The consulting doctor who examines you is limited by several things:
1) He doesn't know anything about your medical history, at least not by personal experience. This doctor has had no opportunity to treat you, prescribe any medications, see your response to treatments, etc.
2) He will examine you only this one time.
3) His time with you will be severely limited. You visit may only last 30 minutes or so.
4) The doctor will usually not be able to perform any medical tests, X-rays or other imaging studies because Social Security won't pay for them.
5) It will be a bare bones examination--just enough to verify basic medical facts.
Quite often, the consultative examination will NOT result in an approval for disability benefits.
You are much better off if you can provide records from your own treating physician(s). Social Security would like to see at least one year of records previous to the date you claim to have become disabled. So, by all means, if you are able to see your own doctors regularly, this is a much better option for you.
I can't tell you how many times one of our clients has been sent for a consultative examination by a Social Security doctor, only to be disappointed when their claim was denied. Then, at appeal, we will argue that the consulting doctor's opinion is entitled to no weight because he only saw the claimant one time for 30 minutes and could not possibly have come to understand all the complex medical problems that were going on.
The moral of the story is: Don't depend on one of Social Security's doctors to help you get benefits. These doctors tend to fail in offering anything helpful to you, the claimant.
I'm not sure the doctor in the photo below is a Social Security doctor. But you get the idea.
Don't depend on these guys to help you get benefits!
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