Proposed Change In Evidence Collection Regulations

From a notice of proposed rule-making posted by the Social Security Administration in today's Federal Register (footnote omitted):

We propose to modify the requirement to recontact your medical source(s) first when we need to resolve an inconsistency or insufficiency in the evidence he or she provided....

Sometimes the evidence we receive from your treating physician, psychologist, or other medical source is inadequate for us to determine whether you are disabled; that is, we either do not have sufficient evidence to determine whether you are disabled or if after weighing the evidence we determine we cannot reach a conclusion about whether you are disabled. Our current regulations describe what actions we will take in these situations. Currently, we will first recontact your medical source to determine whether the additional information we need is readily
available, unless we know from past experience that the source either cannot or will not provide the necessary findings. We will seek additional evidence or clarification from your medical source when the report from your medical source contains a conflict or ambiguity that must be resolved, does not contain all the necessary information, or does not appear to be based on medically acceptable clinical and laboratory diagnostic techniques....

[W]e propose to modify the requirement in Sec. Sec. 404.1512(e) and 416.912(e) that we first recontact your medical source(s) when we need to resolve an inconsistency or insufficiency in the evidence he or she provided. Under our proposed rule, after we have made every reasonable effort to help you get medical reports from your medical sources, we will determine the best way to resolve the
inconsistency or insufficiency. We will do that by taking one or more of several actions, including recontacting your medical source(s) when we need to resolve an inconsistency or insufficiency in the evidence he or she provided. ...