Fixing inefficiency

The FAA Aerospace Medical Certification Division (AMCD) is “ground zero” for most medical applications submitted by aviation medical examiners (AME) and last year about 450,000 of us saw an AME for a flight physical. In most cases, the medical is issued to the applicant at the time of the exam, but not all, and those that don’t get issued are “deferred” (not “denied!”) and sent on to the FAA for review and disposition.

Now, here is where most pilots fail to do something that is just as important as carefully preflighting the airplane: They fail to preflight their medical exam by not having the appropriate reports to support any medical conditions declared in section 18 of the MedXPress online medical application.

If you are reporting anything new for the first time on the application, have at least a current office note from your treating physician explaining what you were seen or treated for, how you were treated (therapy, medication, surgery), and how your health was at the time of the office visit. It’s like your Willy Wonka “golden ticket” to the chocolate factory. Taking the time to have the records in hand can be the difference between an office issuance and a long wait while your deferred application is reviewed.

The MedXPress application has undergone recent changes and now includes links to reference resources to help you gather the information you will need to assist your AME in making an issuance decision.

The MedXPress changes are just one of several initiatives under way within the FAA Office of Aerospace Medicine to improve the process of obtaining a medical. Just recently we got an update from the federal air surgeon, Dr. Susan Northrup, confirming that the adjustments being made across the Office of Aerospace Medicine are bearing fruit. Deferred cases are getting the initial review in a matter of days after receipt, and many of those cases are getting hands-on review, that is, someone has opened the case and is reviewing it, much quicker than before.

The key is that pilots are providing the required medical records at the time of the AME physician exam, so when the application is processed into workflow, the FAA already has everything they need to work the case and get a response to the pilot much sooner.

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