Opinion ID: 3017140
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The ALJ’s Treatment of the Medical Evidence

Text: Ms. Jackson argues that the ALJ placed undue weight on the report of a nonexamining physician prepared over a year before her hearing. She argues further that the ALJ inappropriately discounted a report submitted by her treating psychiatrist and failed to consider the treatment notes of this physician that would have sustained a finding of disability. As such, she maintains, the ALJ erred. Ms. Jackson is incorrect. As his opinion reveals, the ALJ considered the full scope of treatment notes submitted by her treating psychiatrist, Dr. Booker Evans. He correctly found that the report Dr. Evans submitted was less probative than the other evidence in the record because it provided only check-boxes with no place for Dr. Evans to offer explanations for his entries. See Mason v. Shalala, 994 F.2d 1058, 1065 (3d Cir., 1993) (“Form reports in which a physician's obligation is only to check a box or fill in a blank are weak evidence at best.”). More significantly, the ALJ found that Dr. Evans’ entries conflicted with the treatment notes Dr. Evans had entered throughout the time Ms. Jackson was in his care. The entries also conflicted with the testimony Ms. Jackson gave regarding her ability to function. While the ALJ did state that “greater weight should be afforded the analysis” provided by the state agency non-examining physician (AP 26) , this statement was made, and warranted, in light of the fact that the agency physician’s findings comported better with the testimony Ms. Jackson had offered. The fact that the 5 non-examining physician’s report was prepared over a year before Ms. Jackson’s hearing is not relevant since the ALJ found that other evidence in the record, along with Ms. Jackson’s testimony, established that the statements in that report were consistent with her condition as it manifested itself in the period subsequent to the report’s completion. In short, the ALJ did not err in treating the record evidence as he did.