Can you get Social Security disability for Skin Disorders?

How Social Security evaluates skin disorders

Social Security evaluates skin disorders that result from hereditary, congenital or acquired conditions. The agency does not ask how severe the condition looks or how uncomfortable it is. It asks what the condition physically stops you from doing, and for how long.

This is the part I find people are most surprised by. A skin condition can be extensive, painful and resistant to every treatment tried, and still not meet a listing, because the listings turn on limitation of the arms and legs rather than on the extent of the skin involvement itself.

Three listings apply to skin disorders

Section 8.00 was restructured, and listings 8.02 through 8.06 are now reserved. Three listings remain.

8.07 covers genetic photosensitivity disorders. Xeroderma pigmentosum is the only skin disorder in the whole section that Social Security treats as sufficient on its own. If clinical and laboratory findings support a diagnosis of xeroderma pigmentosum, the listing is met without any separate functional test. Other genetic photosensitivity disorders are evaluated under 8.07B, which requires either an inability to function outside a highly protective environment, or the same functional limitations described below.

8.08 covers burns. The timing matters here. If your burn injuries are still under surgical management, Social Security evaluates them under the musculoskeletal listings in 1.00 rather than under 8.08. Listing 8.08 applies once an acceptable medical source has documented that you have reached maximum therapeutic benefit and are no longer receiving surgical management, and the burns have left chronic skin lesions or contractures causing functional limitations.

8.09 covers chronic conditions of the skin or mucous membranes. This is the listing that now absorbs most skin conditions, including ichthyosis, bullous diseases such as pemphigus, epidermolysis bullosa and dermatitis herpetiformis, chronic skin infections, dermatitis, psoriasis and hidradenitis suppurativa.

Listing 8.09 has two parts and both must be satisfied

The first part asks about persistence. You need chronic skin lesions or contractures causing chronic pain or other physical limitation that continue despite adherence to prescribed medical treatment for 3 months. That means 3 consecutive months of actually taking the prescribed medication or following the prescribed treatment. Those 3 months have to fall within the 12-month period the agency uses to evaluate severity.

Two consequences follow from this that people are frequently caught by. If you have not received treatment at all, for any reason, your condition cannot meet 8.09. And if you are being treated with PUVA or with biologics, Social Security will defer a decision on your claim for 6 months from the start of that treatment to see how well it works, unless it can decide fully in your favor on some other basis.

The second part asks about function. You need a documented physical limitation, lasting or expected to last at least 12 months, in one of four forms.

The four functional limitations Social Security looks for

• You cannot use either upper extremity well enough to independently start, sustain and complete work activities involving fine and gross movements.
• You cannot use one upper extremity for those activities, and you have a documented medical need for an assistive device that occupies the other one.
• You cannot stand up from a seated position and stay upright well enough to work, because of lesions or contractures affecting at least two extremities. This includes limitations caused by involvement of the perineum or the groin.
• You cannot stay upright while standing or walking well enough to work, because of lesions or contractures affecting both legs. Again, this includes involvement of the perineum or the groin.

The pattern is the same one that runs through the rewritten musculoskeletal listings. Social Security is asking whether the condition takes both hands out of use, or takes standing and walking away.

Location matters more than surface area

Where the lesions are is often more decisive than how much skin is involved. Lesions in the axilla can limit reaching with that arm. Lesions in the groin or on the soles of the feet can limit standing, walking, sitting, lifting and carrying. Contractures, meaning permanent fibrous scar tissue that tightens and thickens the skin, can prevent normal movement of whatever area they affect.

Social Security also considers exacerbations. A condition with frequent flares can meet a listing even where no single flare lasted long, because the agency looks at how often flares occur, how severe they are, how quickly they resolve, and how well you function in between.

Many skin conditions are evaluated under a different body system

If a condition in another body system affects your skin, Social Security evaluates the predominant feature under that other body system first. This catches a lot of claims.

• Skin involvement in lupus, scleroderma and HIV is evaluated under the immune system listings in 14.00. Psoriasis is evaluated under 8.09, but where psoriatic arthritis is the predominant feature, the claim is assessed under 14.09 instead.
• Malignant melanoma and other skin cancers are evaluated as cancer under 13.00.
• Chronic bacterial or fungal skin lesions caused by diabetes are evaluated under 8.09, but soft tissue complications or amputations are evaluated under the musculoskeletal listings in 1.00.
• Facial disfigurement is evaluated under whichever listings fit its actual effects, which may be 1.00, 2.00, 5.00 or the mental disorder listings in 12.00, including the depression that can follow visible disfigurement.

If you have psoriasis, note that being named in the 8.09 examples is not the same as meeting it. You still need chronic skin lesions persisting despite 3 months of prescribed treatment, plus one of the four functional limitations above.

What happens when a listing is not met

Meeting a listing is not the only way a claim is evaluated. If your condition does not meet or medically equal one, Social Security moves on to consider your residual functional capacity, meaning what you can still do despite your limitations.

At that stage the agency looks at whether you can return to work you have done in the past 5 years. That lookback was reduced from 15 years in June 2024, so older guidance you may find elsewhere is out of date. If you cannot return to past work, the agency considers whether other work exists that you could do given your age, education and work experience. A claimant of 50 or older with no transferable skills is in a considerably stronger position than a younger claimant with identical limitations, and at 55 the vocational rules shift again in the claimant’s favor.

For skin conditions this stage is frequently where the real argument sits. Chronic dermatitis on both hands may not satisfy 8.09, and may still be incompatible with work requiring manual dexterity, or with any job involving contact with chemicals, water or irritants.

If you are denied, appeal rather than starting a new application. Appealing protects your original filing date and the back pay attached to it, and you generally have sixty days from the date on the notice. Claims decided on residual functional capacity rather than on a listing are frequently refused at the first two levels and allowed at a hearing.

The evidence Social Security asks for

The agency needs objective medical evidence from an acceptable medical source who has examined you. Beyond the diagnosis, it generally wants to see the onset, duration and frequency of flares, the prognosis, the location, size and appearance of your lesions and contractures, any family history, your exposure to toxins, allergens or irritants, seasonal variation and stress factors, and laboratory findings such as a biopsy obtained independently of the disability evaluation.

Two practical points: Social Security will not purchase genetic testing, though it will evaluate results already in your record. And your own statements about your restrictions and daily activities are part of the record the agency considers, which makes it worth describing what you can no longer do in concrete, work-related terms rather than in terms of discomfort.

Talk with an Indiana disability attorney

If you cannot work because of a skin disorder, contact my office for a free consultation.

The two things worth checking early are whether your treatment history covers a continuous three-month stretch, and whether anyone has recorded what your lesions or contractures actually stop you doing with your hands, or with standing and walking. Records that describe how the skin looks, without describing what it prevents, are the commonest reason these claims fail.