Hello, my name is Marcus. First of all I want to thank everyone for all the knowledge and time Spent helping others. Back in 2010 I got my medical certificate,this was pre medxpress. I recently had my 1st class medical appointment back in May everything went well healthwise, I had misdemeanor - disorderly conduct from 2007 listed on the medxpress form. The AME was ready to issue my certificate, then approached me saying have you reported this misdemeanor? I wasn’t sure if they had asked me back in 2010 so I said I’m not sure. So the AME wanted to send it in to Oklahoma City. He said it will not disqualify me but wanted to make sure they knew about it. He said it should only take one to two weeks, it’s been a month. I’m just curious if anybody had any experience with this? Thank you
Yup. I would expect it to take 3-6 months. The FAA processes these applications very slowly. The government shutdown caused a backlog too. The medical certification branch phone number is listed on the FAA’s website. Call every week to ask for an update.
I had to deal with Oklahoma City when I lost my third class certificate a while back and needed to get a duplicate. Unfortunately they don’t move with any sense of urgency.
7 weeks went by without a word, and I finally decided to give them a call and ask if I could check on the status. As soon as I did, they said it was approved and would be mailed out momentarily; in addition, they took down my email address and emailed me a valid copy of it in about 2 minutes.
Don’t be afraid to call and ask for an update as Tory mentioned, it can’t hurt!
Calling and asking politely will get you a long way. My AME never even sent my medical paperwork packet so I wasted a month waiting. Called the FAA myself and took charge from my not so helpful AME. It took 30 days after I faxed it for it to be added to my deferred application file. But now it seems it won’t be much longer until a doc reviews.
You can also call the regional flight surgeon. They can push OKC to speed things up a little. Everyone is also very nice and helpful. Just sucks they can’t get more funding to make this process easier.
I called today, automated voice said “due to the high volume of calls we are unable to help you at this time, please try again later” maybe I should check with my AME and make he sent it!
When you get that voice message, your essentially being told there are too many calls to put you in queue. Just continue to call (back to back) until you reach the voice message putting you in queue, then wait on hold until you get helped!
I finally heard back from the FAA they requested some documents. I am in the process of getting those to them. One more question,once I do this one time, do I need to keep going through this process every time I renew my medical? Thanks again,
Just an update on my side. It’s been 2.5 months since my AME and I submitted all paperwork. I had to get additional Vision form filled out and a Full Bloodwork done along with diabetes form to be filled out by Physician. Been trying to control that for a while and my A1C came back at 9.0 exactly. About a month later received another request for Hemoglobin A1C test that had to come under 9. I was worried since it only had been 34 days since my last with needing 3 month average. Well long story short new report came at 8.1. Just got another letter today after submitting last report now about getting vision form 8500-7 filled out again and submit.
Hey guys,
I’m about to start flight training! The only thing I have to do is getting my First Class Medical. I was recently diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, which doesn’t affect me at all because I take the medications. I already did my research, and the meds I take are FAA approved, and pilots with rheumatoid arthritis are usually accepted by the FAA.
Because of RA, I know that my first class medical exam is going to be sent to the FAA for review. I was wondering how long this process of reviewing usually takes?
Also, do you guys know a fellow pilot who has Rheumatoid Arthritis like me?
Thank you,
Bernardo
You really need to discuss with your AME but keep in mind much of the FAA is shut down to the extent they’re actually giving extensions for current medicals.
I could be wrong but my thoughts are ot could take a while until the current crisis subsides.