Our son “Michael” is now 20. He’s a real good kid. Never gets in trouble. Doesn’t drink or smoke. Excellent student. He’s now in his third year of college, majoring in computer engineering.
Michael started taking flying lessons a few years ago at a local airport. He absolutely loves it. I am not sure how many hours he has at this point, but his instructor told him he is ready to solo.
He took his physical and passed with flying colors.
He filled out a form for the FAA. It asked about medication. Here’s where the complication occurs:
A couple years ago he was having some mild issues with anxiety and depression, so he visited a therapist a few times for counseling. He was prescribed some medication. (I am not sure what it was.) He took the medication three times. He didn’t like the side effects, so he stopped taking them.
On the form he was honest and listed the medication, and stated that he only took it three times. The FAA mailed a letter to him, telling him that this might be grounds for denying him a pilot’s license.
A few months went by. Michael called many times, and no one would help him. He received another letter. It said that they needed a letter from his therapist that says he no longer takes the meds. Good news! Well, not so fast. Michael said he received another letter from the FAA. Now they are wanting all the notes & transcripts that were written down by the therapist during the counseling sessions. The therapist said she will not hand them over. (I don’t blame her – I wouldn’t either.)
Michael told me that this might be a showstopper.
I feel super bad for Michael. All of these years of lessons and training, for nothing.
So here’s my question: is there anything we can do to convince the FAA to grant him a license? I just feel like they can’t do this for taking meds three times. Would hiring a lawyer do any good?
This seems dodgy to me. I get she shouldn’t release his records without his permission for anything short of a court order and a threat of going to prison. But with his permission why wouldn’t she? If she can 100% confirm that he wants her to hand over his records to a third party, and is not under duress, that should be the same, ethically as him receiving a copy of his notes (which I assume is allow?)
I don’t know what the answer is, but this sure seems to fly in the face of the whole opening-up of mental health awareness and maintenance that has been going on recently. What, if you go to a counseling session and are prescribed a drug to take temporarily, you cannot be a pilot? I get that they need to be careful about who gets to become a pilot, but come-on now - if people are taking care of their mental health the way we should and are encouraged to, no one will ever be able to do anything if stuff like this happens…“No, do not seek help for your problem - it will cause you more problems down the road!.”
Maybe have him ask the FAA what, specific info they need from the therapist, because she cannot provide everything they have requested due to privacy laws. Essentially, keep the conversation going and do a little horse trading to see what they will accept. I would not give up just yet with this first speed bump.
It talks about mental conditions that can be disqualifying, including:
(These are for “first class airman”; there are similar clauses for other classes of airmen).
My guess is that his use of medication triggered concern about one of those things.
Later on the same page, there’s the appeals process:
Note the thirty day timeline: once the denial is officially issued, the clock is ticking!
I am also seeing several attorneys who advertise assistance with just this issue. For example (and I’m not recommending this firm, just pulling them up as an early Google hit):
You may have already run across all this stuff, in which case sorry for pilotsplaining to you. (Or since i"m not a pilot, groundsplaining?) Were it me, I’d probably spring at least for an initial attorney consultation, on the basis that a few hundred dollars to potentially achieve a lifelong dream is well worth it.
It sucks how, on Tuesday, the healthy, self-actualizing decision is to seek clinical help and support and that in the modern world we’ve discarded all those medieval attitudes about what it means to have a psychiatric condition… but then, on Wednesday, to have received any psychiatric services means one is impaired and incapable of making rational decisions and can’t be trusted on the same basis as other people.
Be that as it may, a patient is generally entitled to acquire their own medical record. If need be, go to a person providing the same type of services just to have that professional person get all the HIPAA permission forms filled out and then request the medical records. It would be really unusual for a practitioner to refuse to provide them to a subsequent provider.
I think a well-worded letter to the FAA from the therapist who prescribed the medication would be the first (and least expensive) avenue to pursue. Ask the therapist to state in the letter that she cannot simply hand over her chart due to patient confidentiality (but, as DSeid suggests, your son can request his chart and send it himself). However, she can confirm that your son took only 3 doses of the medication and that he stopped completely and she prescribed no other medication for him. She should also confirm that she remains his therapist (in case they assume he went to a different therapist who is prescribing for him). She should also state that his anxiety is under control without medication (if indeed it is). She should further state that in her opinion, your son would make a fine, safe pilot.
I would discuss this with the therapist before she writes the letter, and explain how much of a dream piloting is to your son. Perhaps an additional positive letter from your son’s family physician would make it even harder for the FAA to deny your son a license.
Physicians often write very brief letters for these types of matters, unless you explain the importance of their input and how much it means to your son. Physicians can be very convincing when they put their minds to it.
I would do this before consulting an attorney. If it works (and it should) you’ll save legal fees.
There was a discussion of whether or not to truthfully report certain medical conditions to the FAA over in the Ongoing Aviation thread a little while ago. It started here, and as usual, @Llama_Llogophile, @LSLGuy, @Broomstick, and some of our other resident pilots had trenchant insights into the situation.
They might also be able to offer your son some useful advice, here or offline.
To be clear, is he just going to be private pilot (that is, not going to do it professionally)? because the requirements for a third class medical (what one needs to be a PP) is less than a first class (what one needs to fly for the airlines).
It is too late now (I think), but there is also “basic med” where you can get any doctor to say you are safe to fly – but one of the requirements is not be denied for a Nth class medical (IIRC)
This is a major reoccurring topic over at r/flying on Reddit. What I suspect you are going to need is a specialist AME (Aviation Medical Examiner) in the HIMS program to look over your son’s application and become his advocate in seeking a special issuance (or SI, as they like to call it).
This apparently is not a standardized process, meaning that the length of time the process takes and the amount of money it will require is hard to pin down in advance. Just at a quick glance, I see that there is also some expectation that varies amongst the AMEs on how long it has to have been since the last medication was taken, also depending on what it was. Sounds like an SSRI to me but who knows. I’m seeing anything from a couple year gap being desired to 10 years with no such medication.
I don’t get how its any different. Assuming the FAA does not accept me getting my records and then sending them on to the FAA (as I could presumably creatively edit them en route). If I decide that I want my doctor to give the FAA my records (and my doctor can absolutely verify that this is me, and I really definitely absolutely want the FAA to have my records). How is that any different to them giving them to me directly?
Of course the FAA doesn’t have the right to my records, but I don’t have the right to a pilots license either, so if I refuse them, they can refuse to give me a license.
To be blunt, the FAA doesn’t give a shit about any of this. There is a large workup of proscribed documentation and material that will need to be packaged up by the HIMS AME for review by the FAA. From what I’ve seen, anything that doesn’t fit the size and shape of the expectation just slows things down and possibly resets the clock. It’s a more than a year long process already.
An attorney won’t be able to help here. Only the specialist doctors can move this review along.
I agree that you should look into enlisting an AME who has experience with this sort of thing, and secondarily an aviation attorney if it comes to that.
Back when I was instructing I knew a lot of pilots who had to jump through hoops to get their medicals approved. It seems that having the right people in your corner is key. That and patience, because it can take time.
I should add there are absolutely well defined ways to do this. In order to volunteer at our kids pre-school we had to fill in a whole raft of forms, as well as criminal background checks there was one that gave permission to hand over medical records (presumably similarly to the OP they were looking for mental issues that were considered, rightly or wrongly, a “red flag” for people who were looking after kids)
I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that HIPAA says the therapist can’t release medical records without the patient’s permission. If the OP’s son gives permission for them to release the information than it’s not a violation.
Presumably this response from the therapist came after Crafter_Man’s son gave her permission to send them.
If Joe Schmoe asks his therapist to to forward notes and transcripts to the FAA, the therapist can’t cite Patient Confidentiality as a reason to refuse.
