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- Travel, PCS and Transportation
- Important Regulation Changes
- Travel & Transportation Entitlements Summary
- Permanent Change of Station (PCS)
- Temporary Duty (TDY)
- Junior COSTEP Travel Information
- Official Travel Forms
- Household Goods Officers
- Transportation
- Government Travel Charge Card
- Table of Frequently Used Acronyms
- Servicemembers Civil Relief Act
- Links
- Travel and Transportation Allowances FAQ
- About Medical Affairs
- Dental
- Active Duty Dental Program
- Previous Active Duty Dental Plan Member Portal
- Family Coverage: TRICARE Dental Program
- Retiree Dental Program
- Immunizations
- Periodic Health Update
- PHU FAQs
- Deployment Health Assessments
- Medical Waiver Program
- Smoking Cessation
- Medical Affairs FAQs
- About Personnel & Career Management
- Awards-Officer Awards Program
- Nominations Procedures and Forms
- Eligibility to Receive Awards
- Approval Levels
- Types of Recognition & Awards Criteria
- Non-PHS Awards
- Write-Up (Narrative) Guidance & Tips
- List of OPDIV Awards Coordinators (PDF, 67kb)
- List of Liaisons (PDF, 266kb)
- 2021 USPHS Awards Process Flowchart (PDF, 702kb)
- FAQs
- May 2022 Officer Awards
- DEERS Information (PDF, 139kb)
- Important Information Regarding DEERS and ID Cards During COVID-19 (PDF, 57kb)
- eCORPS Information
- Education Benefits Overview
- FAQs
- Forms
- Electronic Official Personnel Folder (eOPF)
- eOPF FAQs
- eOPF Status
- FAQs Practice Hours and Special Pay Changes
- Licensure
- Transcripts FAQs
- Extramural and Intramural Training FAQs
- Officer Leave and Absence Request FAQ
- Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA)
- Veteran Health Administration (VHA) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Practice Hours
- Link to list of Professional Advisory Committee (PAC) Chairs (PDF, 19kb)
- About Policy
- Commissioned Corps Issuance System
- Equal Opportunity
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Political Restrictions
- Promotion Ceremony Protocol (PDF, 126kb)
- SGHG Drill and Ceremonies Manual (PDF, 3.39mb)
- Uniform Specifications
- PHS Hard Shoulder Boards and Sleeve Insignia (Male and Female) (PDF, 828kb)
- PHS Soft Shoulder Marks (Unisex) (PDF, 324kb)
- Medical Requirements for Promotion
- Force Readiness Information
- Link to list of Chief Professional Officers (CPO) (PDF, 348kb)
- Link to list of Liaisons (PDF, 266kb)
- Promotion Board Recommendations
- Not promoted? Now What?
- FAQs
- Board Composition and Scoresheet FAQs
- Officer Promotion Packet Verification System (OPPVS) Timeline & FAQs
- Promotion, Readiness and Compliance FAQs
- Permanent Promotion Eligibility Chart
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- Visit CDC.gov for Coronavirus (COVID-19) Public Health Updates
As Public Health Service Officers and America’s Health Responders, we stand ready to preserve public health and national security during national or global health emergencies. Our mission is to be out the door as soon as requested, as this is an “all hands on deck” situation. All Corps officers were placed on involuntary deploy or "alert" status effective Wednesday, March 25, 2020, irrespective of the 'on-call month' status. Under Commissioned Corps Directive 121.02, "Deployment and Readiness," as directed by Assistant Secretary for Health, Commissioned Corps Headquarters will deploy Commissioned Corps officers assigned to HHS OpDivs/StaffDivs, either voluntarily or involuntarily and without supervisory approval, who are not considered mission critical, for deployments, under the current National Emergency. Mission critical requests sent to CCHQ are not final until the request is approved by the CCHQ Director as per the POM 821.76 ”Deployment Procedures”. An officer with a non-HHS organization may be deployed in accordance with the Memorandum of Agreement/Understanding between the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and the non-HHS organization.
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Commissioned Officers’ Awards Program
Non-PHS Awards
A non-PHS award is defined as an award given outside of the Commissioned Corps. These can be further broken down into the following subcategories.
- Wearable ribbons from other uniformed services (e.g., DoD, USCG, and NOAA awards) for officers who are officially assigned, detailed, or attached to these outside entities
- Prior service awards
- Agency, Professional Advisory Committees (PACs), or other official award recognition
DoD, USCG and NOAA Awards
To receive recognition and to wear ribbons earned from other services, the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) officer must have been formally assigned or detailed as a PHS officer to an authorized Department of Defense (DoD), U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), or National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) position per CCI 511.02 “Award of Uniformed Services Decorations.” Additionally, all officers must meet the criteria set forth in CCI 511.01 to be eligible for this recognition.
For inclusion of non-PHS awards into officer’s promotion information report (PIR), the award must be submitted to the officer’s Agency Commissioned Corps Liaison or Awards Coordinator. After the necessary verifications and administrative checks are complete, the information will be submitted to the COAP Team. The COAP team will perform final administrative checks and confirm the award is authorized to wear in the PHS uniform as laid out in CCI 512.01 “Wear of Awards and Badges.”
For inclusion of non-PHS honor awards into officers’ electronic Official Personnel Folder (eOPF), the officer will be responsible for self-uploading the supporting documentation utilizing the eDOC-U platform. The following criteria must be met:
- The award is posted in the officer’s PIR
- The award is no older than 7 years
- The award is an non-PHS wearable ribbon honor award (Honor Awards List)
- Documentation must include:
- Officer’s name
- SERNO
- Award name
- Award citation
- Acceptable forms for documentation include:
- Nomination form
- Certificate
- Official memo from the approving authority
If the above criteria are not met, the COAP team will reject the self-upload.
The non-PHS honor awards in question does not include the following:
- Prior service awards
- Agency awards (such as IHS Director’s Awards or FDA Commissioner’s Awards)
- Awards older than 7 years old
- Non-wearable awards that are not included within the officer’s PIR
Prior Service Awards
Prior service awards are recognitions that officers received while serving in a previous uniform service prior to commissioning as a USPHS officer. Prior service awards are the only awards that will be directly accepted from an officer by the Commissioned Officers’ Awards Program (COAP) Team. All other awards must be routed through the officer’s current Agency Commissioned Corps Liaison or Awards Coordinator. These representatives will perform the necessary verifications and administrative checks and forward the information to the COAP Team for processing.
Prior service awards are formally processed by COAP to enable wear of authorized awards on the PHS uniform. Awards received while on active duty with another uniformed service will be processed only with a copy of a DD-214 or DD-215 as defined in CCI 512.01 “Wear of Awards and Badges.” Optimally, these will be entered upon Call to Active Duty. If a complete DD-214 is not available upon Call to Active Duty, the officer is required to send either a redacted copy or a securely scanned copy by encrypted email to phspriorsawards@hhs.gov for processing.
Agency, PAC and other official Award recognition
Agency Awards (i.e. IHS Director’s Award, FDA Commissioner’s Special Citation), PAC awards (i.e. Engineer of the Year), and other official PHS Awards (i.e. VADM Richard Carmona Inspiration Award) are not processed through COAP for the PIR. Documentation should be uploaded through eDOC-U under Agency/Category Awards, and it will be placed under the PHS Support Activity section. See the eOPF Processing Status page for more information.
Last Updated: 2/10/2023