• 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.   

  1. 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
  2. Prior service awards
  3. 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: 8/1/2024

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  The link above will take you to the Noncompetitive Promotion Roster for Promotion Year 2020.

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