Promotion Process  Who is reviewed by the Promotion Board? Officers eligible for competitive promotion (all Regular Corps Permanent grades, all Reserve Corps Permanent grades O-4 and above, all Temporary grades O-4 and above). (Exception: Temporary O-4 is non-competitive for the Medical and Dental categories) are reviewed by a Promotion Board.  What is a Promotion Board? A Promotion Board is a group of five temporary grade O-6 officers, with two to three additional officers as alternates, who are selected to review the files of officers who are eligible for promotion within their category. They are chosen randomly and appointed by the Surgeon General based on eligibility criteria and with every effort made to ensure a cross section as representative as possible of the category or group they represent. Officers are not able to serve on a board more than once every 3 years and they take an oath to hold in confidence everything that is seen, read or discussed while serving on the board. In some cases with smaller categories, if there are not enough officers eligible to serve on the Promotion Board an officer from another category with a comparable discipline, if possible, may serve on a different category’s board. There are a total of 14 boards, one for each of the 11 categories in the Corps, and one for the Research Officer Group (ROG). Two of the categories (Nurse and Medical) are broken into an upper board and a lower board. When do the Promotion Boards meet? Promotion boards meet each Spring (typically from February to June) to review records of officers who will become eligible for promotion from July 1st of that year through June 30th of the following year. For example, a promotion board will meet in Spring of 2009 to review all officers eligible for promotion from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010.      What does the Promotion Board use to score officers? The Promotion Board review includes careful consideration of the officer's career as it relates to the five precepts upon which the benchmarks are developed and promotion recommendations are based. These five precepts are:               1) Performance (40% of overall score)               2) Education, Training, and Professional Development (15% of overall score)               3) Career Progression and Potential (25% of overall score)               4) Characteristics of Career Officer & Service to the Corps (15% of overall score)               5) Response Readiness (5% of overall score, not scored by the promotion board,                   based on OFRD December quarterly check) In evaluating an officer for promotion, the board references the benchmarks for each category of the "best qualified" officer. The board compares the officer, as reflected in the eOPF, against the theoretical "best qualified" officer. This "best qualified" officer is the only competition for any one officer being reviewed by a Promotion Board. Each professional category has established benchmarks which address those qualifications determined to reflect the "best qualified" officer. What does/doesn’t the Promotion Board see? The Promotion Board members have access to many items in an officer’s eOPF. Although the blue, green, and pink Sections are available for review, Board members find that the "Commissioned Officers' Effectiveness Report" (COER) provides specific information about the previous year's duties, accomplishments, and goals. An up-to-date Curriculum Vitae (CV) is essential for outlining major duties and outcomes demonstrating progressive growth in an officer's career and a continued increase in professional value to the Corps. A Reviewing Official Statement (ROS) and an Officer Statement (OS) are an integral part of the board review as well. The promotion board members focus on many documents to include:                * Coers                * PIR                * CV                * OS/ROS                * Letters of Appreciation                * Awards                * Licenses/Certifications/Credentials The promotion board members do not have access to:                * Medical information                * Compensation information                * Personal information, e.g., marriage/divorce, birth certificates, insurance                * Previous board scores/score sheets                * Previous years OS/ROS                * Readiness status There are no scoring procedures which establish lower rates for officers previously considered for promotion. The board is not aware of who has not been successful in previous years and who has not. This is the reason for hiding any previous board scores, score sheets, OS, ROS, etc. How does the Promotion Board score officers? Each officer eligible for promotion is scored by each board member on each of the first four precepts using a scale of 0-100 using 5 point increments. The second requirement each board member has is to make a promotion recommendation. For permanent grade the options are “recommend” or “not-recommend.” For temporary grade, the options are “recommend,” “defer,” or “not-recommend.” For a description of each of these promotion recommendations, refer to the Table of Contents on the Promotion Information Web site. Once the board members score all officers in their category, the board members’ scores are averaged for each precept and multiplied by the weight of each precept to get an overall precept score. OCCO then adds the five points for all the officers who are readiness qualified as reported by OFRD. Each weighted precept score is added together to get a promotion board score. What if a Board Member knows the officer they are scoring? Promotion Boards are charged to review the complete OPF and score according to its contents only. Board members are instructed that they are not to consider or discuss any anecdotal information during the promotion process. If a board member is not able to objectively score an officer for any reason, they are asked to recuse themselves from scoring that officer. If this occurs, the officer’s score is an average of the remaining four board members. What if there is a tie in scoring? If there is a tie between two officers eligible for the same rank in the same category, the tie is broken using the following criteria in order until the tie is broken.               * Regular Corps officer has standing over Reserve Corps officer               * Higher permanent grade has relative standing over lower permanent                   grade               * Seniority Credit Date               * Years of active duty Corps service               * Years of active duty service in any uniformed service and at any rank How is it determined who is successful for promotion and who is not? The officers are rank ordered in sequential order of their promotion board scores creating a rank order list. The number of officers promoted depends on the requirements of the Corps in each grade as determined by the Assistant Secretary for Health (ASH) in consultation with the Surgeon General (SG). These success rates are multiplied by the total number eligible in each category for each grade to determine the total number of people promoted within each category and for each grade. These numbers are applied to the rank order list and a success line is drawn. Those above the line on the rank order list are successful; those below the line are not successful. Are all those above the success line promoted? Once the successful list is created, those officers are reviewed for administrative checks. For temporary promotion officers are checked to ensure: They have no missing COERs for the last 5 years (as applicable); they have no administrative action pending; they have a current valid license/certification on file with OCCO; and OFRD reports they meet readiness standards and are qualified for both the December and March quarterly readiness checks. For permanent grade promotion, all the same administrative checks apply in addition to MAB reporting those who meet medical requirements and all officers who have held the equivalent temporary grade for at least one year. All officers who are successful and pass all administrative criteria checks will be promoted. How will an officer know what the Promotion Board scored or recommended? All officers reviewed for promotion will have a score sheet and a Promotion Information Report (PIR) in the confidential document section of the eOPF. This score sheet provides each precept score, the number of recommend/not recommends/recusals, and feedback from the board members. If an officer is considered for a temporary and permanent promotion, there will be scoresheets and PIRs for both grades in the confidential document section of the eOPF.  In some cases, the scores the officer receives will be the same. But they may not be the same since board members may review the officer’s eOPF and score each type of promotion independently.