DODMERB Best Practices

Each year DODMERB is a painful process for aspiring applicants to Service Academies and ROTC Scholarships. If you are applying to an Academy, listen up to best practices that make this process smoother and increase your chances of a successful outcome.

1. Anticipate your medical issues. DODMERB uses a medical survey with 165+ questions.  Don’t assume you’ll have no medical issues, and then be surprised by the things they look for. Starting right now, go through pages 2-5 on the DODMERB checklist and anticipate what might be a significant issue. Some of the items you answer YES could be a disqualifier. 
2. Finish your application early. You often hear people advise you to finish your application early, but rarely do you hear a concrete reason why. Here’s possibly the best reason: The DODMERB process doesn’t start until after your application is 50% completed, so the later you wait to start, the less time you have for the medical review. If you get into “remedial” or “under waiver review” status, you want to have as much time as possible to get qualified. Give yourself the gift of time on the back end by finishing everything on the front end in a timely manner.
3. Go see a doctor. Once you have self-identified your significant issues, then, under certain conditions, it might be wise to go see a doctor in the appropriate specialty. Ask the doctor to give you a thorough medical evaluation and narrative summary that could be given to DODMERB in the event that you are put in remedial status. DODMERB are led by doctors. They respect other doctors’ opinions, not mom or dad’s. So, let the medical record tell the story as to whether you are medically qualified. 
4. Be forthright, but also be careful what you self-identify. To be successful in the DODMERB process, you must hold two truths in tension: 1) It is your legal obligation to self-report your medical history. Federal law provides severe penalties for a false statement, and doing the honorable thing is in the best interest of yourself and the country. 2) However, be careful about self-identifying your medical history based on hearsay. We do not advise you to lie or withhold your medical history; however, please also understand that many applicants self-identify issues that are not based on their medical history, and it puts them in a precarious situation.