Hello Ladies and Gentlemen
As you can tell from the title, I have finally, finally, FINALLY, received my first class medical! (I am not asking a question, so if you do not wish to read this long wall of text, you do not have to. I am merely going to explain my experience. Please skip if this is too much to read. Sorry) For someone such as me, who has depression and anxiety, the process was mind numbingly difficult and the wait times were no joke. As you can tell if you skim my post history, I have (had) been posting in these forums for weeks on end, asking for any and every bit of information I could, and everyone here kept advising me that they were not the experts and I had best consult a AME or HIMS AME or the FAA itself for these delicate matters. I am going to post my experience here in an attempt to help anyone who is on the same path I was, because the amount of help available was low enough to confuse me for weeks on end!!!
The process was as follows
-Seeing my AME, Jan 2021, the visit was $150 for first class medical
-FEB 2021 The FAA Gets back to me one month and a few weeks later saying I was deferred and needed an entire laundry list of things done and send it back to them to have chance to be approved
-3 whole months of seeing doctor after doctor after doctor (not to mention the fact that many of these doctors are not your average MD doctor, and are very certified professionals who had weeks of waiting time in order to see them and weeks for them to write your reports and so on)
-In these 3 months I saw a HIMS AME who took $3,000.00 and I had to see them 4 times and they had to write me multiple reports
-The neuropsychologist took $4,750.00 and was 2 FULL DAYS of 8 hour testing EACH and had to write me multiple reports, this was the cogscreen AE testing
-Multiple visits to ALL my doctors and multiple reports to be written by my psychiatrist, psychologist and primary care physician
-keep in mind none of your hospital doctors will have ever heard of a AME or a HIMS AME or the FAA, so handing them the long paper of what the FAA wants gets them very irritated since they will not be paid extra for that and they may end up writing incorrect reports which get returned.
-Many personal statements I had to write about myself.
-FAA also asked for my ENTIRE medical history from birth
- and so much more
-May 28, my HIMS AME and I finish and send everything to the FAA - I have not even explained how even a “perfect” process takes long, but most processes will have “human issues” like your doctor not being able to see you for another month or they are very busy and take 3 weeks instead of 1 to write your reports or how the FAA makes you wait on hold for about 30 minutes before a representative takes your call and so on.
-I call them 2-3 times a week from June 1st to Dec 9th, all the workers knew me by name and recognized my voice
-Dec 9th,I get a knock on the door, mailman makes me sign 2 screens before handing me a letter which was my first class medical.
-about six months of being at the mercy of the FAA, and worrying if they would pass me or not. (Many go through this process and spend all this time money and energy and still get declined, I at least had a happy ending, but others do not. If you still get declined even after this whole HIMS AME process, its almost a final declination and your only other option is to get off the medicine, and then reapply, which is a bad option since many mentally ill people cannot go off the medicine until they are “cured” and even getting off the medicine, is a red flag since the FAA does a thorough background check and might send you to a HIMS anyways, even if you took a SSRI MANY YEARS AGO! I believe some people on this website have made a post complaining about just that, being sent to a HIMS for medication taken many years prior)
As you can see, this entire process has taken me almost a full year and almost 8 thousand dollars. I have a special issue First Class Medical and the FAA is still asking for MORE.
-I need a neuropsychologist Evaluation done AGAIN every year for the foreseeable future and sent to them, this will cost another $4,750.00 per year
-They also want me to see my HIMS AME every six months and want another 3 reports detailing my mental health, which is another $3,000.00 TWICE a year, also done for the forseeable future
They also want me to see my my psychiatrist, psychologist and primary care physician every six months and want them to give full detailed reports about my mental health, like they did this year and for the forseeable future
-Any change in my medication, medication dosage, or mental health requires me to call the FAA and report myself, otherwise I will lose my medical and face some legal jurisdiction (also forseeable future)
-ALL the doctors I mentioned above had to sign a document (which they were not happy about) which stated they HAD to report any change in my condition, otherwise they would face fines and legal processes (yes forseeable future)
-If I refuse to do any of this the FAA WILL terminate my medical
-I called and asked them they said I may have to do this every year for however long it is I fly, 10 20 30 40 years and so on
So All in all, this process was so long and very expensive, you can only imagine how much work I went through to get this done and how worried I was for almost a whole year until I finally got my medical. HIMS AME and AME are what you would call “locked behind a paywall” they do not want to help until you pay them and believe it or not the 3,000.00 charged by my HIMS AME, was THE cheapest around. The others in my area wanted $500 per hour and another $750 per form. One of them even asked for $250 for answering my questions over the phone!!! The amount of help available for people in such conditions is so scarce, so I am leaving my email
extraemailforflightschool@gmail.com
and I encourage anyone reading this to reach out to me for help if you are in a similar situation and I will help you to the best of my ability absolutely free of charge. I also ask if the moderators on this website could “pin” this message on the front page or anywhere future students can see this so they know what they are getting themselves into and to be able to reach out to me for help.
I apologize for this long wall of text, but it has to be done. The process is very long and complicated for mental health patients to get approved (rightfully so since if your job is flying a plane with hundreds of peoples lives in your hands, I totally understand the FAA wanting dozens of forms and reports saying you are medically sane) We are all at the whim of the FAA and there is no other way to get approved other than going through them, and lying to them is absolutely NOT an option, they WILL find out. I want to thank everyone in this thread who has ever helped me, especially Mr. Adam, Mr. Tory and Mr. Chris as well as Ms. Hannah and Ms. Addison, I have been asking questions in this forum for about a year and a half and I always get a speedy response, time flies and now with my medical, hopefully I will be able to too!!
