Hidradenitis suppurativa can qualify for Social Security disability benefits. The Social Security Administration lists HS by name in its Blue Book under Listing 8.09, which covers chronic skin disorders, and a case that meets that listing is approved without further analysis. If your HS doesn’t meet the listing, you can still qualify by showing that pain, wound care, flare-ups, and physical limitations leave you unable to sustain any job. Approval depends far more on documentation than on diagnosis: about 64 percent of initial disability applications were denied in fiscal year 2025.
The Fast Path: Meeting Blue Book Listing 8.09
The SSA specifically names hidradenitis suppurativa as a condition evaluated under Listing 8.09, which covers chronic skin or mucous membrane disorders.1Social Security Administration. Skin Disorders – Adult To meet it, you generally need extensive, persistent skin lesions in specific areas — both armpits, both groin areas, or the perineum — that have continued for at least three months despite prescribed treatment.
Three words in that description do most of the work. Extensive rules out scattered lesions. Persistent rules out episodes that clear up between visits. Despite treatment rules out cases that respond well to antibiotics or other therapies. The SSA wants evidence that your HS has resisted what your doctors have tried.
Clinicians often classify HS severity using the Hurley staging system. Stage I involves isolated abscesses without sinus tracts or scarring. Stage II features recurrent abscesses with sinus tracts and scarring. Stage III, the most severe, means diffuse or interconnected sinus tracts and abscesses across an entire area. Stage III HS is the strongest match for Listing 8.09, and well-documented Stage II cases with bilateral involvement and treatment failure can also qualify. If your dermatologist uses Hurley staging in your records, the SSA has a clearer measure of severity to work with.
Your condition also has to satisfy a duration requirement: it must have lasted, or be expected to last, at least 12 continuous months, or be expected to result in death.2Social Security Administration. 20 CFR 404.1509 – How Long the Impairment Must Last For a cycling condition like HS, the SSA looks at the onset, duration, and frequency of flare-ups, how quickly they resolve, and how you function between episodes.1Social Security Administration. Skin Disorders – Adult Severe flares that recur over months can satisfy the duration rule even if you have better stretches between them.
Qualifying When Your HS Doesn’t Meet the Listing
Many people with HS don’t neatly fit Listing 8.09 but are still too limited to work. That’s where the residual functional capacity assessment takes over. Your RFC is the SSA’s determination of the most you can still do in a work setting despite your impairments. For HS, that assessment considers sitting, standing, walking, lifting, reaching, and using your hands, plus the impact of chronic pain, wound care routines, medication side effects, and unpredictable flare-ups.3Social Security Administration. 20 CFR Part 404 Subpart P Appendix 2 – Medical-Vocational Guidelines
The location of your lesions matters a great deal. Groin or buttock involvement can make prolonged sitting impossible. Axillary lesions restrict arm movement and overhead reaching. Open wounds that need daily dressing changes consume hours and make reliable attendance at any job difficult. Those functional limitations combine, and they can add up to a finding that you’re limited to sedentary work or no work at all. Sedentary work means lifting no more than 10 pounds and sitting for most of the day with only occasional standing and walking.4Social Security Administration. 20 CFR 404.1567 – Physical Exertion Requirements
Once the SSA sets your RFC, it applies the medical-vocational guidelines, often called the grid rules. These combine your RFC with your age, education, and work experience to direct a finding of disabled or not disabled. Age carries substantial weight. Applicants under 50 are treated as able to learn new work, which makes this the hardest bracket for approval when the case rests on the grid. Applicants 50 to 54 get more favorable treatment, and at 55 and older the grid rules become considerably more forgiving.3Social Security Administration. 20 CFR Part 404 Subpart P Appendix 2 – Medical-Vocational Guidelines
In practice, a 56-year-old with moderate HS limited to sedentary work whose only past jobs were physical may be found disabled, while a 35-year-old with similar limitations may not. That isn’t a judgment about how real the younger person’s HS is. It reflects the SSA’s assumption that younger applicants can adapt to desk-type jobs. If you’re under 50 and don’t meet Listing 8.09, your claim needs particularly strong medical evidence that you can’t sustain even sedentary work reliably.
One earnings figure sits above all of this. In 2026, if you earn more than $1,690 per month, the SSA treats you as capable of substantial gainful activity and will deny your claim regardless of your diagnosis.5Social Security Administration. What’s New in 2026 – The Red Book
The Medical Evidence That Wins HS Claims
The SSA decides your case primarily on paper. If something isn’t in your medical records, for its purposes it didn’t happen. Strong HS files cover:
- A confirmed diagnosis, ideally supported by biopsy, with Hurley staging or another severity classification and a full timeline of symptom onset and progression.
- Every medication, surgical procedure, and wound care regimen you’ve tried, and how well each worked. Documenting treatment failure is essential because the listing turns on whether your condition persists despite prescribed treatment.
- Doctor’s notes recording the location, size, number, and severity of lesions at every visit. Photographs from visits are particularly persuasive. Flare-ups between appointments need documentation too, so keep a symptom diary and share it at your next visit.
- A treating physician’s statement spelling out exactly what you can and cannot do physically: sitting, standing, walking, lifting, reaching, and any restrictions on work tasks. A note that says “patient has HS and is disabled” carries almost no weight. A note that says “patient cannot sit for more than 20 minutes due to perineal lesions” feeds directly into the RFC assessment.
- Records from any emergency visits or hospital stays for HS complications, including infections and abscess drainage.
Personal statements about daily life strengthen the file. Describe what a bad day looks like, how long wound care takes, which activities you’ve given up, and how often flare-ups force you to cancel commitments. Statements from family members or former coworkers who have seen your limitations add credibility.
Treatment Compliance
If you stop following a treatment your doctor prescribed and that treatment could reasonably have restored your ability to work, the SSA can deny benefits even if you’d otherwise qualify.6Social Security Administration. SSR 18-3p: Titles II and XVI: Failure to Follow Prescribed Treatment The rule applies to treatments from your own treating doctors, not from SSA consultants. Recognized exceptions include inability to afford treatment, severe side effects, sincere religious objection, and mental inability to comply.
For HS, that means staying on prescribed medications and keeping appointments even when treatments aren’t working. If a drug’s side effects are intolerable, tell your doctor and have it noted in your chart before you stop. The SSA draws a hard line between “treatment failed the patient” and “patient abandoned treatment.” Lifestyle changes like diet, exercise, or quitting smoking don’t count as prescribed treatment under this rule.
SSDI or SSI: Which Program Applies
The SSA runs two disability programs. The medical standard is the same for both, but eligibility and payments differ.
Social Security Disability Insurance is tied to work history. You generally need to have worked in jobs covered by Social Security for about five of the last ten years, though younger workers may need less.7Social Security Administration. Who Can Get Disability Your monthly benefit is based on lifetime earnings. As of February 2026, the average SSDI payment for a disabled worker is about $1,634 per month.8Social Security Administration. Monthly Statistical Snapshot, February 2026
Supplemental Security Income is a needs-based program for people with little or no income and limited assets, regardless of work history. Countable resources can’t exceed $2,000 for an individual or $3,000 for a couple.9Social Security Administration. 2026 Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) Fact Sheet The maximum federal SSI payment in 2026 is $994 per month for an individual and $1,491 for a couple, and your actual payment may be lower depending on other income and living arrangements.10Social Security Administration. How Much You Could Get From SSI Some states add a supplement on top of the federal amount.
You can apply for both simultaneously. If you qualify for SSDI but the payment is low, you may also receive partial SSI to bring your total income up.
Applying and Appealing
You can apply online at ssa.gov, by phone, or in person at a local office. Apply as soon as your condition prevents you from working. SSDI benefits have a five-month waiting period that doesn’t start until your established onset date, so waiting only costs you back pay.11Social Security Administration. How Does Someone Become Eligible
After you apply, your state’s Disability Determination Services office handles the medical review. A DDS examiner and medical consultant look at your records, and DDS may request additional records or schedule a consultative examination.12Social Security Administration. What to Do During a Disability Review Consultative exams are brief and performed by a doctor who has never treated you, so they rarely capture a chronic fluctuating condition like HS. Your own treating records need to carry the case.
If Your Claim Is Denied
You have 60 days from receiving a denial notice to file an appeal. The SSA assumes you received the notice five days after its date, so you effectively have about 65 days from the date on the letter.13Social Security Administration. Understanding Supplemental Security Income Appeals Process Missing that deadline can force you to start over.
Appeals move through four levels: reconsideration by a different DDS examiner, a hearing before an administrative law judge, Appeals Council review, and finally federal court. The ALJ hearing is where the odds shift most for HS claimants. The judge can see you, hear you describe daily life, and question vocational and medical experts about what jobs, if any, someone with your limitations can actually perform.14Social Security Administration. Appeal a Decision We Made You can submit new medical evidence at reconsideration and hearing stages, and you should.
Legal Representation
Most disability attorneys and representatives work on contingency. Federal law caps the fee at 25 percent of your back pay or $9,200, whichever is less.15Social Security Administration. Fee Agreements – Representing SSA Claimants The SSA withholds the fee from your back pay and pays the representative directly. If you don’t win, you don’t owe. Representation is worth serious consideration when your HS doesn’t clearly meet Listing 8.09 and your claim will turn on RFC and vocational arguments, which is true of most HS cases.