Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that in-house doctors at Social Security offices all over the country are resigning in protest over pay cuts, overly stressful working conditions and demands that they issue reports in practice areas outside their specialties.
Social Security
uses in-house medical advisers to review your medical records and to advise SSA claims adjustors if your medical or mental health condition can support an approval. In the past, SSA would send medical files to specialists for review – sometimes using two or three doctors on a single file.
Now, because of a growing backlog, Social Security administrators are demanding that in-house physicians review more files faster. Further, some of the in-house doctors are resigning when Social Security personnel demand that they issue opinions outside their areas of knowledge – in one instance noted in the story a pediatrician (baby doctor) was asked to review a file of an adult with neuropathy.
As a practical matter, Social Security’s problems finding and retaining qualified in-house doctors will only impact your case in that you are less likely to get a favorable decision earlier on in the process. My experience has been at hearings, judges usually pay little attention to the findings of the State Agency in house physicians – and now that I am aware of the credibility issues discussed in the WSJ article, I will look a little more carefully at the qualifications of these physicians and object where appropriate.
These internal problems at Social Security highlight the need for every claimant to submit complete and properly identified medical records to Social Security along with opinion evidence from treating physicians that identify specific activity limitations which impact your capacity to work.