PERSONNEL--Medical Reviews Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 08:05:34 -0500 To: "AO - All Administrative Officers", "SO - All Safety Officers" From: "Betty J Dodds, Secretary, Reston, VA" (Betty J. Dodds) X-Sender: bjdodds@130.11.51.82 Subject: PERSONNEL--Medical Reviews The Water Resources Division (WRD) is in the process of negotiating an agreement with the Department of the Interior (DOI) Service Center (ISC) for employee medical review services. Because of the budget cuts at DOI, there is now a $100 fee for this service. We will notify you when the WRD/ISC agreement is signed. In the interim, you will be requested to sign an agreement to pay the fee if you wish to utilize ISC services for an employee medical review. Please note that a review is needed only if the examining official is unable to certify the employee fit for duty. To help clarify the present situation, we are listing three questions that have recently been asked concerning the source for reviews, records archiving, and fees. Question 1 - Can we have the employee medical review done locally since we can have the physicals performed by local OSHA certified physicians? Answer - Yes Question 2 - If we accept the local physicians review, do we need to instruct them to send their paperwork to our Bureau Region Personnel Office? Answer - Yes, send the examination results to your servicing Bureau Regional Personnel Office. Question 3 - Is it appropriate for our DOI office to assess $100 per review? It seems, because of the nature of our work, the need to ensure that our employees health is assessed and monitored, and the fact that we're required to provide health surveillance, the cost of time spent for review would be built into their cost of operation. Answer - The DOI ISC has incurred budget cuts and has reorganized since the Medical Director retired in 1994. The charge provides 50% for an outside contracted medical reviewer in Pittsburgh, and the rest of it funds the ISC staff. So far, there are other DOI bureaus who have established the MOU's with the DOI. They include NPS, FWLS, OSM, and BLM. If you have any questions, please call G.J. Hwang at 703/648-5255 or send email to "gjhwang".