Airmen with medical waivers get reviewed

[unhappycamper]

Airmen with medical waivers get reviewed
By Bruce Rolfsen - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Dec 29, 2009 8:37:44 EST

If you haven’t deployed because you wrenched your back or had a baby, the Air Force is watching you — closely.

The scrutiny is the response to findings by the Air Force Audit Agency that the service failed to track its medical waivers from late 2001, when deployments ramped up after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, through 2006. Only this year has there been a strict accounting policy in place Air Force-wide.

Now, all airmen who have medical waivers face a monthly review by their base commanders and doctors — and a possible change in their deployment status, according to Lt. Col. Brian Pinkston, a flight surgeon and chief of operational medicine for the Air Force Medical Support Agency.

“If someone has a broken arm that should have healed in six weeks and it’s now six months, they pull the records and say, ‘Does this make sense?’ Pinkston said.

Because of the new scrutiny, the number of airmen with permanent nondeployable conditions is a fraction of what it was eight years ago.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/12/airforce_medical_waivers_122909w/