NEW REGULATIONS: WILL DISABILITY BENEFITS BE HARDER TO GET?

Social Security is changing the regulations concerning how they will consider medical evidence from doctors.  The new regulations may make it even harder for new claimants to receive Social Security disability benefits.

Up until now, Social Security decision makers were required to give more weight to opinions from a claimant's treating physician. For new claims filed after March 27, 2017, this will no longer be true.  Now, Social Security decision makers may decide how much weight to give medial evidence, regardless of whether the doctor has treated the patient or not.

What concerns me about this new rule is this:  Suppose my claimant has seen his doctor 4 or 5 times a year for the past 10 years.  This treating physician has ordered multiple tests and has examined the patient multiple times.  The patient then applies for disability and Social Security sends him to one of their doctors for a one-time examination.  At least in theory, Social Security can give the same weight to the opinion of the doctor who did a one-time exam as they give to the doctor who has treated the patient for 10 years.

It is too early to be sure that this rule change will work against the claimant and make benefits more difficult to get.  However, I cannot see how this change can possibly help the claimant or make benefits easier to get.  (A Social Security claim is already plenty tough with denial rates around 70 percent at the application level).

It seems that for the past 6 or 7 years, Social Security has come under increasing pressure to cut benefits, reduce new awards and tighten the belt.  The Congress is largely behind this drive but it is assisted by the misinformed media, which believe that Social Security is riddled with fraud and waste and that benefits are too easy to obtain. This is largely baloney; however, the media pieces I've seen simply didn't take time to do their homework.  

A year or two from now we'll know the effect of the new regulations that went into effect yesterday.  But if I were a betting man, I'd bet that award rates fall from where they are now--and they're already at the lowest point since 2010.