Special Issuance process
I don’t want to be perceived as having a bad attitude - I’m committed to full disclosure medically - and my goal is simply to better understand the Special Issuance process to optimize my chances of success. But the more I learn about the Special Issuance process, the more I’m more concerned, frustrated and - in all honesty - scared (not of being thoroughly evaluated, but of a possible incorrect adverse end result).
Once deferred to OKC/DC, this whole thing honestly feels like a question of whether your AME “likes you” enough to advocate hard & correctly for you and, more importantly, whether the FAA officials/employees handling your package “like you.” The pilot has to shell out thousands of dollars to be evaluated in great depth and invest 6-12 months (non-revenue airmen currently but aspiring Part 121 pilot) to learn the result. There are no objective standards (the pilot doesn’t meet those or they wouldn’t need SI process to begin with) so there’s tons of individual discretion & inconsistency applied to determine the result. FAA bureaucrats - who, at the end of the day, are really in the business of CYA-ing themselves long/well enough to qualify for their federal retirement - have no motivation to approve SI’s and have complete access (via request/requirement to the pilot to provide) to medical records to find one obscure misdiagnosis or note from decades ago that concerns them enough to not approve an SI (or that was inadvertently left off the current MedExpress form or my last medical application from decades ago) and order any evaluation they want done regardless of cost or true medical validity. This whole process takes a disgusting amount of time - what is the FAA REALLY doing that makes it take this long to learn the result of the process? There’s an extremely delicate balance to find between proactively giving the FAA information to minimize the time the SI process takes without giving them info they would’ve never asked for otherwise (i.e., avoiding providing info they wouldn’t have otherwise asked for that will cause issues). HIMS AME’s (or, really, their secretaries/gatekeepers) can refuse to work with you at their whim & without knowing any facts at all of your situation - they are “for-profit” entities and if they’ve decided that their belly is full enough for now, then that’s that. I have done consults with 2 HIMS AME’s who said they can get me through the process...but they get paid for me choosing to go through the process, NOT for a successful result, so I don’t know how much stock to place in their assessment.
I’ve long-since reached a point of paralysis-by-analysis regarding the SI process; the more I learn, the more it concerns me. To those who have been through this in some fashion: please demystify this for me or give me some hope or - more than anything - tell me how to get through this successfully.
For what it’s worth, my need for a HIMS AME has nothing to do with anything criminal, legal or that would cause concern on a background check - purely medical (no DUI/public intoxicating/etc). No offense intended to anyone with HIMS criminal/legal issues - we all make mistakes (I sure do).