• Medical Affairs

  Deployment Health Assessments

  An important priority of the Surgeon General and Commissioned Corps Headquarters (CCHQ) is to make sure that all officers can safely deploy to meet the mission of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. To ensure this, the Medical Affairs Branch (MAB) and Readiness and Deployment Branch (RDB)/Corps Care have established the Deployment Health Assessment (DHA) for Public Health Service (PHS) officers to express and formally document their health and safety concerns regarding deployments. This pre and post deployment assessment will be administered to officers through our contractor Logistics Health, Inc.-OptumServe (LHI).

  The DHA will contain a series of questions developed specifically for PHS officers. It will also contain validated behavioral health screening questions for anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and alcohol abuse. The pre-DHA will focus on your pre-deployment health status and provide you with  an opportunity to express any health concerns that you have. The post-DHA will concentrate on any health issues that arose during or immediately after your deployment. The behavioral health screening questions will be repeated and compared to your responses in the pre-DHA. If indicated, the clinicians in CCHQ (MAB and Corps Care) will contact you to make sure that the issues you raised are addressed.

  DHAs will start to be incorporated into the deployment process. Not all officers who are rostered to deploy will be asked to complete a DHA. For example, PHS officers who deploy virtually or who deploy for less than one week will not be directed to complete a DHA.

  If you are directed to participate, the following will happen:

  1. You will receive a notification through text or email from LHI.
  2. You will be directed to access the LHI secure portal to set up a one-time account and choose how you want to be contacted (text or email). Your initial communications from LHI will contain a unique identifier that you must use to set up your account.
  3. Once your account is set-up, you will be directed to complete an online health questionnaire. The online portion of the DHA can be completed at any time, 24/7.
  4. After you complete the questionnaire, you will be directed to contact the LHI call center to talk briefly with one of their healthcare professionals. That individual will clarify any answers, if needed, and ask you some additional questions. The call center is available from 0700-2000 Central time, Monday-Friday, and 0700-1200, Saturday and Sunday.
  5. Once the entire DHA is complete, MAB will obtain it from LHI, review it, and determine if you can deploy safely. If you were told to complete a pre-DHA, you will likely be directed to complete a post-DHA within 14 days after you are demobilized. The post-DHA will allow you to document any health-related issues that arose during your deployment.

  DHAs are considered Protected Health Information (PHI) and will be handled accordingly. Only clinical staff within LHI and CCHQ (MAB and Corps Care) will have access to the DHAs, and they’ll be placed in your digital medical folder after review. Your individual responses to health-related questions will not be shared with the deployment team, your supervisor, or your agency liaison. Deployment and/or safety concerns that you raise in the post-DHA will be discussed with RDB to implement solutions.

  Please understand, the DHA is not a replacement for the medical waiver process. You are still responsible for submitting a medical deployment waiver request as soon as you or your provider feel that you developed a health issue which prevents you from safely deploying.

  For more information on the DHA, a webinar explaining the process is available on the Commissioned Corps Learning Management System (CCLMS): https://usphstraining.hhs.gov/course/view.php?id=634&section=0.

  Last Updated: 11/10/22
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