Basic Med....but wait, there’s more

The last AME is involved because HIS signature is on the certificate with the restriction. It matters little how much time or what else has happened in the interim in that regard. I think that's standard Joklahoma City proceedure to copy the last AME who signed you off. I've had correspondence with OKC (like requests for copies of my record) that generated a copy of the response to the last AME as well.
 
I spent 12 years as a fed inside the beltway. It was not the FAA (so don't panic), but 5 years of that involved liaison work with other departments and I found a few things to be endemic in federal agencies. There are some exceptions, but most field offices are staffed with people with at least some, and sometimes substantial, specific program knowledge and subject matter expertise. However, in the central offices, and in administrative positions in central offices you start seeing an increasing percentage of staff with little or no program background or subject matter expertise. In fact, you start seeing an increasing percentage of people who have a law degree, but never practiced law, and may have never sat for or passed a bar exam. Universities churn out way more law school graduates than we need, and a large percentage of the surplus go into government thinking they are well suited to writing, implementing and enforcing regulations. They are not. In the absence of program knowledge and practical experience doing whatever that program/agency oversees, that legal trained person defaults to a narrow read of the law and that always ends badly from a practical, program focused perspective.

I'm not going to speak for AMCD or their processes, but I will mention that FAA flight standards policy office staff have evolved in the last five years, thanks to a policy enacted by John Duncan. Back in the day, policy offices (i.e. headquarters) were staffed by people who were willing to relocate to DC (or in some cases OKC depending on which office). That created a self-selection process of only hiring people who were willing to deal with the headache of relocating, living in the DC area, working downtown, in exchange for more money (locality and higher pay bands) and presumably more influence.

About five years ago, qualified folks out in the field could bid on policy jobs (i.e. headquarters jobs) without actually having to relocate. As such, the people who shepherd policy, guidance, rulemaking, etc. have spent time out in the field and may actually work out of a desk in the FSDO. This isn't just worker bees, many division managers are spread throughout the country. I think it's made a huge difference in improving the quality of people in those positions.
 
I'm not going to speak for AMCD or their processes, but I will mention that FAA flight standards policy office staff have evolved in the last five years, thanks to a policy enacted by John Duncan. Back in the day, policy offices (i.e. headquarters) were staffed by people who were willing to relocate to DC (or in some cases OKC depending on which office). That created a self-selection process of only hiring people who were willing to deal with the headache of relocating, living in the DC area, working downtown, in exchange for more money (locality and higher pay bands) and presumably more influence.

About five years ago, qualified folks out in the field could bid on policy jobs (i.e. headquarters jobs) without actually having to relocate. As such, the people who shepherd policy, guidance, rulemaking, etc. have spent time out in the field and may actually work out of a desk in the FSDO. This isn't just worker bees, many division managers are spread throughout the country. I think it's made a huge difference in improving the quality of people in those positions.

That's encouraging. We had a similar policy in our department, where central office staff could telework essentially full time and/or work out of a regional office. However, the current administration has been eliminating telework as a matter of general policy and it's why I and many of the other competent staff I knew in our agency left federal government for greener pastures about 2 years ago when a requirement was made for all staff to be working in the DC office at least 4 days per week. The arguments that eliminating telework would hurt recruitment of knowledgeable staff, and that not grandfathering in existing arrangements would cause a loss of existing expertise fell on deaf, or just uncaring, ears.

Let's hope the positive change at the FAA Flight Standards office doesn't come undone.
 
Yes, indeed....that is why I initiated all this with a Form 8500-7 to the FAA.
So it wasn't some ophthalmologist sending in a report. It was some pilot making an unsolicited report they didn't have make to to the FAA and getting the expected result but wondering why?
 
That's encouraging. We had a similar policy in our department, where central office staff could telework essentially full time and/or work out of a regional office. However, the current administration has been eliminating telework as a matter of general policy and it's why I and many of the other competent staff I knew in our agency left federal government for greener pastures about 2 years ago when a requirement was made for all staff to be working in the DC office at least 4 days per week. The arguments that eliminating telework would hurt recruitment of knowledgeable staff, and that not grandfathering in existing arrangements would cause a loss of existing expertise fell on deaf, or just uncaring, ears.

Let's hope the positive change at the FAA Flight Standards office doesn't come undone.

The good news is leadership is now spread out as well so they'd be forcing themselves to move to DC. For my division, 95% of our folks are outside DC. It's hard enough to find inspectors in this strong pilot job market, so forcing folks to DC would result in a bunch of retirements and vacancies.
 
Did you contact the RFS and sort it out today?
The “Program Analyst” I spoke with today seemed to not know (or care?) what to do with this situation, and said she’d have one of their doctors call me - still waiting.
 
So it wasn't some ophthalmologist sending in a report. It was some pilot making an unsolicited report they didn't have make to to the FAA and getting the expected result but wondering why?
Jeez...this “some pilot” has explained his rationale for doing this; and no, this was, of course, not the expected result. You always this retrospectively judgemental?
 
Jeez...this “some pilot” has explained his rationale for doing this; and no, this was, of course, not the expected result. You always this retrospectively judgemental?
That wasn't judgmental. It was factual (and I could certainly have misunderstood the sequence of events). And it definitely wasn't retrospective.

I'm not saying you are a bad person for doing the wrong thing. It was a mistake, the result of lack of knowledge. But it was the wrong thing when you did it. if anything, Your initial post and the title of the thread was judgmental. You immediately blamed the FAA and inadequate BasicMed when it was your own actions which started the ball rolling.

Obviously you didn't expect the result, You were dealing with a lack of knowledge, but it was indeed predictable. Note Dr Chien's comments. This happens. Usually it's not the pilot who gets the ball rolling. This time it was.

Unfortunately, you now have to deal with the consequences if your own well-intentioned actions. Hopefully you get professional help with that.
 
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Anyone can make erroneous assumptions about what the rules require. Some of mine could have been fatal. :eek2:
 
A quick update for those here who were supportive or concerned:
- A telephone conversation this AM with a different program analyst at FAA SE Regional Aerospace Medical office led to her resolving the situation with an update to my file and her reassurance to me that the letter from CAMI, OC had been sent in error since I no longer have nor wish to apply for Medical Certification (flying under Basic Med).
Thanks to all those here with positive and helpful postings.
 
Sometimes it's seems that they're an Agency of Misunderstanding
 
In my business (which is jet engine type certification) one rule is that you give the FAA exactly what they asked for, and no more. Not a word more. Even if you did an engineering test that shows the engine is five times better than you thought, you sit on it.
Anything you tell the government you may be called upon to explain at some point.
 
In my business (which is jet engine type certification) one rule is that you give the FAA exactly what they asked for, and no more. Not a word more. Even if you did an engineering test that shows the engine is five times better than you thought, you sit on it.
Anything you tell the government you may be called upon to explain at some point.
AMEN.
 
Obviously you can't just apply for a new medical without an AME being involved, but it's more complicated than that.

I spent 12 years as a fed inside the beltway. It was not the FAA (so don't panic), but 5 years of that involved liaison work with other departments and I found a few things to be endemic in federal agencies. There are some exceptions, but most field offices are staffed with people with at least some, and sometimes substantial, specific program knowledge and subject matter expertise. However, in the central offices, and in administrative positions in central offices you start seeing an increasing percentage of staff with little or no program background or subject matter expertise. In fact, you start seeing an increasing percentage of people who have a law degree, but never practiced law, and may have never sat for or passed a bar exam. Universities churn out way more law school graduates than we need, and a large percentage of the surplus go into government thinking they are well suited to writing, implementing and enforcing regulations. They are not. In the absence of program knowledge and practical experience doing whatever that program/agency oversees, that legal trained person defaults to a narrow read of the law and that always ends badly from a practical, program focused perspective.

To you or I, if a opthamologist submitted a request to remove a restriction on a pilot's expired medical certificate, the logical response would be to contact the airman in question and advise them that the current medical is expired and that any request to remove a restriction would need to be done as part of an application for a new medical, then refer you to an AME to start the required application process. However, that's problematic for a couple reasons - there most likely isn't a category for such requests that is not connected to either a request for a new medical certificate or review of a current medical certificate. That's because the people who wrote the regs and sub regulatory guidance failed to either envision or account for this kind of request. Logically, an agency should be able to manage all sorts of very low probability/low frequency events like this one. As a practical matter however, they don't due to concerns about regulatory burden and the time and expense required to develop additional processes that are ultimately almost never used.

Given that background, a career bureaucrat with only a legal background will default to the legal requirements and a very narrow read of the law. In this case, that means it's an "application" to be approved or denied within a 60 day timeline. To that person, this request gets treated as an application because there is no other category to fit it into, or worse because it has already been put in the in-basket to process as an application by whoever opened it and stamped it in, with the result that it's already part of the performance monitoring process and the 60 day clock is already ticking. From that perspective, contacting the airman in question is all risk and downside with no upside. It takes time to contact the airman, and then the airman may take not take timely action or may take no action at all to continue the application process. If that action occurs slowly, or never occurs at all, the request (which is being treated as an application) will go over the allotted 60 day time limit and then be treated as a negative in both individual and agency performance metrics, as it was never approved or denied. The only control the staff processing it has is to treat it as an application and then deny it if no further information is received within the allotted time period.

Would that denial of a request on an expired medical mean anything to the airman? If would if it is counted and recorded as a denied application for a third class medical. If not, then it's not significant. The OP will need to consult with the FAA and with an aviation attorney to get an answer on that. Even then the answer from the FAA may still be "maybe" if they don't have some prior precedent and case law to work from. Feds cast in the legally trained the bureaucratic mold are generally speaking risk averse and their default response switch is safety wired in the least risk possible position.

That kind of mess gets created because the people who wrote the law, the regs and the sub regulatory guidance may not have been aware of or did not consider that this kind of thing could happen. Until the regs are re-written or sub regulatory guidance is written that creates a way to process this kind of misinformed request, it'll get treated as a new application, so it can be denied in a timely manner if no further action is taken. That inability to just ignore or return to sender an ill considered/misguided/inappropriate request is a negative and unintended outcome of laws requiring government accountability, internal controls, and performance requirements.

Unfortunately, not many federal employees are going to take the time or the risk to bump a request like this upstairs and make the argument that it is outside the scope of the law and should be treated as an exception. Trust me, advocating for that kind of realistic interpretation of law, reg, and guidance is not career enhancing, especially when the people up the chain of command are attorneys who know very little about the actual program and are much more concerned with performance measures based on timely adherence to process.

Then there is also the element of potential bureaucratic inertia. I don't know how the medical branch views Basic Med. They could see it as a big positive and a way to reduce workload, they could disagree with the whole idea see it as a threat to air safety or, particularly the folks higher up in the branch, they could see it as a threat to their kingdom by reducing the size, scope and authority of the branch. in either of the latter two cases, this request could be seen as an opportunity to dig into an airman's basic med cert and demonstrate that the process failed and that the airman operating under Basic Med, should not be flying.

In short, it's either being treated as an application in order to just deny the request (on what is an already expired certificate) get in the outbox within 60 days. Or alternatively, they are using it as a means to assess the quality of, or even disprove that Basic Med, as a concept, is working.

This is a very informed and well explained analysis of the nature of government bureaucracies. It is also true that the OP’s honesty and desire for clarity and completeness in this case was ill advised. Good intentions aside. The absolute least required amount of communication with the FAA Aeromedical folks is the best approach. However, a reply In this situation is required, and it appears that the first two items of inquiry can be addressed in a simple statement by the OP stating that those concerns are no longer a factor. The Holter monitoring request though should be addressed with a Holter monitoring report. Assuming it is normal and reads “normal”, that should be the closure they are looking for. I suggest this minimalist response first. If they find it unacceptable they will stipulate in a more detailed manner exactly what is deficient and what is required. In the future I would not volunteer information that is not specifically requested.

E B Ferrer MD
(Former designated FAA medical examiner)
 
And that is why I insist, for all the airmen on whose behalf I work, that all communications go through me. If the pilot or his Doctor, will not consider my address as “THE” correspondence address, I cannot work with that airman, and our relationship is severed.

if stuff goes around me I cannot be responsible for it....sigh.
 
This is a very informed and well explained analysis of the nature of government bureaucracies. It is also true that the OP’s honesty and desire for clarity and completeness in this case was ill advised. Good intentions aside. The absolute least required amount of communication with the FAA Aeromedical folks is the best approach. However, a reply In this situation is required, and it appears that the first two items of inquiry can be addressed in a simple statement by the OP stating that those concerns are no longer a factor. The Holter monitoring request though should be addressed with a Holter monitoring report. Assuming it is normal and reads “normal”, that should be the closure they are looking for. I suggest this minimalist response first. If they find it unacceptable they will stipulate in a more detailed manner exactly what is deficient and what is required. In the future I would not volunteer information that is not specifically requested.

E B Ferrer MD
(Former designated FAA medical examiner)


OBE

See post 51.
 
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