Do you know that some Social Security Medical Consultants only spend twelve minutes reading your medical records and writing their report? That’s works out to about six minutes to read, six minutes to write.
Your records may have dozens of pages! Hundreds of pages! Sometimes even thousands of pages! How are they going to find all the most important things in twelve minutes?
Some of our readers report that creating an outline of their medical history was helpful for them in presenting to Social Security their medical background in a brief, clear, easy to read, and easy to find document.
Working with Your Doctor
Another great reason you might want to create a medical summary is to help your doctor.
If you are asking your doctor to write a disability letter or complete a form for you, it may be helpful to provide them with an outline of your medical history.
Your doctor probably does not want to spend hours collecting and combing through all your medical records (and even if they do want to, they probably are not going to). Giving them an overview can help make their life easier and help you make sure everything important gets considered.
Below are a few success stories from readers who kindly shared copies of their medical outlines:
Carnation Makes a Medical Summary
Carnation applied for Fibromyalgia. She created a medical summary to show an overview of her condition. When she got approved, the judge copied and pasted her entire summary right into her approval letter! Carnation’s case was approved fully favorable. Carnation Makes a Medical Outline
Peggy Makes a Medical Summary
Peggy’s adult son was diagnosed with mental illness. Peggy used a tool called Medical Summary Reports. She wrote down her son’s history and then worked with her son’s doctor to create a Medical Summary Report. Her son was approved in three months: Peggy Gets Approved Using a Medical Summary Report
Zinnia Makes a Medical Summary
Zinnia made an outline to show how her medical records matched the Social Security Ruling for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She brought a draft to her doctor and he found it helpful when writing letter. Two months later, Zinnia was approved. She never had a lawyer and did not go to a hearing. Zinnia Uses the Social Security Ruling for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Rosemary Makes an Outline
Rosemary had a very hard case to win. In fact, all the lawyers turned her away because they said she wouldn’t win. Rosemary proved them wrong. She made a medical outline, and two months later, she was approved. Rosemary Makes a Medical Outline
Daisy Makes an Outline
Daisy prepared a draft of her medical history and then shared it with her doctor who used it when creating a letter. At Daisy’s hearing, the judge read the letter and said it was the single most important thing in her file. Then he approved her right on the spot! Daisy Wins Her Disability Case with a Letter
Holly Makes an Outline
Holly got approved for disability in six months without ever needing to appeal or hire a lawyer. She did several things to help her case, including creating this great synopsis: Holly’s Fantastic Medical Synopsis for Disability
Plumeria Makes an Outline
Plumeria read some of the summaries above and decided to try making one herself. After submitting her application, Plumeria spoke with her Disability Examiner. The Examiner thanked Plumeria for organizing everything so well. She was approved in three months. Plumeria’s Disability Cover Letter
Want to Make Your Own Outline?
Before you can create a medical outline, first you will need copies of all your medical records. How to Collect All Your Medical Records (Keyword: All) Please make sure that you do not just collect visit summaries or use what appears online. You will need full records with all secret doctor notes.
Submit!
When you are done with your outline, don’t forget to submit it to Social Security. Some of our readers prepared great materials and had them completely ignored because they were submitted the wrong way or went to the wrong place: How to Submit
Thanks for Reading
🌷 This page is part of the free online guide: The Sleepy Girl Guide to Social Security Disability
🌷 Art on this page by Robin Mead and Elizabeth D’Angelo.
🌷 Page Updated: 8/1/19
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How to Get On 
I am so happy to get all this information and I think you may have made the difference between whether I get my appeal or not. I had no idea what they were expecting. Or that messing up my meds and finances were that important.
One thing is, due to age and/or cognitive deficits, I have trouble knowing whether I’ve found and followed all the links and got all the relevant information. Is there a way to find a list of all your blog pages you’ve hyperlinked to? If not, would you make one? Then I could check them off or make notes as to what I need to do, then methodically go through it. I could make the list, but I couldn’t know if I found everything.
Thank you SO MUCH for so generously helping me and others in an area where so much is at stake.
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Great question. We are aware that this is a problem but figuring out a solution is overwhelming 🙂 There is a start of a site index here, but it is missing a lot of things: https://howtogeton.wordpress.com/everything-2/
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