Physician Assistants

According to the American Academy of PAs, PAs are medical professionals who diagnose illness, develop and manage treatment plans, prescribe medications, and often serve as a patient’s principal healthcare provider. For the longest period of time, the Social Security Administration (“SSA”) did not consider a PAs to be acceptable medical sources (“AMS”).

SSA regulations provide that only the opinions of AMS can be given controlling weight, and can establish medically determinable impairments. I represent a welfare examiner whose SSD benefits were approved today, but whose PA’s opinion was given no weight because he was not an AMS. 

The claimant filed her SSD application on October 23, 2016. However, for claims filed after March 27, 2017, PAs are now AMS. There were several reasons why the SSA committed legal error by giving the PA’s opinion no weight. However, those errors were moot since SSD benefits were approved. Nonetheless, for claims filed after March 27, 2017, a PA’s opinion can no longer be disregarded simply because they are not a physician.