Disability Benefits for Kidney Cancer

Kidney cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in the United States. According to the American Cancer Society, kidney cancer accounts for around 5% of all cancer diagnoses in the country. Most people who are diagnosed with kidney cancer are between the ages of 55 and 74. While the number of diagnoses has been increasing over the past few decades—likely due to improvements in cancer screening technology—the mortality rate for kidney cancer has been falling for many years.

People with kidney cancer often have few symptoms in the early stages of the disease. But as the cancer grows, symptoms such as lower back pain, fatigue, or dramatic weight loss can start to interfere with your daily routine. If you develop significant limitations in completing basic activities—or the cancer has spread to other parts of your body—you may be eligible for disability benefits.

Is Kidney Cancer a Disability?

The Social Security Administration (SSA) awards disability benefits to people who are unable to work full-time for at least one year due to a medically determinable severe impairment. Severe impairments are conditions that have "more than a minimal impact" on your activities of daily living. As long as you aren't currently working and have medical evidence supporting a diagnosis of kidney cancer, the SSA can find you disabled if you meet the requirements of a "listed impairment" or if your functional limitations rule out all jobs.

Meeting the Blue Book Disability Listing for Kidney Cancer

The SSA maintains a manual (called the "Blue Book" or the "listing of impairments") with categories of certain disorders that the agency considers especially severe. Each "listing" is described by a set of requirements that must be present in your medical records in order for you to qualify for disability automatically. Getting approved for disability this way is called "meeting a listing."

Disability applications ("claims") for kidney cancer are evaluated under listing 13.21. You can meet the requirements of the listing if:

• your cancer is inoperable, meaning surgery can't be performed or wouldn't be of any help
• your cancer is unresectable, meaning surgery didn't remove all the cancer in your kidney
• your cancer is recurrent, meaning it came back after remission (elimination of cancer signs and symptoms), or
• your cancer has metastasized, meaning it has spread to or beyond your regional lymph nodes.

Claimants who have been diagnosed with the later stages (Stages 3 or 4) of kidney cancer are more likely to qualify for disability by meeting listing 13.21 than claimants who have earlier stages of the disease. In fact, some applications for claimants with later stages of kidney cancer may be expedited under Social Security's Compassionate Allowances program. If you have a diagnosis of kidney cancer that is either inoperable or unresectable, the SSA should flag your claim as a potential compassionate allowance and fast-track it for a quicker decision.

Getting Disability With a Reduced Residual Functional Capacity

You can still qualify for disability benefits even if you don't meet the requirements of the kidney cancer listing provided that you have a residual functional capacity (RFC) that rules out all jobs. Your RFC is a set of restrictions, physical and mental, on what you can and can't do during an 8-hour workday (or 40-hour workweek).

Social Security looks at your medical records and self-reported limitations to determine which restrictions to include in your RFC. For example, if back pain keeps you from standing or walking longer than two hours total per workday, the agency will find that your RFC allows you to perform sit-down ("sedentary") jobs but keeps you from doing any work where you'd have to be on your feet for two hours or more. Some restrictions in your RFC—such as needing extra breaks, being off-task beyond employer tolerances, or missing too many workdays—can rule out all full-time work entirely, resulting in an approval of disability benefits.

Depending on your age, education, and employment history, you might be able to get disability even if you can perform a less strenuous job according to a set of rules called the medical-vocational grid. Because kidney cancer is mostly diagnosed in people over 54 years old, you may be able to use the "grid rules" to get approved if you can't do your past jobs with your current RFC and you don't have transferable skills to less physically demanding work.

Evidence You'll Need to Prove Disabling Kidney Cancer

Your medical records are the foundation of your disability claim. Social Security will want to see acceptable medical imaging that provides the basis for your diagnosis, along with any and all treatment you've been receiving for kidney cancer. When you apply for disability benefits, you should be ready to provide the following evidence to the SSA:

• clinical notes from your regular physician and a nephrologist (specialist in kidney disorders) or oncologist (doctor who treats cancer)
• biopsies (removal of kidney cells for examination)
• laboratory results, such as blood tests
• hospital admission and discharge documents for any surgeries you've undergone
• medication lists, including side effects
• physical examination reports, and
• evidence of cancer treatment such as radiation or chemotherapy.

Treatment for kidney cancer often involves removal of the entire kidney (or part of the kidney). Other treatments, such as blocking blood flow to the tumor or freezing the tumor cells, can be used when surgery isn't possible. Whether your doctor opts for surgery or an alternate method, your records should ideally provide insight into the medical decisionmaking process. You can also ask your doctors to write a medical opinion as to whether you have certain limitations keeping you from working or meet the requirements of listing 13.21.

VA Disability Ratings for Kidney Cancer

Veterans who have service-connected kidney dysfunction may qualify for a disability rating from the VA. According to the VA Schedule for Rating Disabilities, kidney cancer is evaluated under diagnostic code 7528, Malignant neoplasms of the genitourinary system, which states that veterans with kidney cancer will receive a 100% disability rating for six months after they've finished anti-cancer therapies.

After six months have passed, the veteran will need to attend a reexamination where a VA doctor will re-evaluate the disability rating depending on whether the veteran's cancer has come back or spread further. If not, the VA may adjust the disability rating based on the remaining "renal function" of the kidney assessed by the glomerular filtration rate (GFR), which measures how well your kidneys remove waste from your blood. Depending on your specific GFR, you may be assigned a compensable rating of 30%, 60%, 80%, or 100%.

How Much is the Disability Benefit Amount for Kidney Cancer?

Neither the VA nor the SSA pay disability benefits based on the kind of medical condition you have. Everybody who is approved for Social Security Disability Insurance, or SSDI, receives a monthly payment amount that's calculated based on their employment record ("work credits"), regardless of the reason why they became disabled. Likewise, everybody who is approved for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) receives an amount equal to the federal benefit rate minus any countable income they have in that month.

For 2025, the federal benefit rate for SSI is $967 per month, although many states provide a modest supplemental amount in addition to the federal baseline. SSDI benefits max out at $4,018 per month, although the average amount is much less, at $1,580.

VA compensation is calculated based on a combination of your percentage disability rating and your living situation. For example, in 2025, a married veteran with one dependent child and a disability rating of 30% will receive $648.42 monthly from the VA, while a veteran with the same family structure and an 80% rating would be entitled to $2,340.89 per month.

What If You Don't Meet the Criteria for Disability?

There are several reasons why your disability application may be denied. You might not meet the historical earnings requirements to be insured for benefits under SSDI, or you might have too many resources to meet the low income and asset criteria for SSI. Even if you're legally eligible to receive SSDI or SSI, your medical records could show that your kidney cancer went into remission in under twelve months—and therefore didn't meet the "durational requirement" for Social Security—or your functional limitations don't keep you from doing your past jobs.

There isn't much you can do if you don't meet the preliminary financial requirements for either SSDI or SSI, but Social Security can make mistakes when determining technical eligibility, so you can double-check with a representative from your local field office. Or if you're currently being treated for kidney cancer and expect to successfully return to work within one year, you might be covered by a private long-term disability insurance policy that can reimburse you a percentage of your average earnings during your absence.

However, if you were denied because Social Security thought you could return to your past work or have transferable skills that you could use in other jobs, you may want to consider consulting an experienced disability lawyer to get a sense of how strong a possible appeal would be. If an attorney thinks that the SSA overlooked important medical evidence or misjudged the nature of your past work, they can help you get the necessary information to win your case—especially if you're scheduled for a hearing in front of an administrative law judge.