UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

________________ _________________ JEFF TURNER, Plaintiff - Appellant,

v. COMMISSIONER, SSA, Defendant - Appellee. No. 21-4060 (D.C. No. 2:19- CV-00720-CMR) (D. Utah)

________________ _________________ ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

________________ _________________ Before HARTZ , BACHARACH , and CARSON , Circuit Judges.

________________ _________________ Jeff Turner appeals from an order of the district court affirming the Social Security Commissioner’s denial of his appli cation for disability insurance benefits under the Social Security Act. Exercisi ng jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), we affirm. Mr. Turner has not shown that the denial was based on an incorrect legal standard or was not supported by s ubstantial evidence.

* After examining the briefs and appella te record, this pa nel has determined unanimously to honor the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore submitted without oral argument. This or der and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of la w of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

### February 15, 2022 Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court Appellate Case: 21-4060 Document: 010110645281 Date Filed: 02/15/2022 Page: 12 I. BACKGROUND Mr. Turner was born in 1959. He earned an associate degree in data processing and, before applying for benefits, he work ed various jobs including tool programmer, greens keeper, and medical-record clerk. In 2016 he filed for disability insuran ce benefits under Title II of the Social Security Act (the “Act”), alleging di sability since October 2013 from loss of coordination in his left hand from a stroke in 1991, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and acid reflux. The Commissioner de nied Mr. Turner’s claim at the initial and reconsideration stages of review, so Mr. Turner requested a hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ). After a hearing at which Mr. Turner and a vocational expert testified, the ALJ issued a written decision that followed the five-step sequential evaluation process the Social Security Administration uses to review disability claims. 1 Based on the

1 We have described the fi ve-step process as follows: Social Security Regulations mandate that the ALJ who determines a claim for benefits under the Social Security Act follow a five-step evaluation: (1) whether the claimant is currently working; (2) whet her the claimant has a severe impairment; (3) whether the claimant’s impairment meets an impairment listed in a ppendix 1 of the relevant regulation; (4) whether the impairment precludes the claimant from doing his pa st relevant work; and (5) whether the impairment precludes the claimant from doing any work. If at any point in the process the [Commissioner] finds that a pe rson is disabled or not disabled, the review ends. Appellate Case: 21-4060 Document: 010110645281 Date Filed: 02/15/2022 Page: 23 testimony and Mr. Turner’s me dical records, the ALJ conc luded that Mr. Turner had “the residual functional capacity [RFC] to perform light work as defined in 20 C.F.R. § 404.1567(b)” with certain restrictions , including limitations on his standing, walking, postural ac tivities, and fine mani pulation. Aplt. App. vol. II at 62. The ALJ found that Mr. Turner could “p erform goal-oriented, but not fast-paced work such as production line work (due to the left hand, not due to any mental impairment).” Id. He further found that this RFC assessment was “not contradicted by any opinion from a treating or examining physician.” Id. at 64. In light of this RFC determination and the testimony of the vocational expert, he found at step four that Mr. Turner was capable of performing past relevant work as a medical records clerk. Accordingly, the ALJ found that he was not disabled within the meaning of the
Act. After the Social Security Appeals Council denied Mr. Turner’s request for review and affirmed the denial of benefits, he file d an action under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), seeking re view of the ALJ’s decision in the United States District Court for the District of Utah. He ar gued that the RFC determination did not sufficiently account for his fa tigue. Among other things, he argued that the ALJ did not consider a portion of the treatment notes of Dr. Mustufa Saifee, a pulmonologist who examined him once in January 2018 and oversaw pulmona ry-function testing

Trimiar v. Sullivan , 966 F.2d 1326, 1329 (10th Cir. 1992) (citation, footnote, and internal quotation marks omitted). Appellate Case: 21-4060 Document: 010110645281 Date Filed: 02/15/2022 Page: 34 several weeks later. Dr. Sa ifee’s notes of the January 201 8 examination indicate that Mr. Turner “presented with dyspnea.” Ap lt. App. vol. IV at 645. Mr. Turner described his symptom as brea thlessness and said that it started many years ago and was ongoing. Dr. Saifee stated that “[t]he severity is NYHA class III.” Id. His notes do not explain what “NYHA class III” means, but Mr. Turner, citing material he found on the internet, argued that the term refers to a New York Heart Association classification for heart failu re, indicating “[m]arked lim itation in activity due to symptoms, even during less-than-ordinary activity, e.g. walking short distances (20— 100 m). Comfortabl e only at rest.” Id. vol. I at 25, 88, 100. The district court rejected the fatigue argument, pointing to other observations Dr. Saifee made in the same visit, such as his examina tion findings that Mr. Turner had a 96% oxygen level on room air, good respiratory effort , and clear breath sounds in both lungs. The court concluded that the “unexplained, unsupported reference to NYHA class III is not uncontroverted evidence that the ALJ chose not to rely on, nor was it significantly probative evidence th at the ALJ could not reject without discussion.” Id. at 101 (internal quot ation marks omitted). Concluding that substantial evidence as a whole supported the ALJ’s decision, the district court affirmed the decision of the Social Security Commissioner.
II. DISCUSSION We review the district court’s decisi on de novo, applying the same standards that govern the district court. See Hendron v. Colvin , 767 F.3d 951, 954 (10th Cir. 2014). We therefore review the ALJ’s deci sion to determine whether he applied the Appellate Case: 21-4060 Document: 010110645281 Date Filed: 02/15/2022 Page: 45 correct legal standard and wh ether substantial evidence s upports his factual findings. See id. “[T]he threshold for such eviden tiary sufficiency is not high.” Biestek v. Berryhill , 139 S. Ct. 1148, 1154 (2019). “We do not reweigh the evidence or retry the case, but we meticulously examine the record as a w hole, including anything that may undercut or detract from the ALJ’s fi ndings in order to determine if the substantiality test has been met.” Flaherty v. Astrue , 515 F.3d 1067, 1070 (10th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation mark s omitted). “A finding of no substantial evidence will be found only where there is a conspicu ous absence of cred ible choices or no contrary medical evidence.” Trimiar v. Sullivan , 966 F.2d 1326, 1329 (10th Cir. 1992) (internal quotati on marks omitted).
1. Consideration of Dr. Saifee’s Notes Mr. Turner first argues th at the ALJ’s RFC finding di d not sufficiently account for the reference to “NHTA cl ass III” in Dr. Saifee’s tr eatment notes, and that the ALJ owed this portion of Dr . Saifee’s notes deference as the opinion of a treating physician. We disagree. “[T]he regulations require that the ALJ give good reasons in the notice of determination or opinion for the weight that is given the treating physician’s opinion.” Doyal v. Barnhart , 331 F.3d 758, 762 (10th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted). Contrary to Mr. Turner’s suggestion, however, Dr. Saifee was not a treating physician under the soci al security regulations. See 20 C.F.R. § 404.1527(a)(2) (“Treating source mean s your own acceptable medical source who provides you, or has provided you, with me dical treatment or evaluation and who has, Appellate Case: 21-4060 Document: 010110645281 Date Filed: 02/15/2022 Page: 56 or has had, an ongoing treatm ent relationship with you.”); see also Doyal , 331 F.3d at 763 (“A physician’s opinion is . . . not entitl ed to controlling weight on the basis of a fleeting relationship, or mere ly because the claimant de signates the physician as her treating source.”). The record before th e ALJ shows that Dr. Saifee examined Mr. Turner only once and then oversaw his pul monary function testing several weeks later. There is no indication in the record that Dr. Saifee had “seen [Mr. Turner] a number of times and long enough to have obtained a longitudinal picture of [his] impairment, taking into consideration the treatment the source has provided and the kinds and extent of examinations and te sting the source has performed or ordered from specialists and inde pendent laboratories.” Doyal , 331 F.3d at 763 (internal quotation marks omitted). The ALJ was t hus not required to di scuss Dr. Saifee’s records in any more deta il than he did. Nor was the ALJ obligated to treat a single line refe rring to “NHTA class III” in Dr. Saifee’s notes as an “opinion” under the Social Security regulations.
See 20 C.F.R. § 404.1527(a)(1) (“[M]edical opini ons are statements . . . that reflect judgments about the nature and severity of your impa irment(s), including your symptoms, diagnosis and prog nosis, what you can still do despite impairment(s), and your physical or mental restrictions.”). Finally, the ALJ did consider the records from Dr . Saifee, in their totality, along with other medical eviden ce. The ALJ’s written decisi on cites to the very page of Dr. Saifee’s notes that includes the reference to “NHTA class III.” The ALJ simply did not draw the same conclusions from the notes that Mr. Turner urges. Mr. Appellate Case: 21-4060 Document: 010110645281 Date Filed: 02/15/2022 Page: 67 Turner’s challenges to the conclusions the ALJ drew from the reco rd evidence ask us to reweigh the evidence, which we ma y not do on substantial-evidence review, see Flaherty , 515 F.3d at 1070, and his disagreement with the outcome of the ALJ’s weighing of the evidence is not a basis for reversal of the ALJ’ s determination.
2. Reliance on Vocational Expert’s Testimony Mr. Turner also argues th at the testimony of the vo cational expert regarding past work “was too messy and inconsistent to rely on,” Ap lt. Opening Br. at 6, so it does not support the ALJ’s findi ng that he could perform his past relevant work. We disagree because substantial evidence suppor ted the ALJ’s decision at step four. “A claimant capable of performing past relevant work is not disabled within the meaning of the Social Secu rity Act. The claimant b ears the burden of proving his or her inability to perform past relevant work.” Andrade v. Sec’y of Health & Hum.
Servs. , 985 F.2d 1045, 1050 (10th Ci r. 1993) (citation om itted). The vocational expert testified that an individual with Mr. Turner’s RFC would be capable of performing the jobs of, among others, medical -record clerk or outside deliverer, at least as those jobs are gene rally performed in the national economy. Relying on that testimony, Mr. Turner’s testimony about his work history, and information from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, the ALJ concluded that Mr. Turner was not disabled. Mr. Turner’s disagreement with th is analysis shows, at most, that it might be possible to draw different conclusions fr om the evidence than the ALJ did, but he falls well short of demonstrating “a cons picuous absence of credible choices,”
Trimiar , 966 F.2d at 1329, so we cannot distur b the ALJ’s decision on that basis. Appellate Case: 21-4060 Document: 010110645281 Date Filed: 02/15/2022 Page: 78 III. CONCLUSION We affirm the judgment of the district court.

Entered for the Court

Harris L Hartz Circuit Judge Appellate Case: 21-4060 Document: 010110645281 Date Filed: 02/15/2022 Page: 8