By Sabrina Dudley-Johnson
October 30, 2017
No matter if you are applying for, or going through recertification (recert) for Social Security Disability, private disability, or public disability pension, administrators are going to want to know how your Fibromyalgia affects or inhibits your ability to perform activities of daily living and occupational tasks of your current or former profession. Be prepared to provide administrators with specific details about your Fibro, any and all medical test results, and especially your doctor's opinion (medical source statement) on all of your limitations.
Most disability attorneys recommend giving your doctor a Residual Functional Capacity (RFC) questionnaire to fill out when you are applying for or going through recertification of disability benefits. Click here to find a sample of a Fibro related RFC questionnaire. You'll notice question number 2 asks if you fit the American College of Rheumatology Criteria for Fibromyalgia. Have your doctor answer this in regards to both the 1990 and the new 2016 criteria. Under question number 7, let your physician know to attach an additional sheet to list any symptoms not listed under this question.
I recently was ordered by my disability pension administrator to report for an RFC exam for the first time in approximately 15 years. My pension administrator had gotten into the habit of sending a generic questionnaire for my physician to fill out instead of sending me for an actual exam. Then about 5 years ago the questionnaires stopped, and I must admit, I forgot about them. Well after selling my condo, moving over 1,000 miles away to live with my daughter and her family because living on my own was becoming hazardous to my health (I continually fall and hurt myself, I've broken one ankle and sprained the other at the same time and couldn't walk, I've knocked myself out, and there's been plenty of times that I went several days without eating because I couldn't get up to cook for myself), ... my administrator sent me the order to see a FRC examiner for recertification.
Unfortunately (maybe), I could not get any of my doctors to feel out an FM FRC form because all of them felt they personally had not been treating me long enough to be qualified to do so (say what?). One doctor is the current partner of my original FM physician. I’ve been treating with this office since 1993 and this particular doctor since December 2016. I’ve been treating with the other pain doctor since March 2017 (6 months). The only healthcare provider who felt they personally/professionally met the longer than 6 months longevity of care standard, is by law, professionally not qualified to complete such reports because she is a PA (physician's assistant). See my continuity of care conundrum. One doctor, my pain management doctor who administered the Functional Restoration Program (FRP) I recently completed, did provide a medical source statement, providing her professional opinion that I am still permanently and totally disabled from law enforcement.
Even before reporting for my recent RFC exam, I was facing two major roadblocks, (1) continuity of care, as mentioned in the beginning of this post, and (2) the difference between ability to perform activities of daily personal care and daily activities of work [specifically, sedentary activities of police work].
As the date of my recert. exam approached, I boarded an Amtrak train to Chicago. That was a nightmare experience that you can read about beginning with the post at this click. Thank goodness I was able to get a flight out for my return to my new home. Anyway, the letter ordering me to the recert exam also ordered me to produce copies of all medical treatments, labs and test reports, and doctor's office visits pertaining to my Fibro for the last 12 months. To show the continuity of care with the office of my original doctor, I went back 15 months. I dragged all those documents with me. Two days before the exam, I ended up at the emergency room (ER) with blood pressure so high everyone thought my head was going to explode. Doctors were threatening to forcibly admit me to the hospital for observation. I kept saying, "not this weekend, I have a recertification exam that I have to show up to no matter what".
I got to the recert and don't know if I should be relieved or insulted. All I can think is ... "So I paid for medical records, traveled approximately 1,000 miles, suffered on a freezing Amtrak train, got so nervous that I ended up at the ER with blood pressure of 226/101, put up with a condescending doctor, only to have the FRC expert say,
"you're too old for me to waste my time examining you. You'll find out my opinion when the pension board gets my letter."
He didn't even exam me and his assistant seemed to have a chip on her shoulder. She asked half-probing questions about how I developed Fibromyalgia and how it affects my ability to work as a police officer but every time I began to answer a question she would either look at me disbelievingly or stop me midsentence to say, "I don't want to hear about that." Once the FRC expert left the room, she said, "well I'm going to exam you so I can justify my time with you". Only thing, she had the medical student exam me.
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