Can a Social Security Doctor Be Any Help If He Only Sees You a Few Minutes?

To understand why some consultative exams can be so short, you need to understand why disability claims examiners send claimants to consultative medical exams. The most common reason for DDS (Disability Determination Services) to send you to a consultative exam (CE) is that they don't think you are disabled but they need recent medical evidence (not older than 30 or 60 days) in order to close your case (and deny you disability benefits). 

If you get sent to a CE, it usually means that you haven't been treated recently, in terms of when the DDS claims examiner is actually looking at the case.  For example, when the examiner reviews your file, there should be medical evidence in the file that's less than 60 days old.

Often, a claims examiner will send you to a consultative exam just to have a test done, or a symptom checked, and won't request that the doctor do a full physical on you. That is why many consultative exams only last five to ten minutes. And you have to keep in mind this fact: when you go to a CE, or consultative exam, you are NOT going to a Social Security doctor. You are going to a private physician who has contracted to perform a brief medical exam. The doctors who do consultative exams are usually those who are trying to make a little money on the side for not much work.

How does DDS schedule these exams? DDS has an office called PRO (Public Relations Office), and the workers in that office do nothing but schedule consultative exams and try to recruit new doctors for those exams, since doctors are constantly dropping out of the consultative exam program.