Comment from McLain, Jerry, Heard & Smith, L.L.P.

SSA’s disability decision-makers are under heavy production expectations. The prediction that “we expect that our adjudicators would continue to recontact your medical source(s) when we believe such recontact is the most effective and efficient way to resolve an inconsistency or insufficiency” does not ring true to anyone with experience in the field. The agency’s decision-makers RARELY do this now despite the strong language currently in the regulations ordering that they do so. Instead, the common practice is to rely on consultative exam s (if they have been performed) and grant CE examining physicians more weight than an imperfect assessment rendered by a treating source. The Agency’s decisionmakers’ reluctance to expend the time and effort to recontact treating sources indicates that the duty to recontact should be strengthened and emphasized, not eliminated.