The Social Security Administration sometimes schedules examinations with their contracted physicians. These doctors are often general practitioners and sometimes psychiatrists. The purpose of the examination is to get an “independent” opinion regarding the nature and severity of the claimant’s medical conditions and restrictions.
Unfortunately, the opinion of the SSA doctor is rarely “independent”. Instead it is often extremely biased in favor of the Administration. The examining doctor sees the claimant one time, usually for a very short period of examination. Social Security’s doctors rarely review medical records or test results from the attending physicians. They rarely document specific functional capacity.
The good news is that most Administrative Law Judges do not give these medical reports much weight and are well aware that the doctors performing the exams have financial motivation to skew the results in favor of denials, not approvals. The Administrative Law Judges are required to give more weight to the opinions of attending physicians as those doctor have usually performed numerous examinations and are much more familiar with the claimant’s medical conditions and functional abilities.
