Everything about MEPs depression waiver

In this guide, we will discuss everything about MEPs depression waiver.

To ensure that applicants are fit for service, the U.S. Armed Forces employ many requirements. That’s why the military has qualifications for education, citizenship, and physical health. Besides, fresh candidates must pass a medical and dental test, as well as a mental health observation. You could have a chance of getting a military medical waiver if the military finds you unfit for service.

Military mental wellbeing is taken very seriously, not just for entry into the services, but also for remaining in the services. There are several disqualifying medical conditions for military entry and continued service, including some about mental health and disease. And if you are later found to have been misdiagnosed as an infant or adolescent before attempting to serve in the military, taking drugs for any of the following conditions may also prohibit you from serving.

MEPs depression waiver

It disqualifies mood conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder, paranoia, and other unidentified depressive problems. Any history of mood disorders involving treatment and/or ambulatory care by a mental health provider for more than six months is also disqualifying. Any mood and mental symptoms that impair social capacity, education, and learning, or job effectiveness are also disqualifying. This one is extreme and unlikely to be considered for entry into the military for the waiver phase.

Antidepressants are disqualified after you stop taking them for 1 year. You MUST avoid therapy with your doctors, DO NOT stop on your own. These drugs also need to be slowly lowered to minimize side effects and reduce the risk of relapse. When you are off and free from depression for 1 year, get copies of your treatment documentation, including therapy notes, and take them to your recruiter with you. They will send the documents for analysis to MEPS. MEPS will allow you either to DQ, physical and enlist, or physical with a waiver (most likely). Answer 2: The doctor who prescribed the anti-depressants would need to carry my medical records. You will go to MEPS, take the ASVAB, but because of being truthful about depression, the processing will be terminated at a certain stage. Your records will be sent for review to the AF surgeon general’s office. It supposedly took between six weeks and three months to do this—mine took three full months.

You will be cleared to return to MEPS if the waiver is issued. They’ll do a height/weight assessment on your return ride, then send you to a psychological consultation offsite. Afterward, the doctor will give his recommendation to MEPS, where you will be further tested. It took me about five weeks. You can return to MEPS for job selection if you are found fit for work. Depression, contrary to what I was initially told, rules out several positions in the AF.

Medical waivers

For persons who want to join the U.S. military, the Department of Defense (DoD) sets the medical requirements. For all military branches, including the Coast Guard, these standards are the same since the Department of Homeland Security has agreed to use the same standards to promote the processing of the Military Entry Processing Station (MEPS).

Start of medical examination

When you complete the medical pre-screening form at the recruiter’s office, the process begins. This is submitted to MEPS by the recruiter, calling for a medical test appointment. Now, MEPS does not belong to any unique service division. It’s what is known as a joint command which functions independently of all branches of operation.

A MEPS physician reviews the form. If any potentially disqualifying medical conditions are mentioned, MEPS can contact the recruiter to ensure that you carry with you for the test a copy of your civilian medical records related to the condition.

The doctor conducting the examination will sometimes conclude that you have a medical condition that disqualifies you with little to no possibility of a waiver. MEPS can disqualify you on the spot in such cases and refuse to conduct a medical examination. Your path into military service is over if this happens. This decision has no appeal.

It is technically possible for the recruiting commander of the service you are trying to join to request a medical waiver from their medical command via MEPS, but this is uncommon.

If your medical examination is completed, according to the medical criteria established by the DoD, you are determined to be either “medical qualified for military service,” or “medically disqualified for military service,”

Disqualification can be temporary and permanent

Two kinds of disqualifications are available: temporary and permanent. “permanent” does not necessarily indicate that you are unable to join the army, and “temporary” does not imply that you need a waiver. Temporary means you currently have a medical condition that is disqualifying, but that will change over time. An instance may be that you can’t enlist with a fractured foot, but once it recovers, the injury would no longer disqualify, assuming no complications, and you would be able to enlist without a waiver. Permanent means you have a medical condition that is disqualifying and will not improve over time, such as a history of depression.

If you receive an approved waiver, you can not participate in a permanent medical disqualification.

If you are found to be permanently ineligible, the MEPS doctor will indicate whether a waiver is recommended in your case on your medical form. It is the first step in the process of medical waiver. The physician would consider the following when making the recommendation:

• Is the disease progressive?
• Is this state subject to military service aggravation?
• Will the situation prevent the prescribed preparation and subsequent military service from being performed satisfactorily?
• Would the situation, particularly under combat conditions, constitute an unnecessary risk to the exam or others?

MEPS is achieved with the medical waiver procedure until the doctor makes a decision. The rest is up to the service that you are seeking to engage in.

The decision of recruiting commander

For the service you are applying to join, the medical records and the recommendation of the doctor go to the recruitment commander (or appointed representative). The commander decides whether a medical waiver should be sought. The commander considers the doctor’s advice in making this decision, along with two additional factors:

• Is the recruit otherwise uniquely qualified? (The variables may be ASVAB grades, college credits, physical activity, and fluency in foreign languages.)
• Are new recruitment targets being achieved?

If the commander wishes to request a waiver, depending on the branch of the service you’re entering, where it goes from that point. Multiple levels of military medical officers, however, examine the form and documents. Every doctor checks them and recommends approval or rejection before a high-ranking doctor (O-6 or above) who makes the ultimate decision eventually falls into the hands of them.

If the medical waiver is refused, for every hope that you have of entering that branch of operation, that’s the end of the line. There are no appeals for disapproval of the medical waiver-the appeal is the waiver process.

Timeline for waiver approval

There is absolutely no way of guessing how long a waiver request would take to make it through the approval process. Various waivers have distinct stages of scrutiny and approval. For example, the commander of the recruiting squadron can depend on the service, authorizing a waiver for too many traffic tickets.

However, for the whole service, a waiver for more serious violations will have to go all the way up the chain to the “big chief” of recruitment. Usually, a medical waiver would go all the way up to the Office of the Surgeon General. A few things to remember:

• There are other responsibilities for the persons who review/approve the waivers, so your waiver may not be a priority.
• There are also hundreds of other waivers going through the process, and every application must be individually reviewed.

Know, this means you are exempt from military service if you need a waiver. In your specific case, the waiver method is the process of pleading with the military to make an exception.

Contact your congressperson 

The individual service has the full right, under the law and DoD rules, to determine whether to accept or disagree with medical exemptions, depending on the service’s current needs. Nothing will alter a Legislative investigation.

Approval/disapproval of the waiver is only available to the specific service branch. For example, if the Navy refuses your waiver, you will walk to the Army recruitment office across the hall and the Army will likely accept and authorize a waiver. Conversely, you could not use the waiver to join the Army until the Navy accepted a medical waiver.

After you are on active duty, if a medical illness is diagnosed, assuming it is not a pre-existing condition that you lied about, the military will not discharge you until a Medical Assessment Board decides that you will not fulfill your duties.

In this guide, we discussed everything about MEPs depression waiver.

FAQs: Everything about MEPs depression waiver

References

https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/military-recruiting-process-faqs.html#q9

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/medical-waivers-3354037

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/military-medical-standards-for-enlistment-and-commission-3354046