Hearing loss claims get decided by numbers on a test report, and most people applying have never seen the numbers that matter. They know they ask people to repeat themselves. They know the hearing aids help in a quiet room and fail in a loud one. What they do not know is that Social Security has already written down exactly which audiogram results win.
So this post is mostly about those numbers: what they are, how they get measured, and what happens when your results land close but not quite there, which is where most real cases live.
The short version, for anyone skimming on a phone in a waiting room: Listing 2.10 is met with an average air conduction threshold of 90 decibels or worse plus a bone conduction average of 60 decibels or worse in your better ear, or a word recognition score of 40% or less in that better ear. Listing 2.11 makes you disabled for one year after a cochlear implant, and keeps you there afterward if your Hearing in Noise Test score is 60% or less. Every threshold is tested without hearing aids. Now the long version, with the traps.
The two listings that govern hearing claims
The Social Security Administration (SSA) evaluates hearing loss under Section 2.00 of its Listing of Impairments. Two listings do the work: Listing 2.10 for hearing loss not treated with cochlear implants, and Listing 2.11 for hearing loss treated with them. Meet either and you are disabled at step three of the sequential process, before anyone argues about jobs. Hearing loss sits alongside the other impairments on our conditions hub, and the claim process around it is the same five stages as everything else.
Listing 2.10: the two ways to meet it
Path A is pure audiometry. Your average air conduction threshold must be 90 decibels or worse in your better ear, and your average bone conduction threshold 60 decibels or worse in that same better ear. The average comes from your thresholds at 500, 1,000, and 2,000 hertz, the frequencies where speech lives. And critically, the testing is done without your hearing aids.
Path B is word recognition. If you cannot correctly repeat more than 40% of a standardized list of one-syllable words in your better ear, you meet the listing even when your pure-tone averages miss Path A. This path exists because some kinds of hearing loss scramble clarity worse than volume; people hear that someone is talking and still cannot assemble the words.
A worked example, because the averaging trips people up
Say your audiogram shows air conduction thresholds in your right ear of 85, 95, and 100 dB at 500, 1,000, and 2,000 Hz. Average: 93.3 dB. Your left ear reads 80, 90, and 95. Average: 88.3 dB. The left is your better ear, and 88.3 misses the 90 dB requirement by less than 2 decibels. Path A fails on a technicality of arithmetic.
Then the same clinic runs word recognition testing and you score 36% in that better ear. Path B is met, and the claim that “just missed” is suddenly a listing-level case. This is why an audiogram without word recognition scores is an incomplete piece of evidence, and why we send claimants back for the missing test more often than you would think.
Listing 2.11: cochlear implants
Get a cochlear implant and SSA considers you disabled for one full year from the initial implantation, automatically, while you go through activation, mapping, and rehab. After the year, the question becomes a single score: word recognition on the Hearing in Noise Test (HINT). Score 60% or less and the listing continues. Score above it and the claim moves to the functional analysis below, which is a judgment call rather than an ending.
The “better ear” problem
Both paths of Listing 2.10 measure your better ear, which is hard news for people with single-sided deafness. One dead ear and one decent ear will essentially never meet the listing, no matter how disorienting the reality is: no sound localization, nothing in noise, exhaustion by mid-afternoon. Those cases are winnable, but they are won on the functional path, usually in combination with other impairments, and they need a lawyer who is honest about that from the start.
When the listing misses: the RFC path
Most hearing claims do not meet 2.10 exactly, and they get decided on residual functional capacity (RFC): what work you can still do given the limitations. For hearing loss the RFC usually restricts noisy environments, work requiring frequent verbal communication (phones, customers, team coordination), and jobs around hazards you need to hear coming. At a disability hearing, the argument runs through the vocational expert: strike the communication-heavy jobs, strike the hazard-exposed jobs, add any second impairment, and show that what remains is not a real occupational base. Age matters too; for claimants 50 and older, the medical-vocational rules can tip a borderline hearing case, especially when past work depended on communication.
Evidence checklist
- A full audiological evaluation, performed by or under a licensed audiologist or an ear, nose, and throat physician, including the otologic exam SSA requires.
- Pure-tone air and bone conduction thresholds, tested without hearing aids.
- Word recognition scores. Ask for them by name; not every clinic runs them by default.
- For implants: the surgery date and post-implant HINT results.
- Work history details showing how much of your past work ran on hearing.
The Colorado angle, including your own hearing day
Front Range claimants have good access to full audiology workups through the university and hospital systems; the practical gap is on the Eastern Plains and the Western Slope, where getting the complete test battery can take a referral and a drive, and where we plan evidence early so the file is not missing a score at decision time.
One more Colorado-specific point people do not think about until late: the hearing itself. A claimant with severe hearing loss should think hard before accepting a phone hearing, and SSA provides interpreters and accommodations when asked in advance. The formats, the objection forms, and the 30-day deadline are covered in our guide to choosing phone, video, or in person for your Colorado SSDI hearing. For the full map of the process around all of this, start at how SSDI works.
When hearing loss travels with company
Severe hearing loss rarely shows up alone in our case files. Tinnitus rides along constantly, wrecking sleep and concentration in ways an audiogram never captures. Balance disorders have their own listing (2.07, for disturbed vestibular function with the required testing), and Meniere’s cases often argue both. And the isolation of untreated hearing loss feeds depression and anxiety often enough that the mental health records belong in the file too. SSA has to weigh the combined effect of everything, and a hearing case that misses 2.10 by two decibels frequently wins as a hearing-plus case. Bring us all of it, including the parts that seem unrelated.
Quick answers
Does tinnitus alone qualify? Almost never by itself; there is no tinnitus listing. Paired with measurable hearing loss, sleep disruption, and concentration limits, it strengthens the RFC picture considerably.
Can I keep working part time while I apply? Carefully. Earnings over the 2026 substantial gainful activity level of $1,690 gross per month will generally end the claim at step one, whatever your audiogram says. Under that line, part-time work is possible but needs handling.
My hearing aids help. Does that hurt my case? Not for the listing thresholds, which are tested unaided. For the RFC path, what matters is honest evidence of how you function in real environments, aided and otherwise, noisy rooms included.
Mistakes that sink hearing claims
- Submitting only aided test results. The listing thresholds are unaided numbers.
- No word recognition testing anywhere in the file.
- Assuming deafness in one ear qualifies by itself.
- Stopping treatment, which reads to SSA like the problem resolved.
- Underselling the fatigue. Straining to hear all day is work, and it belongs in your function reports and testimony.
Find out what your numbers already say
If you are in Denver, on the Front Range, or anywhere in Colorado with serious hearing loss and a claim to file or a denial to fight, the odds are your audiogram already tells most of the story. We can read it with you. At Viner Disability Law, Social Security disability is all we do, and we do not get paid unless you win.
Call 720-515-9012 for a free case evaluation, request one online, or schedule a time that works for you.