Medical Wait Time!

Half Fast said:
I’m sure that’s how they view it but I think it’s BS. Congress made it possible for 80,000 pilots to go onto Basic Med and no longer burden OKC. Aeromed could reduce their workload dramatically if they’d expand the CACI list and delegate more authority to AMEs.

But bureaucracies don’t behave that way. They cling to power and try to enlarge their empires. Their answer is always “we need more money.” It’s never about finding a way to get the job done within the available resources.

This will continue until some bureaucrats get fired for not doing their jobs.
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FYI…I’m sending letters to every member of the Aviation Safety, Operations and Innovation Subcommittee outlining the need to update the existing means of processing deferrals.

With the proliferation and preponderance of “diagnoses” and prescribed medications for ADHD, anxiety etc, this is going to put an increasing % of applicants into the deferral process. This will only exacerbate the already bottlenecked process.

There is absolutely zero reason HIMS AMEs cannot handle the 90%+ of deferrals that are ultimately approved and a bureaucrat saying “I don’t want that to happen” isn’t a good reason not to do so.
 
Some of the existing issues I plan to communicate to the current Aviation Safety, Operations and Innovation Subcommittee regarding deferrals (specifically for SSRI) - if you care to add any of your own comments, I will incorporate into my letters:

  • All correspondence is via certified mail
  • From the date of the FAA’s certified letter addressing the deferral, you have 60 days to supply the FAA with the requested information, which can include expensive psychological and neuropsychological evaluations and/or other items, or risk not complying with the FAA’s request and thereby having to start the process entirely over
  • The FAA has no legal obligatory timeline to respond to the applicant and/or come to a conclusion/resolution
    • I, myself, have been in this process for over a year and likely looking at another 12-18 months if the existing process is maintained, as is likely
  • There are only 2-3 individuals at the FAA’s Washington D.C. office performing the final review of the AMEs report, which includes the exact same items that the AME has already reviewed
    • This is for the entire population of individuals also in deferral for the use of SSRI
  • There is no differentiation or separate/streamlined paths between the malady under review
    • i.e. an applicant with situational anxiety(me) is put into the same review queue as an applicant with severe depression and suicidal idealization
    • i.e. an applicant who has reported to a physician that they socially drink/drink to relieve work stress but doesn’t have a record of legal or personal/work issues related to alcohol (me) is put into the same review queue as an applicant with 5 DWIs and/or an illicit drug use/arrest record

The first and most obvious remedy being allowing those already approved FAA HIMS AMEs to themselves issue deferred medical certificates via standard issuance or special issuance. The HIMS AMEs review the same items/evaluations as the D.C. Drs., and the HIMS AMEs actually compile all of the FAA requested information and provide their own report based upon those evaluations, as well as have the benefit of actually interacting, observing and medically evaluating the applicant.

I’ve read statistics that 90%-97% of all medical deferrals are ultimately approved, leading one to conclude that this backlog, bottleneck is an issue of the FAA’s own making and perhaps there should even be an evaluation of what medical conditions should even require a deferral.



Members of the Aviation Safety, Operations and Innovation Subcommittee in case anyone cares to reach out to them:

Tammy Duckworth, Ill. (Chair)
Jon Tester, Mont.
Kyrsten Sinema, Ariz.
Jacky Rosen, Nev.
John Hickenlooper, Colo.
Raphael Warnock, Ga.

Jerry Moran, Kan. (Ranking Member)
John Thune, S.D.
Roger Wicker, Miss.
Dan Sullivan, Alaska
Todd Young, Ind.
 
Half Fast said:
I’m sure that’s how they view it but I think it’s BS. Congress made it possible for 80,000 pilots to go onto Basic Med and no longer burden OKC. Aeromed could reduce their workload dramatically if they’d expand the CACI list and delegate more authority to AMEs.

But bureaucracies don’t behave that way. They cling to power and try to enlarge their empires. Their answer is always “we need more money.” It’s never about finding a way to get the job done within the available resources.

This will continue until some bureaucrats get fired for not doing their jobs.
Click to expand...
Yup. And in fact, their budgets have increased every single year. Lass work for more money.

It's called ‘Parkinson’s Law’
 
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