What an Adjudicator Is Actually Measuring
A disability file is not read the way a medical chart is read. It is read against a contractual test, by someone carrying a substantial caseload, looking for specific things. Knowing what those things are changes what you put in front of them.
The lens
The adjudicator is not asking whether you are unwell. They are asking whether the documented functional evidence, measured against the definition of disability in your contract, supports an inability to work as that contract defines it.
A diagnosis alone does not answer that question. Two people with the same diagnosis can have entirely different functional capacity, and the contract pays on function, not on label.
What kills a file
A conclusion with no measurable findings underneath it
A letter stating someone is unable to work, without the observations, measurements or tested tolerances that would support that statement.
Conclusions are the practitioner’s opinion. Findings are evidence. Files are decided on findings, and a well-meaning letter of support with nothing underneath it can do less than nothing.
Restrictions described in general terms
Limitations written in the abstract rather than against the actual demands of the person’s job or, after the change of definition, against work generally.
The restriction needs to connect to a demand. Not simply that sitting is limited, but for how long, how it was assessed, and what that means for the specific duties in question.
A gap in treatment with no explanation
A period where the file shows no appointments, no therapy and no contact, with nothing in the record explaining why.
Gaps are read as improvement unless something says otherwise. If there was a waitlist, a cost barrier, a referral delay or a relapse, it needs to be documented somewhere in the file at the time.
A mental-health claim documented only in narrative
Files that describe how someone feels without addressing function, capacity, treatment response or objective assessment.
Mental-health claims are not held to a lower evidentiary standard — often the opposite. Functional documentation matters more here, not less.
Evidence built for one test and never rebuilt for the next
A file assembled to answer the own-occupation question, carried forward unchanged into the any-occupation period.
See the change-of-definition explainer. This is the most predictable and most preventable failure in the whole process.
Ask your practitioner for measured findings and functional limits rather than a letter of support. It is a more specific request, it is easier for them to answer well, and it is what the file is actually decided on.