All Claimants are required to provide medical documentation to support their disability. You cannot obtain benefits, based in disability without a diagnosis and medical documentation of your symptoms.
In Virginia, the Social Security Administration designates the Disability Determination Services (DDS), a Division of The Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, to evaluate your medical records to determine if you meet the criteria for disability. DDS will request all medical records from medical care providers that you list on your application or that you add to your record; they will analyze those records received and make a written Determination of Disability status based on the information in those records and your responses to forms DDS sends to you.
If medical care providers do not send the records or you do not return forms, you may be denied for lack of information or cooperation.
You do not pay for the medical records obtained by DDS. You should not need to get records from your medical care providers unless they fail to send them to DDS.
If you want copies of your medical records from your medical care providers to compare to what they sent to DDS then you MAY have to pay your medical care providers for copies of medical records to the limits set by the Code of Virginia, Section 8.01-413; check the statutes in your state for the same information. Hospitals are allowed to charge more than medical offices. The medical care provider MUST respond to your request within 21 days of the written request. “Respond” does not mean they have to provide the records in 21 days, only respond and tell you how much you owe for the copies. They cannot withhold your records because you owe treatment care money. Arrange to pay for your records on the day you PICK THEM UP.
If you are told that your records will not be released because you owe treatment costs, explain, nicely, that under Section 8.01-413 Code of Virginia, these are your records and that if they do not provide them to you, you may hire an attorney obtain them by subpoena and their practice may end up paying for the attorney. Usually, the medical care provider either is acting out of ignorance or their employee is uninformed as to the Statutes and placing the practice at jeopardy for the expense for violating this Statute.
If you have a Medicaid Application pending, you might explain to the medical care provider that when you win your Disability case, your Medicaid will be re-evaluted and those medical bills just might get paid by Medicaid, Medicare, or both.
