If you are suffering from a disability due to a medical condition, your doctor might recommend that you take a prescribed medication. Whether or not you take the medication will not only affect your health but will also affect whether or not you will receive SSDI benefits. This is something you will want to immediately discuss with an SSDI attorney.
Treatment Non-Compliance
The justification for denying a claim for not taking your medicine is "treatment non-compliance." When you are collecting SSDI benefits, you are expected to do everything in your power to recover. Therefore, if the SSA discovers that you have not taken your medicine, you may be denied for this reason.
However, to be denied for this reason, the medicine would need to be something that would allow you to recover and restore your ability to work. For example, if your doctor simply tells you to take aspirin for pain and you choose not to, this would not be a justification to have your claim denied.
Justifications for Not Taking Your Medication
There must not be a justified reason for you to not take the medication. If your doctor was negligent and prescribed the wrong medication, prescribed a medication that might conflict with another medication, or prescribed a medication that leads to severe and unexpected side effects, you may be able to use this as a justification for not taking it.
An SSDI attorney may help you make the argument that taking the medication would violate your religious beliefs. Since it's well-established that some medical treatments violate the beliefs of Christian Scientists, for example, this can be used as an excuse to not take a particular medication.
When You Cannot Afford Your Medication
If you are not able to afford the treatment and there is no affordable option for you, this could be used as an excuse to not take your medication. However, it is difficult to persuade the SSA unless you have exhausted all of your options including subsidized clinics and charities. Therefore, you will need help from an SSDI attorney to gather the evidence to prove this.
Disagreements Among Your Treating Physicians
You may also have more than one individual who is treating you and they may both disagree on whether or not you should take your medication. You will want your SSDI attorney to be communicating with both physicians so you can make sure that these disagreements do not affect the benefits you receive.
Reach out to a disability attorney to learn more.