Aug 18, 2010

New Mental Impairment Listings Available For Review

Social Security has posted new proposed mental impairment listings. These will be published in the Federal Register tomorrow. The public will have an opportunity to comment. It will certainly be at least next year before these become official.

I have not yet had an opportunity to review these.

Update: After only the most superficial review, I would say that the primary changes are to the mental retardation listings, now to be called "Intellectual Disability/Mental Retardation." This was my expectation. The I.Q. testing scores required to meet the listings are unchanged. Multiple new criteria have been added. The appearance is that it would be difficult to find anyone to meet the listing unless they have been quite helpless and dependent their entire life. To my mind, this makes Listing 12.05C meaningless.

3 comments:

timb said...

You mean "more meaningless"? When i used to work at a DDB in the 90's and early 00's, it was a fantastic tool to allow people whom the medical consultants would never approve. Changes in interpretation around 2000 made it largely impossible to prove, unless the person with the disease just happened to keep every report and every psyche test, he or she experienced before age 22. Given the diagnosis, that was unlikely. It was then a Kakfa-esque change.

SSA codifying it is no surprise...

Anonymous said...

My quick reading doesn't show any significant difference - different terminology in the "B" criteria and "C" criteria and, yes, in 12.05 test results would need to be corroborated by evidence of limitation in functioning - but generally the criteria and ability to deny or approve based on the criteria would seem more or less the same.

Anonymous said...

Our first readings will need to be followed by second and third readings.

It's possible that Mr. Hall's negative reaction on first reading is to this language about 12.05:

A. ID/MR as defined in 12.00B4, with mental
incapacity evidenced by dependence upon
others for personal needs (for example,
toileting, eating, dressing, or bathing) and
inability to follow directions, such that the use
of standardized measures of intellectual
functioning is precluded.

If so, then on his second reading he'll see that this is for 12.05A only, and isn't very different from current 12.05A. 12.05A is by my understanding aimed at those who are so cognitively challenged that they can't take the normal IQ tests.

This is not to say that 12.05C isn't going to get more restrictive. On my own first reading, 12.05C will require more or less the SAME level of deficits in adaptive functioning as required by the various professional organizations who define the concept of "mental retardation." At least in practice for adult claims, this is a more stringent standard that is often applied. Or so it seems to me.

JOA