CE Boondoggle Continues

Time to discuss again the needless demands the State agency makes for a Social Security Disability (“SSD”) claimant to attend a consultative examination (“CE”).

Since the last Century, virtually every CE notice I have received has violated the Social Security regulations.  Demanding a CE means the State agency refuses to believe what the treating doctors say.  The CEs have delayed claimants’ receipt of SSD benefits, wasted taxpayer money, and wasted the time of administrative law judges.  To make matters worse, the State agency has insisted on CEs throughout COVID.

I represent a 47 year old former clerk from Glen Cove with multiple sclerosis (“MS”), bladder cancer and depression.  Despite supportive reports and records from the claimant’s urologist, neurologist and psychiatrist, the State agency denied SSD benefits because the claimant, with a compromised immune system due to cancer, would not attend a CE.

The case was approved today without a hearing.  As soon as an attorney from the Social Security Administration received the case, it was approved OTR.  The four demands for the claimant to attend a CE obviously were unnecessary.

Does the State agency have an unwritten regulation that requires they insist that every claimant attend a CE?  Doubtful.  More likely, the State agency examiners are too lazy or too busy to read the file.  Therefore, the examiners want to disregard all the medical evidence in the file, and just want to rely on what the CE says.