Prescribed treatment includes medication, surgery, therapy, durable medical equipment, or an assistive device. Prescribed treatment does not include lifestyle modifications, such as dieting, exercise, or smoking cessation.

EXAMPLE: A claimant with a Body Mass Index of 70 and severe degenerative arthritis of the knees is told by their medical source that if they reduced their weight, the arthritis in their knees would improve. We will not make an FTFPT determination for this treatment, even if there is evidence that the claimant refused to exercise or diet to reduce their weight.

Consider treatment prescribed by the individual’s own medical source(s). For a definition of medical source, see DI 22505.001A.4.

Do not make an FTFPT determination if the treatment was prescribed only by a consultative examiner (CE), medical consultant (MC), psychological consultant (PC), medical advisor (MA), medical expert (ME), or by any medical source during an evaluation conducted solely to determine eligibility for any State or Federal benefit, including workers compensation.

Consider any evidence of prescribed treatment, including:

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  statements offered on prescription forms;

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  indications within a medical source’s records that they prescribed a specific treatment; and

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  information provided by the individual or third parties that corroborates evidence on record.

The medical source may have prescribed treatment at any time, even in the distant past. However, you evaluate whether the individual failed to follow the prescribed treatment only during the relevant claim period from the earliest of the alleged onset date, potential onset date, or established onset date. If the prescribed treatment is not relevant to the adjudicative period in the claim, do not make an FTFPT determination. Do not consider whether the individual failed to follow prescribed treatment prior to the first possible date of entitlement.

EXAMPLE: On August 2, 2018, an individual files for disability benefits based on an impairment related to a lower-extremity amputation. The individual is no longer wearing prostheses that their medical source prescribed in 2016. You determine that the individual meets all of the other criteria for disability. Even though the individual’s own medical source prescribed the treatment in the past, and the individual may no longer see the medical source who prescribed the prosthesis, it meets condition 2.