My son is in the middle of this process right now. He was diagnosed with exercise induced asthma in junior high. Had an inhaler for a year but has since outgrown it. Played hockey all his life as well as baseball. Long story short we just received his waiver along with their additional requirements one being a pulmonologist for additional testing. We chose to go through them to find the specialist but it seems to be taking awhile. Should we find our own? Thank you!
We were given the name of a specialist to go to by DODMERB (i think that's the right acronym). It was a clinic that specializes in it. Basically, the medical review board wants to see that your son does not have asthma. The clinic/specialist will test him for asthma. If they conclude he does not, he should receive a waiver. If they conclude he does have asthma, my understanding is he will get not get a waiver and will be medically disqualified. Please understand I am not expert and I'm only conveying my daughter's experience. Good luck.
We used the pulmonologist referred by the CIV team. My DD has a history of asthma after 13 but was also a three-sport athlete, captain of all three teams, etc. She was a recruited athlete for USMMA and the coaches made comments several times leading us to believe that asthma wouldn't necessarily disqualify her. She also had a conditional offer to NAPS and ended up being medically disqualified from both SAs. There were three other issues that required AMIs so I guess that didn't help my DD. She's going through another round of waiver AMI for ROTC, so we're really hoping the third try is a charm! I've heard from several people that SAs do grant a few asthma waivers per year so I wouldn't be discouraged. Best wishes for your son!
Thank you for your response.
Thank you. We heard last night the CIV team found a provider but could take two to three weeks for an appointment. Trying to stay optimistic!
My DD received a provider yesterday from the CIV team, but the provider's office isn't answering (she left voicemails). So frustrating! I told her to give them 24 hours. If she doesn't get anywhere with them by COB today, we'll go through our insurance. We actually used CIV referral for a pulmonologist and our own insurance for another specialist during the SA application process. Definitely keep your options open.Thank you. We heard last night the CIV team found a provider but could take two to three weeks for an appointment. Trying to stay optimistic!
I would encourage her to call CIV to confirm providers number or ask for someone else if they aren't responding. If you can use the CIV provider I feel like that's always the safest option since they are approved by CIV team.
My son is calling the number of the provider in his DodMets portal. When he calls that number of the provider the providers office told him : The process on the end of DodMerd is incomplete for him to schedule the appointment and that he will get a call when it’s complete. All total this is our third week of trying to get this taken care of.
I think it's time for your son to call the Civ team and let them know what's happening. It shouldn't be taking that long for the provider to have the information and get him on their schedule. Civ team would need to send the orders to the provider, so maybe that has stalled somewhere, but CIV should be able to check on it and hopefully get him squared away quickly! If CIV team says they have sent it, then they might need to send again. I'm not sure what other issue could be keeping them from getting him scheduled, but it should not take 3 weeks for them to get him going on the process at the provider. Once we had the provider, it took a few days for them to get the orders from CIV team, but we called everyday to check on it. Brace yourself that it could be a while before they have an appointment available, my son's appointment was 2 1/2 months out from when he called to schedule. He did call back several times and was able to get a cancelation slot a month sooner. There is a lot of double checking and following up in this process. The squeaky wheel get's the grease usually. In our experience, my son had to call Civ and email Dodmerb several times when things weren't going smoothly, but that always seemed to produce a result. Obviously he has to be a little patient, but this is important stuff to get done asap, and it's ok for him to be assertive! Hope that helps!
I know how you feel, it’s not the easiest process to get through.