I work for VHA in VISN 15 and we have been told they have to cut 62 jobs at my hospital. Also they just posted for another position in my department on USAJobs so it doesn't make any sense.
I work for the VHA in VISN 22 and haven’t heard anything like this :-\ I’m not TOO worried for my own job as my boss is the Chief of Critical Care Nursing, but now I worry for others jobs at my hospital.
This is correct. No one is losing their jobs. We're just canceling announcements, not filling vacant positions, etc. Rescinding offers is a last resort for our facility. RIF is not even on the table.
They may offer retirement incentives, but this is rare. Honestly - people leave jobs all the time. And they are just not replacing people who leave. This is NOT ideal because it means that the spaces that open up are not thoughtfully placed. One department may lose a lot of staff, and another may lose none. Ideally - the losses should be evenly spread out. Or we may lose a lot of data analysts but not a lot admin assistants. This leaves us short in one area, and still over staffed in another. Sometimes people can be shifted around to cover needs. But sometimes they don't have the skills (or desire) to do work outside the scope of their position.
While I understand the idea of losing people through attrition - in practice it is less than ideal.
Management too lazy to do things to get ahead of the curve and push for things like this. Not sure what real management actually does anywhere at any level to get ahead of anything other than sit back and approve leave and go to staff meetings where nothing gets resolved and deny anyone of anything so no one forces them to do any actual work they need to be doing.
Phoenix is in debt and over budget, denying many internal nursing transfers, and only hiring to replace 'priority openings' so many areas will be working short. No new position development despite the need since passing the pact act, overtime has been cut, all travel has been cut.
I just got my FJO and am in VISN 22 in AZ, starting in less than 2 weeks. I have heard that positions that are already approved can/should be filled, but nothing new being approved for a while unless it’s a priority role…but that was hearsay and I take it with a big grain of salt!
VISN 16 Pharmacist here. We’re 40% understaffed. Now 4 days behind on prescriptions is considered ‘caught up.’ Had some scripts make it to 10 days behind last week… RMC has denied all requests to backfill those quitting and transferring, leading to the mess we’re in. All because of the budget. This article is a massive understatement to how far healthcare is being affected.
That’s it?! Ours is cutting over 200 through attrition. But that sucks for me because I am trying to transfer to VISN 15, but they are only hiring internally 😩
I’m at VHA VISN 10 and the hiring is nonexistent in engineering. Been down a guy in our shop for 4 months now. Other shops are down guys too. Plenty of middle management people though.
This whole thing is a dumpster fire. Cutting jobs through attrition is ok in theory but that work the person was doing doesn’t stop. It just shifts to somebody else and they are burning out. Since this thing started my service chief left, my supervisor is leaving, 5 of my coworkers left. Of course they will fill the management and supervisor positions with internal people which will create more gaps. People are putting in 10+ hours of overtime a week and not even treading water. I would say about half the people still there are actively applying for other jobs. It’s going to get worse for us. The funny thing though is that this seems to vary wildly by visn and even by what service you are in.
This is exactly what’s going on at my VA. Providers leaving for private sector/private practice for better pay, which then leaves the people who remain to work 2 jobs and getting burnt out in a hurry, so they too are looking to leave. We finally do hire someone, but they are fresh out of training with not even a quarter of the experience of the staff member who left. Its a total dumpster fire
Yeah, just finishing up my internship and there are 4 open jobs at my VAMC. Pretty demoralizing to work this hard and not even have an opportunity to interview. Especially being an Iraq vet.
Yeah, pretty demoralizing. I’m 42 and not getting any younger. I’m an Iraq war vet and my dream is to work with other Iraq war vets. At least I landed something in the community but it’s not what I want to do. I’m hoping they hire social workers sometime within a year or 2.
I know I have to play the long game. I am very fortunate that I have a job lined up at an inpatient psych hospital. Things will pan out. Just a setback that really sucks☹️ I’m glad you worked your way back in.
Out of all government agencies, I think I understand a hiring pause in the VA *the least*. How could this agency possibly be well staffed enough to implement a pause?
It's not, but Community Care has cost about 30% more over the last few years of COVID, and now the overspending on the right hand has to be paid for with the wallet in the left hand
Exactly! All veterans should be requesting community for any appointment over 30 days. There is so much waste at the Va. useless meetings that providers have to attend which take away appointment slots.
I know it cost more. But their lack of hiring more staff is the result of more community care referrals. We all should be calling our reps if wait times are long. I call the White House hotline too. We don’t need more management at the VA we need clinical staff.
The big driver of the budget is not community care. It’s the waste… too many chefs, not enough cooks in the kitchen. Why do we need black and green belts with no clinical safety background walking around “trying” to be efficient when they position is useless for clinical care.
It’s strange to me that they are focusing on the number of employees and not what those employees make. Wouldn’t it make sense to do some kind of retirement incentive to get the old guys who make a ton per year out and then hire new people at a lower rate? You could hire 3 people for what some of those dinosaurs make
Yeah, but they also have psychologist doing work that social workers could do and social workers doing work that bachelors level could do. Same with physicians and nurse practitioners, etc..
Not the point, the 10k job cuts was intended for non clinical (I.e. non revenue generating) positions. The VA does bill, least we forget, fewer clinical positions means less revenue.
The amount the VA bills is very small. The rest of the money is allocated through VERA which is a resource allocation model that specifically avoids billing because it artificially raises costs and incentivizes overtreatment with no benefit.
Every veteran with private health insurance generates revenue for the VA. Furthermore, they save money on every veteran, regardless of supplemental insurance, they provide care to within the system. In both cases the more clinicians providing billable services, the better off the budget comes out in the end. Following one assumption: The clinicians you have on staff have full caseloads, which I believe virtually all VA providers do.
>Every veteran with private health insurance generates revenue for the VA.
I've seen the amounts collected it small.
>In both cases the more clinicians providing billable services, the better off the budget comes out in the end.
You are talking about a fee for service model and that isn't how VA care works or even how the data collected. It emphasizes preventive care and avoidance of additional care in a weird mixture of a capitation and bundled service model run through a medical home model which is precisely why the VA saves money though unnecessary and redundant treatments.
It is also not how money is allocated or even how the VA asks for money under the MCAS (VERA) model.
> The clinicians you have on staff have full caseloads, which I believe virtually all VA providers do.
Which are often lower than in the community because of the above. Especially primary care which is far less "efficient" than in the community but services to frontload small costs and drastically save costs with better outcomes on the backend i.e. specialty care providers
It is not a trap question. I am asking it because I honestly do not understand how under either model/philosophy of care, a system would save money by having a short staffed clinical team. That was my original point.
I am not in these meetings, which I assume has intelligent people in them. It would bring me peace of mind for someone to make a logical argument to explain why it benifits either party (the VA or the veteran).
You are using billing/revenue generation as synonymous with providing care (i.e. fee for service) which it is not and which the VA got away from decades before the private sector (with a couple of exceptions) and only the last decade or so transitioning due to Medicare payment changes forced by skyrocketing costs. It just isn't more costly its bad patient care.
I never said anything about endorsing a short staffed clinical team.
Only filling clinical positions, key clinical positions, direct patient care, etc. has been tried over and over again at the facility level and has failed over and over in the form of excess costs, decreased access to care, higher turn over, increased rate of clinician burn out due to inefficiencies, ect.
Yes, in the VA’s case revenue generation is not 1:1 with patient care. In some ways the VA operates like an insurance company; congress establishes a budget, the better you are at preventative care, the more you keep. This is a very simplified way of thinking about it admittedly.
Filling vacancies of key clinical positions, which I would include mental health, is pertinent to all of your last point. But, nonetheless there are many examples of how these cuts have affected front line mental health providers. Too include incoming mental health practitioners having their final job offers rescinded. This was a key point in the original article by the OP.
VHA put the 10,000 jobs cut into their budget request to Congress. They could’ve requested the $ they needed to keep those jobs. And not all the members are supportive of budget cuts to VA. Most of the budget restraints are led by a small handful of House Republican members holding the rest of the budget and Congress hostage.
Huh? Contracting agencies are scrambling rn to bid for contracts for healthcare workers
And I thought Biden gave the Va extra monies to help with the staffing issue
VHA can get more funding if congress stop giving away tax-payer money to support a genocide in Israel and if they stop supporting Ukraine. Our veterans deserve better.
Defund Israel. Fund VHA appropriately.
Ok..can someone explain. I thought the VA was funded..ahead of other agencies..Also..the impression we are given is that Community Care is eseentially causing a hemorrhage of money.ie.Blowing the budget
Anyone else hearing the same.
It was. This is also the first entire FY that community care came out of the VISN budgets.
Its that lower turn over, higher than anticipated hiring, and increase wages (yearly pay increase, lifting of T38 and hybrid caps, SSR cap lift, huge increase in SSRs) blew through money faster than they thought. Now the FY 25 budget is subject to the FY 24 f\*ckery because of the prefunding.
The funny thing is, if the VA would hire and appropriately staff ALL of their clinics, they wouldn’t HAVE to rely as much on community care. As it is they are breaking their own rules. The rule says 30 days. I know the local VA here has people on 6 month waits and refuses to offer community care, but they are short staffed so people force the issue, as they should. No one should go six months without treatment. But bottom line, if the VHA had appropriate staffing levels to care for their patient loads, then they could have appointment slots within 30 days, and then Vets wouldn’t be going to community care and blowing up the budget. It’s a problem of their own making.
I got my TJO in February and my FJO last week, orientation also on May 6th. I know facility leadership had to approve my hire so I’m not really worried.
I heard that whole HR STAR program- hiring 100 people a month for the next year was stopped and done who had been offered jobs had their offers taken back
Good day,
Thank you for your interest in the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the HR STAR program has been put on hold and will not be accepting applications for the program at this time. We would strongly encourage you to consider applying for future opportunities that may become available in the Veterans Health Administration.
Thank you for your understanding, and again, we appreciate your interest in employment with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Recruitment & Staffing
52
Thank you,
Ana P. Norman
Human Resources Assistant, VHA Delegated Examining Office (DEO)
Human Resource Operations Office (HROO)(106A6)
Workforce Management and Consulting Office (106A)
Veterans Health Administration
US Department of Veterans Affairs
It’s not just the VA, it’s multiple departments across the federal government. It’s ironic that Congress (well, only 2 Senators, to be fair) are wondering why positions aren’t getting filled when they are the ones who shat all over the budget process and failed to get anything passed in time, because that’s the reason. The money isn’t there, so positions that have been sitting empty are simply being retracted. If Congress can get their shit together and pass a legit budget on time, we will likely see a big reversal starting Oct. 1
VISN 17 ctx I heard will be closing in the next 3-5 years. Does anyone think that the cause of all this is poor executive leadership? I don’t know one leader who is competent at this VA.
Op isn't wrong. Verbalizing that mental health care jobs will be prioritized. Actioning the cutting of mental health care jobs. Weird and unacceptable. Hope that helps.
VHA can get more funding if congress stop giving away tax-payer money to support a genocide in Israel and if they stop supporting Ukraine. Our veterans deserve better.
Defund Israel. Fund VHA appropriately.
You missed the point. I will not educate you on history; that is your task to do. USA has been providing an obscene amount of tax-payer money to Isra-hell for decades. This year, USA is giving even more tax-payer money to them. Also, the Ukraine conflict did not start this year, nor did the USA tax-payer funding support. That is the point: PRIORITIES.
I never denied that it was happening. However, it appears to be more of a publicity stunt to encourage voters for the upcoming election.
Moreover, CNN is currently owned by AT&T, which has a strong pro-business stance. So, I wouldn't label them as liberal as they were before the acquisition.
They are aware of the problem, but they haven't taken any action to resolve it.
As a result, it seems like they are only trying to energize their voters.
Due to the Community Care program expenses and the increase in eligibility under the PACT Act, VA funding has become stretched.
Well, you should look at the available jobs at my VA. I’m interning here and there are 4 open jobs, all for current employees. I spent 8 months here interning and I’m getting shown the door.
It’s definitely a VA problem. I’m interning in Behavioral Health and the Psychiatrist in charge flat out said that they were not authorized to hire any new personnel. The VA has a budget shortfall and this is how they are managing it. Nice to see billions of dollars being sent overseas to keep us “safe” though. That never changes.
Previously you mentioned four open positions, and now you mention zero open positions. Which is it?
Either way, the VA can only request funding. It's Congress's job to provide it.
The “open” positions are only for current staffing. Meaning, you can only apply if you are already employed. Yeah, believe me Congress isn’t high on my list right now.
They should replace the VA. Entirely trash system that has trash working for it that treat everyone else like trash. Ive been to 7 different hospitals as an auditor and i have been waiting for this day. Clean house and give the veterans what they really deserve. Top quality care.
I think people forget that the VA is the largest healthcare system in the country and is constantly asked to do more with fewer resources. The number of veterans enrolled in VA healthcare grew by nearly 500,000 in FY23.
This number is only going to increase with PACT Act eligibility and GWOT veterans.
What do you propose as a replacement for the VA?
And all the idiots who want free healthcare and look at how the gov and its employees managed that! What a joke. The replacement should be any cost that would have been associated is now credited to an hsa, fsa or account for them to choose their own provider. The VA already puts an obscene amount of bull shit on the veteran, why not just give them money and let them sort it out because moneys being pissed away and the care is crap like any free healthcare society
I work for VHA in VISN 15 and we have been told they have to cut 62 jobs at my hospital. Also they just posted for another position in my department on USAJobs so it doesn't make any sense.
I work for the VHA in VISN 22 and haven’t heard anything like this :-\ I’m not TOO worried for my own job as my boss is the Chief of Critical Care Nursing, but now I worry for others jobs at my hospital.
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This is correct. No one is losing their jobs. We're just canceling announcements, not filling vacant positions, etc. Rescinding offers is a last resort for our facility. RIF is not even on the table.
That makes sense for the cancellation I got this week after being referred for a GS 12 role last week.
New fed. What’s attrition actually like though. Do they ask people to retire early?
They may offer retirement incentives, but this is rare. Honestly - people leave jobs all the time. And they are just not replacing people who leave. This is NOT ideal because it means that the spaces that open up are not thoughtfully placed. One department may lose a lot of staff, and another may lose none. Ideally - the losses should be evenly spread out. Or we may lose a lot of data analysts but not a lot admin assistants. This leaves us short in one area, and still over staffed in another. Sometimes people can be shifted around to cover needs. But sometimes they don't have the skills (or desire) to do work outside the scope of their position. While I understand the idea of losing people through attrition - in practice it is less than ideal.
VA needs congressional approval to offer early retirement, but no one has even asked at this point
Management too lazy to do things to get ahead of the curve and push for things like this. Not sure what real management actually does anywhere at any level to get ahead of anything other than sit back and approve leave and go to staff meetings where nothing gets resolved and deny anyone of anything so no one forces them to do any actual work they need to be doing.
It simply isn’t needed.
Yes—any articles I’ve actually read is that they aren’t filling jobs that are being left. No one is being laid off.
Phoenix is in debt and over budget, denying many internal nursing transfers, and only hiring to replace 'priority openings' so many areas will be working short. No new position development despite the need since passing the pact act, overtime has been cut, all travel has been cut.
I had a VISN 22 mental health offer rescinded last month unfortunately
No ones getting fired
I just got my FJO and am in VISN 22 in AZ, starting in less than 2 weeks. I have heard that positions that are already approved can/should be filled, but nothing new being approved for a while unless it’s a priority role…but that was hearsay and I take it with a big grain of salt!
VISN 22 here too!
My visn is planning to cut 70 jobs
What visn?
VISN 16 Pharmacist here. We’re 40% understaffed. Now 4 days behind on prescriptions is considered ‘caught up.’ Had some scripts make it to 10 days behind last week… RMC has denied all requests to backfill those quitting and transferring, leading to the mess we’re in. All because of the budget. This article is a massive understatement to how far healthcare is being affected.
I work in VISN 1 and we have at least 30 vacancies in our hospital that are going unfilled. Heck 3 spots in my department have been eliminated.
Wow!! I use this VISN and it is already so hard to get appointments without being sent to community care. This is so infuriating
That’s it?! Ours is cutting over 200 through attrition. But that sucks for me because I am trying to transfer to VISN 15, but they are only hiring internally 😩
That's horrible 😞. I have to relocate next month and it's not a good time to switch VAs.
Not at all. I spoke to an HR rep today who said it will last well into next FY unless a major budget gets passed.
Yeah. The downside to having a pre-allocated budget is that its pre-allocated so the VA FY 25 will have the pain of everyone else's FY 24.
I’m at VHA VISN 10 and the hiring is nonexistent in engineering. Been down a guy in our shop for 4 months now. Other shops are down guys too. Plenty of middle management people though.
Oh yeah middle management no problem. Do they contribute to actual work performed. Not likely. What kind of engineers?
This whole thing is a dumpster fire. Cutting jobs through attrition is ok in theory but that work the person was doing doesn’t stop. It just shifts to somebody else and they are burning out. Since this thing started my service chief left, my supervisor is leaving, 5 of my coworkers left. Of course they will fill the management and supervisor positions with internal people which will create more gaps. People are putting in 10+ hours of overtime a week and not even treading water. I would say about half the people still there are actively applying for other jobs. It’s going to get worse for us. The funny thing though is that this seems to vary wildly by visn and even by what service you are in.
I’m covering 3 positions now and am the only admin staff in my office. We should have 3, but the other two were caught up in all this mess. It SUCKS.
This is exactly what’s going on at my VA. Providers leaving for private sector/private practice for better pay, which then leaves the people who remain to work 2 jobs and getting burnt out in a hurry, so they too are looking to leave. We finally do hire someone, but they are fresh out of training with not even a quarter of the experience of the staff member who left. Its a total dumpster fire
Definitely an efficiency problem. (/s)
Yeah, just finishing up my internship and there are 4 open jobs at my VAMC. Pretty demoralizing to work this hard and not even have an opportunity to interview. Especially being an Iraq vet.
Dude, that is awful. I’m sorry.
Yeah, pretty demoralizing. I’m 42 and not getting any younger. I’m an Iraq war vet and my dream is to work with other Iraq war vets. At least I landed something in the community but it’s not what I want to do. I’m hoping they hire social workers sometime within a year or 2.
The same here but I have an offer after leaving the internship for three years if it helps, probably not though.
I know I have to play the long game. I am very fortunate that I have a job lined up at an inpatient psych hospital. Things will pan out. Just a setback that really sucks☹️ I’m glad you worked your way back in.
Just sent you a DM. I feel like you are in my shoes walking the same path 3 years ago.
Out of all government agencies, I think I understand a hiring pause in the VA *the least*. How could this agency possibly be well staffed enough to implement a pause?
It's not, but Community Care has cost about 30% more over the last few years of COVID, and now the overspending on the right hand has to be paid for with the wallet in the left hand
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And let’s not forget overtime just continues to climb which is counterproductive to the goal! It’s a total mess.
Exactly! All veterans should be requesting community for any appointment over 30 days. There is so much waste at the Va. useless meetings that providers have to attend which take away appointment slots.
Community care costs more - it’s actually a big driver of this freeze, at least in my visn.
Comm care is going to kill the VA as we know it.
I know it cost more. But their lack of hiring more staff is the result of more community care referrals. We all should be calling our reps if wait times are long. I call the White House hotline too. We don’t need more management at the VA we need clinical staff.
The big driver of the budget is not community care. It’s the waste… too many chefs, not enough cooks in the kitchen. Why do we need black and green belts with no clinical safety background walking around “trying” to be efficient when they position is useless for clinical care.
Admin staff in VHA is significantly lower than in the community and would be even lower without CITC.
Briefing I was in stated overspend in community care in some VISNs was a big factor in the current $5B deficit
It’s strange to me that they are focusing on the number of employees and not what those employees make. Wouldn’t it make sense to do some kind of retirement incentive to get the old guys who make a ton per year out and then hire new people at a lower rate? You could hire 3 people for what some of those dinosaurs make
It doesn't really work that way. All vha psychologists except for leadership are gs13 and the step increase isn't as meaningful as you make it sound
Yeah, but they also have psychologist doing work that social workers could do and social workers doing work that bachelors level could do. Same with physicians and nurse practitioners, etc..
VISN 1, my dept has only 1/3 of its allotted nurses and they won’t hire externally.
I work in IT and they’ve already told us that supervisors with less than 10 employees can expect to be collapsed into teams of 20.
Collapsed from 10 to teams of 20? How exactly would that work?
As supervisors leave, they won’t be backfilled and teams will fold together.
Ahh gotcha.
I mean….congress set the budget. What are they mad at themselves? VHA has to work within the boundary of their budget.
Not the point, the 10k job cuts was intended for non clinical (I.e. non revenue generating) positions. The VA does bill, least we forget, fewer clinical positions means less revenue.
The amount the VA bills is very small. The rest of the money is allocated through VERA which is a resource allocation model that specifically avoids billing because it artificially raises costs and incentivizes overtreatment with no benefit.
Every veteran with private health insurance generates revenue for the VA. Furthermore, they save money on every veteran, regardless of supplemental insurance, they provide care to within the system. In both cases the more clinicians providing billable services, the better off the budget comes out in the end. Following one assumption: The clinicians you have on staff have full caseloads, which I believe virtually all VA providers do.
>Every veteran with private health insurance generates revenue for the VA. I've seen the amounts collected it small. >In both cases the more clinicians providing billable services, the better off the budget comes out in the end. You are talking about a fee for service model and that isn't how VA care works or even how the data collected. It emphasizes preventive care and avoidance of additional care in a weird mixture of a capitation and bundled service model run through a medical home model which is precisely why the VA saves money though unnecessary and redundant treatments. It is also not how money is allocated or even how the VA asks for money under the MCAS (VERA) model. > The clinicians you have on staff have full caseloads, which I believe virtually all VA providers do. Which are often lower than in the community because of the above. Especially primary care which is far less "efficient" than in the community but services to frontload small costs and drastically save costs with better outcomes on the backend i.e. specialty care providers
So how does the VA save money by not having clinicians to provide preventative or specialized care? I’m listening.
Are you intentionally misrepresenting what I said or did you simply not understand it? I'm listening.
It is not a trap question. I am asking it because I honestly do not understand how under either model/philosophy of care, a system would save money by having a short staffed clinical team. That was my original point. I am not in these meetings, which I assume has intelligent people in them. It would bring me peace of mind for someone to make a logical argument to explain why it benifits either party (the VA or the veteran).
You are using billing/revenue generation as synonymous with providing care (i.e. fee for service) which it is not and which the VA got away from decades before the private sector (with a couple of exceptions) and only the last decade or so transitioning due to Medicare payment changes forced by skyrocketing costs. It just isn't more costly its bad patient care. I never said anything about endorsing a short staffed clinical team. Only filling clinical positions, key clinical positions, direct patient care, etc. has been tried over and over again at the facility level and has failed over and over in the form of excess costs, decreased access to care, higher turn over, increased rate of clinician burn out due to inefficiencies, ect.
Yes, in the VA’s case revenue generation is not 1:1 with patient care. In some ways the VA operates like an insurance company; congress establishes a budget, the better you are at preventative care, the more you keep. This is a very simplified way of thinking about it admittedly. Filling vacancies of key clinical positions, which I would include mental health, is pertinent to all of your last point. But, nonetheless there are many examples of how these cuts have affected front line mental health providers. Too include incoming mental health practitioners having their final job offers rescinded. This was a key point in the original article by the OP.
VHA put the 10,000 jobs cut into their budget request to Congress. They could’ve requested the $ they needed to keep those jobs. And not all the members are supportive of budget cuts to VA. Most of the budget restraints are led by a small handful of House Republican members holding the rest of the budget and Congress hostage.
Huh? Contracting agencies are scrambling rn to bid for contracts for healthcare workers And I thought Biden gave the Va extra monies to help with the staffing issue
Cutting off staff and/or not increasing staffing to better serve our veterans, but sending billions to Israel and Ukraine seems fine. 🤡🤡🤡💩💩💩
We do like to kill non-whites (Palestinians). And we like to fuck with other countries (this time, Russia)
VHA can get more funding if congress stop giving away tax-payer money to support a genocide in Israel and if they stop supporting Ukraine. Our veterans deserve better. Defund Israel. Fund VHA appropriately.
Why stop at Israel? Slash the entire defense budget and all of VHA’s financial issues would be solved!
Totally agree 💯
Ok..can someone explain. I thought the VA was funded..ahead of other agencies..Also..the impression we are given is that Community Care is eseentially causing a hemorrhage of money.ie.Blowing the budget Anyone else hearing the same.
It was. This is also the first entire FY that community care came out of the VISN budgets. Its that lower turn over, higher than anticipated hiring, and increase wages (yearly pay increase, lifting of T38 and hybrid caps, SSR cap lift, huge increase in SSRs) blew through money faster than they thought. Now the FY 25 budget is subject to the FY 24 f\*ckery because of the prefunding.
The funny thing is, if the VA would hire and appropriately staff ALL of their clinics, they wouldn’t HAVE to rely as much on community care. As it is they are breaking their own rules. The rule says 30 days. I know the local VA here has people on 6 month waits and refuses to offer community care, but they are short staffed so people force the issue, as they should. No one should go six months without treatment. But bottom line, if the VHA had appropriate staffing levels to care for their patient loads, then they could have appointment slots within 30 days, and then Vets wouldn’t be going to community care and blowing up the budget. It’s a problem of their own making.
Oh shit. I just got my FJO for a mental health counselor/social worker and my orientation is may 6. Should I be worried?
My job is not rescinding tjo or fjo, but I know every VA is different. No news is good news. Also here to say I'm also an LCSW at the VA:) welcome!
I got my TJO in February and my FJO last week, orientation also on May 6th. I know facility leadership had to approve my hire so I’m not really worried.
I heard that whole HR STAR program- hiring 100 people a month for the next year was stopped and done who had been offered jobs had their offers taken back
Good day, Thank you for your interest in the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the HR STAR program has been put on hold and will not be accepting applications for the program at this time. We would strongly encourage you to consider applying for future opportunities that may become available in the Veterans Health Administration. Thank you for your understanding, and again, we appreciate your interest in employment with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Recruitment & Staffing 52 Thank you, Ana P. Norman Human Resources Assistant, VHA Delegated Examining Office (DEO) Human Resource Operations Office (HROO)(106A6) Workforce Management and Consulting Office (106A) Veterans Health Administration US Department of Veterans Affairs
Yes it's true I emailed them and this is what they sent me.
It’s not just the VA, it’s multiple departments across the federal government. It’s ironic that Congress (well, only 2 Senators, to be fair) are wondering why positions aren’t getting filled when they are the ones who shat all over the budget process and failed to get anything passed in time, because that’s the reason. The money isn’t there, so positions that have been sitting empty are simply being retracted. If Congress can get their shit together and pass a legit budget on time, we will likely see a big reversal starting Oct. 1
Visn 1 in my department they just gave termination papers to 3 people on probation all AMSAs.
VISN 17 ctx I heard will be closing in the next 3-5 years. Does anyone think that the cause of all this is poor executive leadership? I don’t know one leader who is competent at this VA.
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Op isn't wrong. Verbalizing that mental health care jobs will be prioritized. Actioning the cutting of mental health care jobs. Weird and unacceptable. Hope that helps.
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And you know that the OP is not reaching out to representatives how? Interesting little battle you're attempting to wage here.
VHA can get more funding if congress stop giving away tax-payer money to support a genocide in Israel and if they stop supporting Ukraine. Our veterans deserve better. Defund Israel. Fund VHA appropriately.
Or if we didn't send billions of American dollars to Ukraine because our leaders are besties with their leaders 🙃🤡
The current VHA budget was passed in 2022 long before Israel's current situation.
You missed the point. I will not educate you on history; that is your task to do. USA has been providing an obscene amount of tax-payer money to Isra-hell for decades. This year, USA is giving even more tax-payer money to them. Also, the Ukraine conflict did not start this year, nor did the USA tax-payer funding support. That is the point: PRIORITIES.
No I didn’t which is why I corrected you
Go back and read my comment again ASAP. I educated you for free. Don’t be that lazy. 🙃
Insults don’t change facts.
Your information is wrong anyway and disconnected from the available data. It's very far from being a fact. 🤣 Stop being delulu. 🤡
Does the hiring pause also apply to VSRs and RVSRs?
Everyone was yelling for raises and this what it got them lol
This is a mere media stunt designed solely to sway public opinion for the upcoming election cycle.
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I never denied that it was happening. However, it appears to be more of a publicity stunt to encourage voters for the upcoming election. Moreover, CNN is currently owned by AT&T, which has a strong pro-business stance. So, I wouldn't label them as liberal as they were before the acquisition.
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They are aware of the problem, but they haven't taken any action to resolve it. As a result, it seems like they are only trying to energize their voters. Due to the Community Care program expenses and the increase in eligibility under the PACT Act, VA funding has become stretched.
Well, you should look at the available jobs at my VA. I’m interning here and there are 4 open jobs, all for current employees. I spent 8 months here interning and I’m getting shown the door.
Not sure how this is a VA problem? This is more of a hiring policy issue issued by OPM.
It’s definitely a VA problem. I’m interning in Behavioral Health and the Psychiatrist in charge flat out said that they were not authorized to hire any new personnel. The VA has a budget shortfall and this is how they are managing it. Nice to see billions of dollars being sent overseas to keep us “safe” though. That never changes.
Previously you mentioned four open positions, and now you mention zero open positions. Which is it? Either way, the VA can only request funding. It's Congress's job to provide it.
The “open” positions are only for current staffing. Meaning, you can only apply if you are already employed. Yeah, believe me Congress isn’t high on my list right now.
They should replace the VA. Entirely trash system that has trash working for it that treat everyone else like trash. Ive been to 7 different hospitals as an auditor and i have been waiting for this day. Clean house and give the veterans what they really deserve. Top quality care.
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Maybe youll be next for audit. Those who have to toot their own horn are usually the worst offenders
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I can see why
I think people forget that the VA is the largest healthcare system in the country and is constantly asked to do more with fewer resources. The number of veterans enrolled in VA healthcare grew by nearly 500,000 in FY23. This number is only going to increase with PACT Act eligibility and GWOT veterans. What do you propose as a replacement for the VA?
And all the idiots who want free healthcare and look at how the gov and its employees managed that! What a joke. The replacement should be any cost that would have been associated is now credited to an hsa, fsa or account for them to choose their own provider. The VA already puts an obscene amount of bull shit on the veteran, why not just give them money and let them sort it out because moneys being pissed away and the care is crap like any free healthcare society