PROFIS


The PROFIS or Professional Filler System is used by the United States Military to fill voids in personnel when a unit deploys on a combat or humanitarian mission. Due to the high financial cost of employing physicians, civil engineers, lawyers or other "high dollar specialists" in a military unit, usually at the battalion and sometimes at the brigade level a full time "specialist" is not permanently assigned to these units. When a unit deploys to an austere location, the demand for a specialist increases. The military's solution is to have a PROFIS or assigned specialist to these units that only serves with the unit when they deploy.
The system is mostly used for assigning physicians and other medical providers to a unit. Medical professionals are usually assigned to military hospitals or clinics, where they see patients, exactly like civilian providers. When a unit deploys, a provider is pulled from his or her hospital job and assigned with the unit. A PROFIS provider usually deploys with the unit for the duration of that unit's deployment. That usually means the PROFIS physician is with the unit a month before deployment, through the duration of the deployment, and then three months after the deployment. Usually physicians are assigned to these lengthy deployments. As a unit surgeon, the physician can expect to do administrative as well as clinical duties. Many times the physician is 60% administrator and 40% clinician.
Medical and surgical subspecialists may be assigned PROFIS to combat support hospitals. These deployments may be shorter than deployment time for primary care physicians. Additionally, a CSH functions like a hospital, which means these physicians basically do the same job they do in CONUS, but they do the job in a combat theater.

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