Weight Loss

Residual Functional Capacity Assessment for Weight Loss

What Is RFC?

When your Weight Loss is not severe enough to meet or equal a listing at Step 3 of the Sequential Evaluation Process, the Social Security Administration will need to determine your residual functional capacity (RFC) to decide whether you are disabled at Step 4 and Step 5 of the Sequential Evaluation Process. RFC is a claimant’s ability to perform work-related activities. In other words, it is what you can still do despite your limitations. An RFC for physical impairments is expressed in terms of whether the Social Security Administration believes you can do heavy, medium, light, or sedentary work in spite of your impairments. The lower your RFC, the less the Social Security Administration believes you can do.

Assessing Impairment Caused by Weight Loss

There is no straightforward way to assess RFC under this listing. It would be erroneous to assume that the claimant’s weight per given height is the key to determining RFC. Certainly, a claimant who otherwise satisfies the listing but is only a few pounds over the applicable weight tables should reasonably receive no higher than a sedentary RFC. A well-nourished claimant with minimal physical abnormalities and symptoms can be given a RFC for heavy work, or coded “not severe” (slight). The most problematic cases involve light and medium work RFC assessments, which may make the difference between allowance and denial on a medical-vocational basis.

Tables used in the past showing “normal” weights for various heights of adult men and women are of limited value. Such tables were based on life insurance company data involving the mortality probability of a financially select part of the population that could purchase such insurance, or were arbitrary in some other way, and therefore are no longer considered authoritative. Most modern medical texts do not even refer to such tables. In fact, “normal” and “abnormal” weights are meaningless words, unless the purpose of available data is specified. The most meaningful use of weight measurements has been to assess the risk of heart disease, diabetes mellitus, and overall mortality. The following table should be used only as one general factor in determining RFC.

TABLE 5.08.2 – 1: WEIGHT FOR HEIGHT TABLE BY AGE

There is no classification for various degrees of being underweight that might be correlated with various exertional capacities. There is no physiological research on weight and exertional capacity in “normal” individuals. Even if there were, the information would have limited application to individuals with medical disorders. It is important to obtain as much information as possible medically and diligently record the nature and degree of restrictions to your daily activities that are imposed by the illness. Associated impairments with the weight loss are very important; a claimant with scleroderma may have numerous other problems besides weight loss.

It should be remembered that weight loss may be only one manifestation of digestive system disease; other factors like anemia and depression may require separate evaluation.

Continue to Getting Your Doctor’s Medical Opinion About What You Can Still Do.

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