do the work you did in the past, the SSA looks at the evidence to see if you would be able to do other work. In this step, the SSA considers your medical condition and your age, education, past work experience, and any transferable skills you may have. If you cannot do other work, the SSA will decide that you are disabled. If you can do other work, the SSA will decide that you are not disabled.

To find out more about how the Social Security Administration determines who qualifies and does not qualify for disability, you can check out its publication 64-039: Disability Evaluation Under Social Security (also known as the Blue Book). This publication “has been specially prepared to provide physicians and other health professionals with an understanding of the disability programs administered by the Social Security Administration. It explains how each program works, and the kinds of information a health professional can furnish to help ensure sound and prompt decisions on disability claims.”

Information about how to apply for disability benefits is also available on the Internet at the following address: www.socialsecurity.gov/disability.html.