Cite as: 503 U. S. 140 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
thorized, under 28 CFR § 543.30 (1991), to award money damages. This "conversion" authority does not appear in the regulations having to do with the grievance procedure, which raises substantial doubt that an inmate would have sufficient notice as to how his claim would be treated. In any event, respondents have not pointed to anything in the record showing that prison officials have a practice of converting a claim filed under the general grievance procedure to a claim under the FTCA procedure. We agree with petitioner that it is implausible to think that they do. The availability of a money damages remedy is, at best, uncertain, and the uncertainty of the administrative agency's authority to award relief counsels against requiring exhaustion. See Hillsborough v. Cromwell, 326 U. S. 620, 626 (1946); Union Pacific R. Co. v. Board of Comm'rs of Weld County, 247 U. S. 282, 287 (1918).
We do not find the interests of the Bureau of Prisons to weigh heavily in favor of exhaustion in view of the remedial scheme and particular claim presented here. To be sure, the Bureau has a substantial interest in encouraging internal resolution of grievances and in preventing the undermining of its authority by unnecessary resort by prisoners to the federal courts. But other institutional concerns relevant to exhaustion analysis appear to weigh in hardly at all. The Bureau's alleged failure to render medical care implicates only tangentially its authority to carry out the control and management of the federal prisons. Furthermore, the Bureau does not bring to bear any special expertise on the type of issue presented for resolution here.
The interests of judicial economy do not stand to be advanced substantially by the general grievance procedure. No formal factfindings are made. The paperwork generated by the grievance process might assist a court somewhat in ascertaining the facts underlying a prisoner's claim more quickly than if it has only a prisoner's complaint to review. But the grievance procedure does not create a formal factual
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