Disability for Coronary Artery Disease. Stress tests, blockages, and repeat hospital stays.

How Social Security evaluates ischemic heart disease

The listing requires symptoms of reduced blood flow to the heart while on prescribed treatment, plus one of several findings. These include: stopping an exercise test at a workload of 5 METs or less with results positive for ischemia; stress imaging showing defined perfusion or wall-motion abnormalities; three separate ischemic episodes requiring unplanned hospitalization within 12 months; angiography showing blockages of stated severity in vessels that cannot be reopened or bypassed; or three hospitalizations within a 12-month period, at least 30 days apart, each lasting at least 48 hours.

Arrhythmias have their own listing. It applies when an arrhythmia is not controlled by treatment and causes repeated fainting or near fainting, documented on ECG or monitoring.

When no listing is met

Most claims are decided on residual functional capacity: what you can still do in a work setting despite your symptoms. Social Security then asks whether any jobs fit those limits. For heart disease, the limits are chest pain with exertion or stress, fatigue, shortness of breath, and restrictions on lifting.

Evidence that matters

• Stress test reports, including the workload reached and why the test stopped.
• Cardiac catheterization and angiography reports.
• Records of heart attacks, stents, and bypass surgery.
• Hospital admissions for chest pain.
• Cardiology notes on angina frequency and nitroglycerin use.

Ask your doctor to complete the physical impairments form in our free doctor forms. It records your limits in the terms Social Security uses.

Why these claims are denied

• Symptoms improved after a stent or bypass, with no later records.
• No recent stress test.
• Chest pain described to the doctor without frequency or triggers.
• Fatigue not recorded.

After a procedure

Social Security usually looks at how you are doing after you have recovered from a stent or bypass. If symptoms continue, keep seeing your cardiologist and report them at each visit. A file that ends at the hospital discharge will be read as a successful repair.

If you are 50 or older

Under Social Security’s grid rules, a person limited to sedentary work at 50, or light work at 55, may be found disabled depending on education and past work.

Next steps

If you have been denied, you have 60 days to appeal. See what to do after a denial in Arizona, SSDI in Arizona, and SSI in Arizona. There is no fee unless benefits are awarded.

J Disability Law Firm, PLLC · Joseph J. Duerst, Attorney · 18444 N. 25th Ave, Suite 420, Phoenix, AZ 85023 · (602) 607-0000. This page is general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every case is different. Past results do not predict the outcome of your case.