Cite as: 538 U. S. 822 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
rule from the former area into the latter. The Social Security Act creates a nationwide benefits program funded by Federal Insurance Contributions Act payments, see 26 U. S. C. §§ 3101(a), 3111(a), and superintended by the Commissioner of Social Security. To cope with the "more than 2.5 million claims for disability benefits [filed] each year," Cleveland v. Policy Management Systems Corp., 526 U. S. 795, 803 (1999), the Commissioner has published detailed regulations governing benefits adjudications. See, e. g., id., at 803-804. Presumptions employed in the Commissioner's regulations "grow out of the need to administer a large benefits system efficiently." Id., at 804. By accepting and codifying a treating physician rule, the Commissioner sought to serve that need. Along with other regulations, the treating physician rule works to foster uniformity and regularity in Social Security benefits determinations made in the first instance by a corps of administrative law judges.
In contrast to the obligatory, nationwide Social Security program, "[n]othing in ERISA requires employers to establish employee benefits plans. Nor does ERISA mandate what kind of benefits employers must provide if they choose to have such a plan." Lockheed Corp. v. Spink, 517 U. S. 882, 887 (1996). Rather, employers have large leeway to design disability and other welfare plans as they see fit. In determining entitlement to Social Security benefits, the adjudicator measures the claimant's condition against a uniform set of federal criteria. "[T]he validity of a claim to benefits under an ERISA plan," on the other hand, "is likely to turn," in large part, "on the interpretation of terms in the plan at issue." Firestone Tire, 489 U. S., at 115. It is the Secretary of Labor's view that ERISA is best served by "preserv[ing] the greatest flexibility possible for . . . operating claims processing systems consistent with the prudent administration of a plan." Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration, http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_ claims_proc_reg.html, Question B-4 (as visited May 6, 2003)
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