Originally Posted by bankston

I've read on a couple of threads here the advise that you have one doc as your AME and then your "real" doc that you tell your "real" medical problems to.

Perhaps I'm just naive about the whole process... If the FAA has your social security number and your employer information, which they do, do they not also have the means to discover that you are seeing another doctor for some reason or another? Or does HIPPA and patient confidentiality effectively shield pilots from this practice of revealing (potentially exclusionary) medical information to one doctor and not the the AME?

Surely, given the claws that our govt. has, you would think they have -or someday will have- the means, under the guise of "protecting" us and those around, to access the medical records of our "real" doctors either through insurance companies, the doctors themselves, or some through some other mechanism. Frankly I'd be surprised if the FAA doesn't already have some mechanism in place to verify the veracity the statements made by pilots on their medical apps.

In my opinion, the prospect of not keeping something from an AME that I AM telling my "real" doc scares the **** out of me. The possible repercussions - lost licenses, jail, fines- of failing to disclose potentially exclusionary information are so steep. Is it really worth it?

B