Continue to assist the claimant in requesting medical evidence in special arrangement situations, or when asked to do so by the DDS or OCO/ODO. Develop for medical evidence of record (MER) in the following special arrangement situations:

• •

  When the claimant prefers to deal directly with the medical source; or

• •

  When the medical source prefers to be contacted directly by the claimant; or

• •

  When the FO has made other special arrangements with hospitals, institutions, etc.

When the FO initiates a request for medical evidence, send the file to the DDS immediately. (Check the appropriate items on the SSA-3367-F4 to indicate that the FO has initiated medical development.) The DDS will follow up on these requests by contacting the medical source, the parallel FO to the source, or the claimant.

When a foreign claimant files a disability application in a border FO, complete the routine disability development, and in all cases, request all the medical evidence of record and annotate the SSA-3367-F4 for each source that the medical evidence was requested before forwarding the claim to OCO/OIO. Requests for medical evidence, payment and routing instructions in DI 11010.545 will apply.

See DI 11050.000 for career RR cases.