When the Social Security Administration mails you a Function Report and a Work History Report, how you fill out these Social Security disability questionnaires can decide your claim. The forms translate your daily struggles into evidence a disability examiner weighs alongside your medical records, and vague or inconsistent answers are one of the most common reasons claims stall or get denied. The rule of thumb is simple: be specific, be honest, and make sure what you write lines up with what your doctors have documented.
The Forms You’ll Receive
After you file a disability application, the Disability Determination Services office assigned to your case sends you questionnaires to complete and return. Two are standard:
- The Adult Function Report (SSA-3373-BK) asks about your daily routine, personal care, meal preparation, housework, hobbies, social activities, and how your condition affects specific abilities like walking, lifting, concentrating, and following instructions.1Social Security Administration. Function Report – Adult – Form SSA-3373-BK
- The Work History Report (SSA-3369-BK) collects detailed information about every job you held during the 15 years before you became unable to work, including the physical and mental demands of each position.2Social Security Administration. Social Security Administration – Work History Report
SSA may also send a Third-Party Function Report (SSA-3380-BK) to a family member, caregiver, or close friend who can describe your limitations from their own observations.3Social Security Administration. Function Report – Adult – Third Party – Form SSA-3380-BK
SSA estimates the Adult Function Report takes about 61 minutes to complete, though it takes much longer if you answer thoroughly.1Social Security Administration. Function Report – Adult – Form SSA-3373-BK Your medical records show what doctors have found, but they rarely capture what your life actually looks like on a Tuesday afternoon when you can’t get off the couch. That’s the gap the questionnaires fill.
Prepare Before You Start Writing
Spend a few days keeping a written log of what you actually do from morning to night before you begin filling anything out. Note how long tasks take, when you need to rest, and what you can’t do at all. This gives you real data to draw from rather than guessing under pressure.
For the Work History Report, gather old pay stubs, job descriptions, or performance reviews. If your memory of exact dates or duties is fuzzy, old tax returns can help pin down employment periods. Inaccuracies here can conflict with earnings records SSA already has, which creates the kind of inconsistency that slows claims down.
Filling Out the Adult Function Report
The Function Report walks through your entire day and asks how your condition affects each part of it. The single most important habit throughout the form is specificity. A statement like “I have trouble standing” doesn’t move the needle. “I can stand for about 10 minutes before the pain in my lower back forces me to sit down, and I need at least 20 minutes of rest before I can stand again” gives the examiner something concrete to work with.
Daily Activities and Personal Care
The form asks you to describe what you do from waking up to going to bed, whether you can dress, bathe, and feed yourself without help, and whether you prepare your own meals.1Social Security Administration. Function Report – Adult – Form SSA-3373-BK If a family member helps you with any of these tasks, describe exactly what they do. “My wife helps me get dressed” is less useful than “My wife buttons my shirts and ties my shoes because I can’t grip small objects with my right hand.” The type of help you receive tells the examiner something specific about your functional limitations.
The same principle applies to household chores, shopping, and managing money. If you used to mow the lawn every week and now you can’t, say so. If you can do laundry but it takes you three hours because you have to rest between loads, put that in. The form asks about changes since your condition began, and the contrast between before and after is some of the most persuasive information you can provide.
Good Days Versus Bad Days
Most conditions don’t hit with the same intensity every day, and the form gives you room to explain that variation. Tell the examiner how many days per week your symptoms are at their worst and what those days look like compared to better days. If you have three bad days a week where you stay in bed most of the day and can barely prepare a simple meal, say that plainly. Then describe what a better day looks like and what you’re able to manage.
Disability requires an inability to perform sustained, full-time work on a regular and continuing basis. If your bad days are frequent enough that you’d miss multiple days of work per week or be unable to function through a full shift, that’s the picture the examiner needs to see.
Mental and Cognitive Limitations
The Function Report asks whether your condition affects your memory, concentration, ability to complete tasks, ability to follow instructions, and ability to get along with others.1Social Security Administration. Function Report – Adult – Form SSA-3373-BK
Be specific about timeframes and triggers. Instead of “I have trouble concentrating,” try “I can focus on a simple task like reading or watching a show for about five minutes before my mind drifts and I have to start over.” If anxiety prevents you from going to the grocery store alone, explain what happens when you try. If depression makes it difficult to shower or get dressed most mornings, describe how many days per week that happens. Concrete details about frequency and duration carry more weight than general descriptions of how you feel.
Use the Remarks Section
The Function Report includes a remarks section at the end where you can explain anything the earlier questions didn’t fully capture. Use it. If your condition involves flare-ups that don’t fit neatly into the daily-routine questions, describe them here. If medication side effects like drowsiness, nausea, or dizziness affect your ability to function at certain times of day, lay that out. SSA considers medication side effects as part of your symptom evaluation.4eCFR. 20 CFR 404.1529 – How We Evaluate Symptoms, Including Pain Don’t leave the section blank because you think you’ve already said enough.
Filling Out the Work History Report
The Work History Report captures every job you held in the 15 years before your condition stopped you from working.5Social Security Administration. 20 CFR 404.1560 – When We Will Consider Your Vocational Background For each position, you need the job title, dates of employment, hours worked per day, and a description of your duties. The form also asks how much weight you lifted, how many hours you spent standing, walking, or sitting, and whether you supervised other workers.
SSA uses this information to classify your past jobs by their physical and skill demands, then compares those demands against what you can still do. The more accurately you describe each job, the better that comparison reflects reality. Undersell the physical demands of a past job and the examiner may conclude you could go back to it; oversell them and you may create a conflict with records already on file. Describe the work honestly, in detail, and job by job.
The Third-Party Function Report
The Third-Party Function Report asks essentially the same questions as your own Function Report but from another person’s perspective.3Social Security Administration. Function Report – Adult – Third Party – Form SSA-3380-BK Filling it out is voluntary, but skipping it can hurt your claim because it removes a layer of corroborating evidence.
Choose someone who sees you regularly and witnesses your limitations firsthand, like a spouse, adult child, or caregiver. The person completing the form should describe what they observe most often, not just your worst moments or your best ones. Their answers need to be consistent with what you reported on your own Function Report and what your medical records show. If your form says you can’t cook and their form says you prepare meals daily, that contradiction gives the examiner a reason to question both accounts. The person doesn’t need to guess at answers they don’t know. Writing “I don’t know” is far better than making something up.
Keep Your Answers Consistent With Your Medical Records
The single biggest trap in the questionnaire process is inconsistency between your answers, your medical records, and any third-party reports. SSA evaluates your symptoms by looking at all the evidence together, and when pieces contradict each other, the agency gives more weight to objective medical evidence like imaging, lab results, and clinical exam findings than to subjective reports.4eCFR. 20 CFR 404.1529 – How We Evaluate Symptoms, Including Pain
Common red flags include gaps in treatment that suggest your condition isn’t as severe as you claim, or reporting worsening symptoms while your mental health records show improvement. If you tell your doctor at a visit that you’re doing better but write on the Function Report that you can barely function, the examiner will notice. This doesn’t mean you should exaggerate to your doctors. It means your questionnaire answers should reflect your honest, typical experience, and your medical visits should too.
The regulation specifically lists your daily activities, medication side effects, treatments you’ve tried, and measures you use to relieve symptoms as factors the agency weighs when evaluating your reported symptoms.4eCFR. 20 CFR 404.1529 – How We Evaluate Symptoms, Including Pain If there’s a discrepancy you can explain, like a condition that has worsened since your last appointment, note that on the form.
Submitting the Forms and Meeting the Deadline
The forms typically come with a deadline printed on the cover letter, often 10 to 30 days. If you need more time, call the examiner listed on the letter and ask for an extension before the deadline passes. Most examiners will grant reasonable extensions. Ignoring the deadline risks having your claim decided without your input. Providing the requested information is technically voluntary, but SSA warns on the forms themselves that failing to provide it “may prevent an accurate and timely decision on any claim filed.”1Social Security Administration. Function Report – Adult – Form SSA-3373-BK
You have several options for getting the completed forms back to SSA:
- Upload them through your online Social Security account at ssa.gov, where you can sign in and submit forms or scanned documents electronically. If you don’t have an online account, you can create one on the same page.6Social Security Administration. Submit Forms and Upload Documents
- Fax the forms to the Disability Determination Services examiner assigned to your case.
- Mail them to your local Social Security field office. Use certified mail with a return receipt so you have a verifiable record that SSA received your documents.
Keep copies of everything you submit, regardless of the method. The examiner may call to clarify specific answers, and having your copy in front of you makes those conversations easier.
Why the First Draft Matters
Most initial disability claims are denied. If yours is, you have 60 days from the date you receive the denial notice to request reconsideration, which is a fresh review of your claim by a different examiner.7Social Security Administration. Request Reconsideration Missing that 60-day window generally means starting the entire application over. If reconsideration is also denied, you can request a hearing before an administrative law judge, then appeal to the Appeals Council, and ultimately to federal court.
At each stage, the questionnaires you filled out early in the process remain part of your file. Answers that were vague, inconsistent with your medical records, or understated your limitations will follow you through every level of appeal. Take the time to get these forms right the first time, even when filling them out feels tedious or invasive.