What Does Social Security Consider An Acceptable Medical Source?

As mentioned in another post, medical records are extremely important in your attempt to prove to Social Security that you are disabled.

According to Social Security, the following are acceptable medical sources:

• licensed physicians (medical or osteopathic doctors);
  
  
• licensed or certified psychologists including school psychologists (and other licensed or certified individuals with other titles who perform the same function as school psychologists in a school setting) only for purposes of establishing mental retardation, learning disabilities, and borderline intellectual functioning ;
  
  
• licensed optometrists only for purposes of establishing visual disorders (except in the U.S. Virgin Islands where licensed optometrists are acceptable medical sources only for the measurement of visual acuity and visual fields);
  
  
• licensed podiatrists only for purposes of establishing impairments of the foot, or foot and  the ankle, depending on whether the State in which the podiatrist practices permits the practice of podiatry on the foot only, or the foot and the ankle; and
  
  
• qualified speech-language pathologists only for purposes of establishing speech or language impairments. For this source, “qualified” means that the speech-language pathologist must be licensed by the State education agency in the State in which he or she practices, or hold a Certificate of Clinical Competence from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.