Pierce asserts that the treating physician rule should be rescinded because, in part, too many people are being awarded disability as a result of this rule. Basically, the rule states that great weight should be afforded the opinion of a treating source opinion regarding his patient’s ability to work. The reasoning behind the rule is sound. A treating physician, provided he has a sufficient treating relationship in regards to the amount of time and frequency of visits, is in the best position to judge his patient’s limitations.
Pierce further argues that getting rid of the treating physician rule would take away one of the tools that unscrupulous attorneys are now exploiting in order to gain advantage for their clients, forcing SSA to allow more claims and costing the government money in benefits as well as attorney fees. This argument turns the fact finding nature of the disability determination on its head.
First of all, the treating physician rule is not an absolute, there are factors to be considered in determining how much weight should be given a doctors opinion. In this fact finding process, fortunately, representatives realize that the person to best judge a person’s limitations is his treating doctor. The fact that an attorney can reach out on his clients behalf, to treating sources, and solicit these opinions, is vital to the disability process. Given the nature of this process, it seems that this further case development should be praised rather than vilified.
Case developers at DDS are overworked to the point where such information is rarely, if ever, solicited. Pierce argues that the treating physician rule puts the ALJ in a difficult position because the cases have already been reviewed by a case examiner and medical expert (neither whom have ever met the claimant). Interestingly, Pierce admits that an ALJ has the difficult task of determining the extent of a claimant’s mental or physical limitations, and that his solution is to take away the one opinion which will shed the best light on a claimant’s limitations. The fact that these doctor’s opinions may lead to more disabled people actually being found….well…disabled, should not be a deterrent to applying the rule and letting the disability chip fall where they should, and not as a result of the whim of a financial concern
