DEFERRAL IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD TO PILOTS. In aviation-speak, a deferral means the medical application is forwarded onto the FAA for further review. The pilot walks out of the aviation medical examiner's office without a medical certificate, and the waiting begins. Because of a perfect storm of unexpected circumstances, the approximately 90-day average time for medical certification processing to be complete has slipped significantly. The FAA is scrambling to throw resources at the problem including overtime for certification staff, and "Surge Tuesdays," in which much of the FAA medical system staff is off the phones and working cases to get the backlog cleared out. Unfortunately, one of the bottlenecks in the system is a crucial first step in the review process—that of scanning all received hard-copy medical records into a digital format that can be sent to a reviewer's inbox. Until those records are digitally in the workflow system, the FAA doesn't really know they are there.
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