ALJs are permitted to disagree with, discredit, and disregard physicians' opinions because “determining a claimant's RFC is the province of the ALJ and not of the treating physician or consultative examiner.” Pascarello v. Berryhill, No. 18-3406, 2019 WL 2288233, at *6 (E.D. Pa. May 28, 2019). When rejecting a physician's opinion, “an ALJ may not make ‘speculative inferences from medical reports'” and may only do so “outright” based on “'contradictory medical evidence' and not due to his or her own credibility judgments, speculation or lay opinion.”
We find no error here. Cf. Pascarello v. Berryhill, Civil Action No. 18-3406, 2019 WL 2288233, at *8 (E.D. Pa. May 28, 2019) (affirming ALJ decision that omitted particular restrictions set out in medical opinion that had been afforded only partial weight).
; see also Puerto v. Saul, Civ. No. 19-3109, 2020 WL 2744134, at *10 (E.D. Pa. May 27, 2020) (“an ALJ is not required to include each specific limitation in an RFC assessment or in a hypothetical to a VE”) (citing Pascarello v. Berryhill, Civ. No. 18-3406, 2019 WL 2288233, at *8 (E.D. Pa. May 28, 2019)). As the Third Circuit explained in Wilkinson, “no rule
A Level 2 reasoning level is generally considered to be consistent with a limitation to short and simple instructions. See, Pascarello v. Berryhill, Civ A. No. 183406, 2019 WL 228823 at *8, n. 7 (E.D. Pa. May 28, 2019), citing Money v. Barnhart, 91 Fed.Appx. 210, 215 (3d Cir. 2004); Torres v. Colvin, Civ. A. No. 15-3973, 2016 WL 740745 at *12 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 30, 2016), approved and adopted 2016 WL 7394517 (E.D. Pa. Dec. 21, 2016). Here again, therefore, even if Gay's argument is accepted as correct, there is no need to remand this matter, because the ALJ has already identified work consistent with this limitation.
However, an ALJ is not required to include each specific limitation in an RFC assessment or in a hypothetical to a VE. See Pascarello v. Berryhill, No. 18-3406, 2019 WL 2288233, at *8 (E.D. Pa. May 28, 2019) (Heffley, M.J.) ("[A]n ALJ is not required to adopt all limitations in a medical opinion, even if the ALJ affords the medical opinion significant weight.") (citing Wilkinson v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec., 558 F. App'x 254, 256 (3d Cir. 2014)). As the Third Circuit explained in Wilkinson, "no rule or regulation compels an ALJ to incorporate into an RFC every finding made by a medical source simply because the ALJ gives the source's opinion as a whole 'significant' weight," because "the controlling regulations are clear that the RFC finding is a determination expressly reserved to the Commissioner."
An ALJ is not required to adopt or reject each of the specific limitations a physician deems necessary regardless of the weight he or she gives to the physician's opinion as a whole. See Wilkinson v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec., 558 F. App'x 254, 256 (3d Cir. 2014); ("[N]o rule or regulation compels an ALJ to incorporate into an RFC every finding made by a medical source simply because the ALJ gives the source's opinion as a whole 'significant' weight."); accord Pascarello v. Berryhill, No. 18-3406, 2019 WL 2288233, at *8 (E.D. Pa. May 28, 2019); Northington, 2018 WL 2159923, at *1 n.1; Lucas v. Berryhill, No. 17-3005, 2018 WL 6737376, at *3 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 20, 2018). The ALJ's determination that Dr. Ruth's opinion was not supported by Holloway's activities of daily living, see R. at 24, also is supported by the record.