Almost every mental health condition, PTSD, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, OCD, and more, is rated under this single shared formula based on overall occupational and social impairment, not on the specific diagnosis. If you have more than one mental health diagnosis, they're combined into one overall rating, not stacked separately.
Because multiple mental health diagnoses are rated together as one overall percentage (not added together), claiming several separate mental health conditions doesn't multiply your rating, what matters is the total combined severity of symptoms, well-documented, against this one formula. The symptom lists below are examples, not a checklist, you don't need to have every listed symptom at a given level to qualify for it.
| Rating | Criteria |
|---|---|
| 100% | Total occupational and social impairment, due to such symptoms as: gross impairment in thought processes or communication; persistent delusions or hallucinations; grossly inappropriate behavior; persistent danger of hurting self or others; intermittent inability to perform activities of daily living (including maintenance of minimal personal hygiene); disorientation to time or place; memory loss for names of close relatives, own occupation, or own name |
| 70% | Occupational and social impairment with deficiencies in most areas, such as work, school, family relations, judgment, thinking, or mood, due to symptoms such as: suicidal ideation; obsessional rituals which interfere with routine activities; illogical or irrelevant speech; near-continuous panic or depression affecting the ability to function independently; impaired impulse control; neglect of personal appearance and hygiene; difficulty adapting to stressful circumstances; inability to establish and maintain effective relationships |
| 50% | Occupational and social impairment with reduced reliability and productivity due to symptoms such as: flattened affect; circumstantial or stereotyped speech; panic attacks more than once a week; difficulty understanding complex commands; impairment of short- and long-term memory; impaired judgment; impaired abstract thinking; disturbances of motivation and mood; difficulty establishing and maintaining effective work and social relationships |
| 30% | Occupational and social impairment with occasional decrease in work efficiency and intermittent periods of inability to perform occupational tasks (generally functioning satisfactorily otherwise), due to symptoms such as: depressed mood, anxiety, suspiciousness, panic attacks (weekly or less often), chronic sleep impairment, mild memory loss |
| 10% | Occupational and social impairment due to mild or transient symptoms which decrease work efficiency only during periods of significant stress, or symptoms controlled by continuous medication |
| 0% | A mental condition has been formally diagnosed, but symptoms are not severe enough either to interfere with occupational and social functioning or to require continuous medication |