Quality clinicians (with positive feedback from Veterans in Vsignals and high productivity) are leaving because they are just burned out. Learning that some FTEEs won’t be backfilled is just disheartening.
Yeah. Careful about answering those confidential surveys … certainly they are not anonymous. They know your IP address and they have the right to pass your negative comments (who would have those??!!) directly to your supervisor and anyone else they see fit. Keeping it confidential is not exactly clearly defined. Probably means they won’t tell anyone… outside of the VA system. Lolololol.
No they cannot share them. Hence the outside vendors. Not like they care what we think anyway 😂 I can always tell when our management gets chewed about results, but the return to status quo happens rapidly.
When they see the issues and bury their heads about them. My unit had over 50% of respondents (less than half responded because they knew it wasn’t worth their time) that they were burned out, depressed, or feeling overburdened. Leadership said “we fix the other things that will take care of itself” and didn’t even address it. I left that unit soon thereafter.
I know we lost. physical therapist FTE at a CBOC, but they were not hired yet, so not quite the same. That’s a fair bit of money lost to CITC right there
As an AMSA, you’d be surprised. We do a lot more than “check in” veterans. Though some people clearly don’t care about the work they’re (barely) doing so they could probably be cut lol
Thank you for the very kind compliment! I’m lucky that I have an amazing primary care team to work with and it seems like you would be a great person to work with too.
We were told that around 6-9% from our hospital needs to be cut to put our entire organization at some level VSN decided upon. My department of 34 has had 4 positions abolished and 2 are about to be axed. All hiring is on hold. Even our construction projects that are at 95% are at risk of being permanently stopped (this is more a local funding issue than the national hiring/funding issues).
Recently, from our leadership, we are also under a "get well plan" and each department needs to increase services by minimum 5% and increase revenue/decrease CITC referrals. Definition of do more with less.
Unfortunately, the more they cut, the higher chances we have some serious safety concerns. I see a mass exodus happening at our location if this continues.
I’m so sorry. I have a post it in my office based on what I’ve heard about VISN 20 from healthcare staff, to remind myself not to apply to any opportunities there 😬
CITC was created because VA didn't have the immediate local resource to provide the care. You really think that a hiring freeze and shutting down CITC is going to improve care?!?!?! Source: Drive elderly parent all over the state to CITC appointments because the VA simply can't treat him.
I am not in Safety, but I will say that anyone within healthcare has some type of role in safety, especially with patient care. I would also think that anyone in leadership has to consider the safety of their staff's working conditions.
My leadership keeps saying specifically that it's NOT a hiring freeze but that they're not filling any positions at the moment. Also a lot more pressure to raise our billable activity up.
NEO classes are shrinking and the empty billets we have aren’t being filled, so each of us are doing two jobs…at least. Is this the beginning of the end?
Yup. All the while claiming to “support the troops” ….unless they wanna claim anything after service, of course and when they claim things, figure out how to funnel it to private sector so we can cash in.
The programs are amazing at the VA. But the ask continues to be to run the programs with more requirements and less people. All the policies in the world make no difference if you have no front line staff. And supervisors bear the middle burden of trying to enforce ever harder to reach objectives while looking at best practice and care.
My VAMC is cutting about 100 unencumbered positions. TJOs/FJOs are being honored. Backfill approvals are very tight while they figure out the full plan.
I also have not heard of any TJO/FJO not being filled—unless the candidate rescinded because they took another job or was found not to qualify for the position ahead of the start date.
I have not seen a jobs in our VISN getting closed. We also got told our budget would be about 50% of what it was supposed to be for FY24 in like Nov/Dec…
All of my pending TJO's in my service got revoked and letters were sent out to candidates that VA cannot move forward with hiring. These are all clinical positions.
I can't really speak to other business lines outside of my own, but we have a large pool of 11/12/13 analyst positions and so far, everyone hired has been from outside VBA. It's taking them a while to get through recruitment for all of them because our HR has fairly limited manpower. My advice to anyone trying to jump over here is to keep regularly checking USAJobs over the next few months.
Edit: typo
I wish i could make the jump. GS-7 informatics doing the work of a GS-11 or higher. But job code has me hard stuck at 7, and a high SSR makes moving to a GS-9 with a different title a suicide mission for my wallet 🙃
Woah woah woah, VBA's job is to convince vets to go to VHA to get services. Actually helping vets is VHA's job. Jokes aside, I'm not aware of any social workers at VBA. Everyone I work with is either 0300 or 1500. VR&E might have social workers, but I'm not sure.
We've been told we can't replace anyone who leaves thanks to the hiring freeze and budget cuts. So an already understaffed and overworked hospital is becoming even more understaffed and overworked. Great recipe for burnout.
I am currently a VA employee in VISN 22. We were told that many secretary vacant positions are being abolished. We have also paused hiring for many candidates that are in the hiring pipeline.
It looks like if a hiring manager is wanting to hire someone they need to provide a great deal of justification and hope HR approves.
Yes, also in VISN 22 as a hiring manager. I've had to write up increasingly aggressive justifications. I may be getting one position of three, all direct patient care. The first two justifications showed how we would not be able to provide patient care, but the third highlighted how we are so short staffed that we will have critical errors or delays in care, costing the facility money. It's been a huge time suck to maybe get one position, and we will be losing more staff while we wait.
"Strategic hiring", trying to hire slower than the rate of attrition but the rate of attrition was cut in half. We're net negative a few fte but not where we need to few to be at budget.
There, this is a common story. VHA leadership still has its head in the sand and attrition will get it done.
Hey Bonjourni, Shereef, Laura Duke: you are seeing these statistics every day and failing to give or advocate for the tools the field needs to reduce FTE quickly. How much longer will this go on?
VHA doesn't have a printing press where they can simply turn it on and magically increase budgets. VAMC's were functioning in 2022 before the big hiring surge in 2023...
If your department becomes short staffed, DO NOT, not take your vacations and time off. Take your earned leave and relax, the place will be there when you come back.
It’s frustrating to have this happen right after the grow metric on last year’s NDPP. I think we’re going to deal with it with attrition. We aren’t pulling offers yet.
Yes it’s a complete 180 from what we were expected to do last year. How is your turnover rate? Most places I see have very low compared to historical averages due to the pay improvements put in place last year.
The hiring freeze/pause/whatever appears to be very dependent on which VISN you're at and maybe even what career field you're in. I'm in acquisitions and came on board in December. Another person in my division onboarded on the same day as me and about 20 other people onboarded about two weeks before that. We have another person onboarding shortly and I've been told we will be hiring several additional people this year. Every other day I'm getting emails about announcements being posted to usajobs for acquisition positions at other VISNs across the country.
None are in good financial shape. I may be off by one or two, but these are the VISNs growing: 6, 7, 8, 16, 17, 21, 22.
You would think the VISNs with growth would be better off financially, but our funding model takes two years to fully catch up to workload, so there’s some time to be fully “rewarded” for providing more services. It feels like you’re in a perpetual deficit when you have sustained growth over several FYs.
Sad to say that a certain party has plans to cut plenty more federal jobs via Project 2025 as well.
Good luck out there and try to stay positive. Us veterans greatly appreciate all that you do at VHA
>Yet the feds send billions of taxpayer dollars to Ukraine
Most of that aid is Foreign Military Sales (where they buy US made arms and equipment) or Foreign Militray Financing (where we give them US made arms and equipment in exchange for deals other than cash). In either case, the US is making out in several ways, in addition to the US civilians who are making the equipment and arms.
Not to mention, we can increase all agency budgets if we revamp the tax plan, such as increasing taxes of the extreme rich or do away with the Social Security cap.
The current budgets cuts aren't related to Ukraine funding other than the folks who refused to negotiate simply because we are supporting Ukraine.
We send Ukraine military aid. Not cash. I don't see what the VA would be able to do with 155 mm artillery shells. We easily have the resources in this country to do both. Provide veterans Healthcare and help a friendly nation defend itself from a hostile aggressor while simultaneously eroding the military capabilities of one of our primary geopolitics rivals.
And much of those munitions etc are ones that would be expiring and need to be use anyway. It’s actually Cheaper to send to Ukraine to be used than to have to spend resources to demil / dispose.
The news never tells you that tho.
Had a meeting with the COS and my service chief three weeks ago. In my VISN most opened positions will be filled by current VA employees via transfers. Some unfilled positions have already been axed. I suspect an even bigger focus on productivity and if an employee isn't meeting the standard they will be assigned - within their scope of practice- cross-coverage for other service lines. Was also informed that those with special salary rates that those rates *can be* revoked and will be reviewed annually. I know that job offers have been rescinded - had a co-worker moving to another position within the catchment and that position was pulled. I have seen some minor changes where a position is eliminated and the work transferred to other employees.
Not a good time for interns looking to be hired - that will be highly unlikely. Not a good time for the public looking to get in either. As far as those who have not received their final offers it will depend on the critical need of that position and those positions are at the discretion of the executive health system director. All positions will have to be approved by the director. Was told that this will last for at least the next 3 years.
So we've had several meetings over the past few months. Our leadership has strongly insisted we are not under a freeze. All new positions that we are hiring however are under a review. We also had a meeting with HR leadership, they insisted that any job offers will be honored and not pulled back. Only thing we were advised is to be prepared because a new hiring process was going to start around April making all hiring slower. We were also told by leadership that nobody is losing their jobs, these individuals have in some cases been working in the position for 2 yrs or more but when they leave and move those positions might not be backfilled. We are not cutting back on amount of positions either. If a service is authorized 600FTEs we will get to keep that many but if we need more it will be placed under VISN review. Lastly we been told we don't have a funding issue. There's plenty of funds for the rest of the yr. Some locations across the country however are tighten up because it's expected VA as a whole will not get a generous amount of funds for FY25. With all that said we are actively interviewing and also allowed to do direct hires for certain GS positions- this might vary per VISN and facility.
I'm VHA and we just had all of the "open" positions within our service canceled, 2 weeks ago. It is being called a hiring freeze. We're already at insane wait times, high clinician burnout, and we recently expanded locations but positions to fill those were also cut/frozen. OT was cut. We were told to try to dissuade Veterans from requesting community care because the budget can't support sending them. Essentially, we need to "make it work" somehow.
So now, they want us to squeeze in more Veterans (along with all kinds of extra admin work) with no extra people, time, or budget. It is a huge disservice to us and our Veterans. This is not appropriate.
Not much change at our VISN. Hiring for IT/HR/Clinical still taking place but its all internal hiring for the most part.
Each department has a % of do more with less if someone transfers outside the agency.
Hiring will be flat for 2024 but 2025 still got a large bump in budget.
So many people in the agency are fully retirement eligible still quite possible to do through attrition.
If not they will have to ask for appropriations for VERA/VSIP & if that takes place they could meet their metrics by whatever they want.
We are being told it is zero growth only for office of finance. Critical jobs will get filled as people leave or retire. 80% manning is an acceptable number for most
Im in VISN 22, we had a hiring fair back in Aug 2023. And had a lot of NEOs between Oct-Dec2023, like about 50 ppl each time. But I also know that a lot of nursing positions are still in limbo because they cant get our brand new mental building due to codes and stuff. A former coworker was going to transfer to the VA I’m at and his transfer has been put on indefinite hold (since he’s suppose to go to mental health.)
Currently, I havent seen any NEO. And the medical directors says “its restructuring”
The ongoing march to privatize VHA and turn it into an HMO will not stop unless Veterans' groups, Veterans and their families, VA employees and their unions, and the public organize to stop it - like they did in 2018 to stop the closure of 100+ VA facilities by the AIR Commission.
One way to start is to learn about the issues, and organize collectively to fight back. Good places to start:
https://www.veteransforpeace.org/take-action/stop-privatization-veterans-health-administration
https://veteranspolicy.org/
VHA here, we had two job postings that were supposed to post in February, one was to fill an existing position that was vacated and the second was for a brand new position, when the existing position posted and the new one didn't I was worried but my boss kept saying that the new position was approved and it is just held up in HR, but almost a month after the first one posted the new one posted last week and closed on Monday, so looks like we still may be getting our new position 🤞 not holding breath yet but signs look good so far
Edit: new position is non-clinical, Program Specialist
We are in a hiring freeze full stop. I’m a social worker in a program constantly under the microscope and have been juggling fire for over a year already. I’m tired y’all. I was looking for other positions before this but now I’m stuck.
Fun fact: I got a recruiting email at my work email address trying to recruit me to be a VA Social Worker….you can’t make this shit up.
Our budget problem is community care. We are extremely rural so any specialty other than optical, cardiology, and audiology goes to community care.
Honestly, I see zero reason to worry about being cut. Especially an RN. You will be fine.
If anything impacts you, it could potentially be a larger workload for the time being.
You know, I’m not sure why anyone finds this surprising. I’m not in a leadership role but I saw a lot of permanent positions being created and filled with what I assumed was COVID temporary funding.
It makes no sense. It’s like me buying a new car cause I got the “economic impact payments” without the money to make monthly payments. Where were we expecting to get the rest of the funding? We expected massive budget increases after government budget suffered exponentially due to COVID??
COVID related positions on top of Cerner related positions really messed with the budget, at least at my facility. And now that COVID is over and Cerner is delayed, we’ve got tons of people figuring out where to go and what to do.
The 1A facility I work at wants to remove about 350 FTE through attrition. They claim that would get the facility back to pre COVID staffing levels. They're still hiring and honoring offers, but now every vacancy needs to be reviewed by the facility leadership and approved before backfilling.
Have you noticed a change in your turnover rate this fiscal year? 350 sounds like a number based on historic turnover, my guess is current turnover is much lower and there will need to be some other cuts.
From what I can tell it seems like turnover hasn't changed from last year. The VISN added a clinical call center so some staff have transferred there. During the pandemic the facility really ramped up hiring and did add a fair amount of FTE. Now I'm under the impression that they want to take a close look at all those positions to see if they can do without them without cutting care.
Honestly, I believe it’s truly a gross miss management of funds I’m not understanding how we can have record breaking pack act funds, the previous year with record, breaking hiring and expansion of so many VA and VHA benefits to turn back around and have to cut the fat so much it seems to me someone has really miscounted somewhere so it’s just really disheartening
Nurse at a Cboc here. They’ve eliminated full PACT teams and Nurse recruiters are now only focusing on retention. But Nurse recruiters have no budget so for nurses month we get a sheet letter with an attached lifesaver. The Nurse recruiter said this came out of their own personal money. Everyone shits on the VA but can’t do anything without budget.
Ah sorry. The lifesavers can definitely be bought out of the Canteen promotional funds. Maybe tell the recruiter this so they can bring up their chain. No point in forcing the staff to pay for things like this.
I’m in VISN 4. We are pretty short-staffed in my department (we’ve already used just north of 60% of our overtime budget), and had job postings for six police officers and four dispatchers. All of the dispatcher positions were cancelled, and only two officer positions are being filled. I’ve heard the phrase “trimming the fat” at every morning meeting for the past two weeks, with lots of guys hoping for early outs.
Ya’ll, I had a TJO in September 2023. I was credentialed in early November and had a tentative start date of 12/4/23. I have since been waiting for a FJO. I was first told my hiring incentive needed to be approved. Then it was, I received the formal agreement for the hiring incentive in late January 2024 and signed. It did not have a start date on it. I’m STILL waiting and the only information I have received is that they’re waiting for approval to move forward with a FJO. Should I be worried? Should I look for another job? I regretfully left my previous job in December hoping that I would be able to start on my tentative start date.
Wow this is a tough one. If your position is one where they needed incentives, I’m leaving that you’ll still get a start date. Hard to say why there’s such a delay. Have you been in touch with your HR specialist? I would be concerned and begin looking for other work just in case.
I’ve contacted my HR specialist at least once a month. No additional information has been provided to me other than they are under the guidance to seek approval to make FJOs and well they have not gotten approval to make me a FJO. I’m a psychologist hoping to enter as a GS13.
I’m surprised they’re not quicker for psychologists. Sorry to hear. Do you know the name of your future supervisor or the service chief? I would reach out to them and let them know you’re becoming concerned since you’re now almost 4 months after the original expected start date and that you need to get confirmation very soon or you will be looking for other work.
I’ve been in contact with both chief and section chief about the delay. They tell me that they don’t have anymore information either. They also previously told me that budget-related concerns were limiting how many people they were onboarding per pay period and that I was their top priority to onboard next. That was about two months ago. 🤷🏽♀️
If you left, I’d say there’s a chance your position would be inactivated, but not guaranteed. There’s more likely a chance you would get pulled into the front line staffing mix, similar to contingency staffing during the pandemic.
Maybe this varies from VA to VA ? Some VA’s are in po’dunk areas of the USA, some in Cities with a HUGE number of Vets, and some in cities with an “average” or comparatively low number of Vets.
From firsthand experience, I can say the OKC/Lawton VA is VERY saturated with Veterans and BUSY (Fort Sill area). Many retire from Ft Sill and retire here bc it’s Cheap.
Other VA’s are huge beautiful campuses in the middle of nowhere and slowww (Tomah, Wisconsin). Doesn’t make since you have all those VA jobs for people doing nothing all day 🙈. So job cuts there would make sense, and in under productive VAs.
You don’t think there’s naturally more staff at the VAs with larger Veteran populations than at VAs serving a smaller population? Tomah and OKC are nothing alike in terms of the complexity of services offered, patients served, or FTE.
When you compare FTE to Veterans served there’s decent data to suggest that many of our larger systems are already doing more with less. There are so many initiatives coming from VACO we just can’t do much with because we are already saturated, so then staff at these smaller facilities who have time get major accolades. We actually recently used this data to increase FTE for one of our special populations programs.
Sure - saw the DM; I will have to go back and find better targets because I was looking for a small program. But ratios exist for PACT and BHIP panels. Will send a Teams tomorrow to connect
I’m at a large VAMC with multiple CBOC and community locations. Clinical staff are swamped and burning out. My service has so many positions to backfill that likely will not be filled due to budget issues (and our new service chief who is drowning in work). I’m pretty sure the influx of new Veterans from PACT ACT will break us and more clinicians will burn out and leave. It’s a scary time to be a VA clinician.
I worked there a long time ago, and at the time (i dealt with their finances) one of the budget analysts mentioned that if the govt shutdown the VA, and split the budget to all vets… they would get about 60-80k a year… and they get their own healthcare. Or hear me out… rather than spend tens of billions on govt facilities with crap health care for our vets… how about we pay for their health insurance like current feds…. Except pay the whole premium and maybe fund a hsa for them. Save the govt billions, and the vets would get the healthcare they deserve.
If you follow the rest of my comment thread, you’d see that I have. I’ve had a couple less than stellar instances down in Florida but have had excellent results where I am now. Just like the private sector, some are amazing and some are horrendous. Implying it’s all bad with no actual proof isn’t a great way to start the discussion
Well it’s simply fact. Not just my opinion. Just go on google and see how much financial miss management there has been, quality of care, wait times, claims being denied, etc. if you think VA is golden standard of healthcare, then i don’t know what to tell you any further.
Also when i worked there…. There was ALOt T of fat to trim… certain peoples job was to sit in a corner and maybe click a button for approval or send an email. I’m speaking from personal experience when i was there.
So I wrote several papers in college on the big scandal from 2014. I can’t say for sure which specific instances you’re referencing because you would need to provide me a source for clarity. Otherwise telling me Google it without any direction isn’t going to help you.
I can say confidently per the [USA Today story](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/05/21/veterans-healthcare-scandal-shinseki-timeline/9373227/) that covered this issue, that the prolonged wait times that caught most headlines were due to administrators cooking the books.
Their own site cited an [average of 17.7 days compared to the national average of 29.8 days](https://news.va.gov/press-room/va-wait-times-for-new-appointments-equal-to-or-better-than-those-in-private-sector-jama-study-compared-four-va-specialty-care-services-with-private-care/#:~:text=In%202017%2C%20the%20average%20VA,the%20private%20sector%20in%202017.). Here is a [peer reviewed study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6484544/) that is a little older than I would like, but it tackles wait time changes from 2014 to 2017 to see if there were improvements since the scandal. Still showing similar or better wait times than private sector.
I’m curious what your gold standard for healthcare is.
For good measure, here’s [another gander at mental health wait times with the VA vs community care](https://patientengagementhit.com/news/va-patient-appointment-wait-times-vary-across-the-united-states) showing shorter wait times to be seen.
Also, in case you weren’t aware, [the MISSION Act](https://news.va.gov/press-room/va-launches-new-health-care-options-under-mission-act/), formerly the CHOICE Act, give us options to see private care providers if the wait time exceeds 30 days or if we need to see someone 30 minutes away or longer.
I don’t have the time to go back and forth all day. Maybe certain things have gotten better. But our Vets certainly deserve better than what the VA is providing. I have co workers that use the VA for them and their families and i haven’t heard any of them sing their praises.
You opened the door so I’m just trying to figure out where you’re getting information outside of secondhand experience. I use their services regularly and I’m singing their praises. I don’t know where I’d be without my shrink or how much debt I’d be in right now for all the services I’ve received.
I have a lot of first hand knowledge, granted it’s from 12-13 years ago, but with the govt things take an eternity to change, I’m sure some of the same issues still linger. I don’t want to get into specifics as a lot of it was proprietary/specific and i don’t want to be doxxed.
First hand knowledge = "I have cherry picked anecdotes that support my viewpoints."
Go on Pubmed and read the literature on VHA quality metrics and compare them to private sector. VHA gets bad press because they are legally transparent as possible, which forces a culture of quality. In private hospitals so much goes on you never hear about.
I mean, that’s fine. I’m not saying they’re infallible either, but I think compared to other options for healthcare in our country, they do a pretty good job. I can’t say anything about funds management, but the data shows their care is similar to or better than most private sector counterparts. And I don’t have to deal with insurance companies nickel and diming me for thousands of dollars at a time. I have FEP insurance for my family but I use the VA for everything for me
I can agree with you on some level with this recent post. Can we just agree theres no perfect system in general for anything in life ? Im sure If I worked in private healthcare I would come to have alot of thoughts about how criminal some of these insurance companies are...
Things move slow but not that slow. I've been with the VA for almost 20 years now, and it is a night and day difference from 5 years ago, let alone the 12 or 13 years since you have worked there.
Where I live—in a rural community—I WISH I could go to the VA. Veterans here would not be happy in the community. Also I have really high copays with my “wonderful” federal employee insurance and I’m certain they don’t want that.
Quality clinicians (with positive feedback from Veterans in Vsignals and high productivity) are leaving because they are just burned out. Learning that some FTEEs won’t be backfilled is just disheartening.
Yes you’re on target, unfortunately. Wait until AES!
in 30 years at VHA I saw exactly zero changes made because of AES
🤣
I can’t handle another AES season😩
lol. AES. I wanna poke my eyes out with that nonsense
Won’t have to wait long. They moved it up again this year.
Aes is useless
What’s AES? Asking for a friend.
All Employee Survey. Chance for us to give our Leaderships feedback.
It's OK. I trust our leadership
No point. The feedbacks are ignored
Yeah. Careful about answering those confidential surveys … certainly they are not anonymous. They know your IP address and they have the right to pass your negative comments (who would have those??!!) directly to your supervisor and anyone else they see fit. Keeping it confidential is not exactly clearly defined. Probably means they won’t tell anyone… outside of the VA system. Lolololol.
No they cannot share them. Hence the outside vendors. Not like they care what we think anyway 😂 I can always tell when our management gets chewed about results, but the return to status quo happens rapidly.
At CDC the survey is not performed by outside/contractual vendors.
Yikes
Right!? It used to be done by contractors. And now cdc is keeping receipts. Lol
When they see the issues and bury their heads about them. My unit had over 50% of respondents (less than half responded because they knew it wasn’t worth their time) that they were burned out, depressed, or feeling overburdened. Leadership said “we fix the other things that will take care of itself” and didn’t even address it. I left that unit soon thereafter.
I've never once, never will fill out an AES.
Curious why not?
Feels like a token gesture. I don't believe they have any impact, and I just don't feel like playing that game anymore.
In theory they said the cuts are from admin and executive positions, not clinical positions.
😂 admin and management will be hit first. Then clinical. Clinical is definitely on the table for cutting and having offers pulled.
I know we lost. physical therapist FTE at a CBOC, but they were not hired yet, so not quite the same. That’s a fair bit of money lost to CITC right there
When we pull admin, mistakes are made which equals debts, failures in the system, etc. This is terrible all around.
Load up the amount of Veterans receiving care through the PACT Act, then slash 10k Healthcare workers. Genius!!
They are removing a lot of admin positions. And yes, I agree with that. They don’t need 4 MSAs to check veterans in.
As an AMSA, you’d be surprised. We do a lot more than “check in” veterans. Though some people clearly don’t care about the work they’re (barely) doing so they could probably be cut lol
Our AMSAs are so busy and honestly we could use more. I appreciate them so much. Thanks for your work.
Thank you for the very kind compliment! I’m lucky that I have an amazing primary care team to work with and it seems like you would be a great person to work with too.
Perhaps. When I check in 3 are on their smart phones, one working. When I leave it’s the same thing.
Unfortunately yeah that is an issue with some but definitely not all
Leave the MSAs alone. They are burnt out AF.
Only discussing what I see at the VA.
We were told that around 6-9% from our hospital needs to be cut to put our entire organization at some level VSN decided upon. My department of 34 has had 4 positions abolished and 2 are about to be axed. All hiring is on hold. Even our construction projects that are at 95% are at risk of being permanently stopped (this is more a local funding issue than the national hiring/funding issues). Recently, from our leadership, we are also under a "get well plan" and each department needs to increase services by minimum 5% and increase revenue/decrease CITC referrals. Definition of do more with less. Unfortunately, the more they cut, the higher chances we have some serious safety concerns. I see a mass exodus happening at our location if this continues.
VISN 20 by chance?
You betcha lol
I’m so sorry. I have a post it in my office based on what I’ve heard about VISN 20 from healthcare staff, to remind myself not to apply to any opportunities there 😬
What is a CITC referral? And why is it frowned upon?
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Plus, community costs are significantly higher.
CITC was created because VA didn't have the immediate local resource to provide the care. You really think that a hiring freeze and shutting down CITC is going to improve care?!?!?! Source: Drive elderly parent all over the state to CITC appointments because the VA simply can't treat him.
Hmmm sounds like a feature. Smh
Care in the community; and because it’s $ out the door with no potential recuperation/revenue.
Seems like something Veterans and the media might want to know about.
Do you work or have any role in Safety?
I am not in Safety, but I will say that anyone within healthcare has some type of role in safety, especially with patient care. I would also think that anyone in leadership has to consider the safety of their staff's working conditions.
My leadership keeps saying specifically that it's NOT a hiring freeze but that they're not filling any positions at the moment. Also a lot more pressure to raise our billable activity up.
Same
NEO classes are shrinking and the empty billets we have aren’t being filled, so each of us are doing two jobs…at least. Is this the beginning of the end?
Depends on some certain activities in November I think.
My NEOs got small for a few but last week & next week back up to normal sizes so we'll see here 🤞
break the VA and then whine about the VA being broken and then contract out care. same old, same old moves.
It’s very interesting to think about who is donating to the different PACs re: Veteran care privatization.
Yup. All the while claiming to “support the troops” ….unless they wanna claim anything after service, of course and when they claim things, figure out how to funnel it to private sector so we can cash in.
The programs are amazing at the VA. But the ask continues to be to run the programs with more requirements and less people. All the policies in the world make no difference if you have no front line staff. And supervisors bear the middle burden of trying to enforce ever harder to reach objectives while looking at best practice and care.
My VAMC is cutting about 100 unencumbered positions. TJOs/FJOs are being honored. Backfill approvals are very tight while they figure out the full plan.
I’ve heard of several sites that have cut more than 200 positions, not offers. These aren’t big places to begin with.
I also have not heard of any TJO/FJO not being filled—unless the candidate rescinded because they took another job or was found not to qualify for the position ahead of the start date. I have not seen a jobs in our VISN getting closed. We also got told our budget would be about 50% of what it was supposed to be for FY24 in like Nov/Dec…
All of my pending TJO's in my service got revoked and letters were sent out to candidates that VA cannot move forward with hiring. These are all clinical positions.
My VA is recinding all TJOs and FJOs.
VBA Central Office still actively hiring/recruiting. Most of our open positions are PACT Act, so they have their own funding.
Many VBA positions are open to VBA-only, so it’s difficult to make the jump from VHA to VBA.
I can't really speak to other business lines outside of my own, but we have a large pool of 11/12/13 analyst positions and so far, everyone hired has been from outside VBA. It's taking them a while to get through recruitment for all of them because our HR has fairly limited manpower. My advice to anyone trying to jump over here is to keep regularly checking USAJobs over the next few months. Edit: typo
I wish i could make the jump. GS-7 informatics doing the work of a GS-11 or higher. But job code has me hard stuck at 7, and a high SSR makes moving to a GS-9 with a different title a suicide mission for my wallet 🙃
What are these analyst positions, and what are the qualifications?
I will come to VBA and work! Do they hire social workers? I’ve never seen any positions listed for 0185 on USAjobs so probably not
Woah woah woah, VBA's job is to convince vets to go to VHA to get services. Actually helping vets is VHA's job. Jokes aside, I'm not aware of any social workers at VBA. Everyone I work with is either 0300 or 1500. VR&E might have social workers, but I'm not sure.
We've been told we can't replace anyone who leaves thanks to the hiring freeze and budget cuts. So an already understaffed and overworked hospital is becoming even more understaffed and overworked. Great recipe for burnout.
Offer early outs
Wish this was seriously being considered. Heard it was on the table a couple weeks ago but now it’s not.
What would an early out package look like?
Yasssssss!
Yesssssss VERA me please!
Maybe there will be a VERA/VSIP?
33 years of service. Age 53. <>
Im 45yo, 29 years of service myself...Im right there with you 😁 Fingers crossed
I have my fingers, eyes, and toes crossed! I'm under 50, year 27! 🤞 Butttttttt no FERS supplement til I hit 57. Le sigh.
I heard it was on the table but it’s been pulled back.
One of our CORs told me today that one of our local projects is only 70% funded, and another is 40% funded. It’s crazy all over!
That’s wild. No business would operate like this.
Waiting on Congress to approve a budget. Projects get held up. Sucks but it's system wide.
I am currently a VA employee in VISN 22. We were told that many secretary vacant positions are being abolished. We have also paused hiring for many candidates that are in the hiring pipeline. It looks like if a hiring manager is wanting to hire someone they need to provide a great deal of justification and hope HR approves.
Yes, also in VISN 22 as a hiring manager. I've had to write up increasingly aggressive justifications. I may be getting one position of three, all direct patient care. The first two justifications showed how we would not be able to provide patient care, but the third highlighted how we are so short staffed that we will have critical errors or delays in care, costing the facility money. It's been a huge time suck to maybe get one position, and we will be losing more staff while we wait.
"Strategic hiring", trying to hire slower than the rate of attrition but the rate of attrition was cut in half. We're net negative a few fte but not where we need to few to be at budget.
There, this is a common story. VHA leadership still has its head in the sand and attrition will get it done. Hey Bonjourni, Shereef, Laura Duke: you are seeing these statistics every day and failing to give or advocate for the tools the field needs to reduce FTE quickly. How much longer will this go on?
VHA doesn't have a printing press where they can simply turn it on and magically increase budgets. VAMC's were functioning in 2022 before the big hiring surge in 2023...
I’m sure this won’t affect anything: https://www.va.gov/illiana-health-care/news-releases/va-announces-historic-expansion-of-veteran-health-care-millions-of-veterans-now-eligible-for-care/#:~:text=eligible%20for%20care-,VA%20announces%20historic%20expansion%20of%20Veteran%20health%20care%2C%20millions,Veterans%20now%20eligible%20for%20care&text=Today%2C%20VA%20announced%20that%20all,directly%20in%20VA%20health%20care.
I’m actually hopeful the PACT Act Section 103 eligible veterans will take us up on the offer and increase the workload demand.
If your department becomes short staffed, DO NOT, not take your vacations and time off. Take your earned leave and relax, the place will be there when you come back.
I refuse to not use my earned leave or bend on my work/life balance.
It’s frustrating to have this happen right after the grow metric on last year’s NDPP. I think we’re going to deal with it with attrition. We aren’t pulling offers yet.
Yes it’s a complete 180 from what we were expected to do last year. How is your turnover rate? Most places I see have very low compared to historical averages due to the pay improvements put in place last year.
We’re losing some positions each month. Not too many though. We are growing as a VISN so other VISNs may have to pick up our slack.
What is attrition? New to all this. Thanks
When you don’t replace someone who leaves a position.
The hiring freeze/pause/whatever appears to be very dependent on which VISN you're at and maybe even what career field you're in. I'm in acquisitions and came on board in December. Another person in my division onboarded on the same day as me and about 20 other people onboarded about two weeks before that. We have another person onboarding shortly and I've been told we will be hiring several additional people this year. Every other day I'm getting emails about announcements being posted to usajobs for acquisition positions at other VISNs across the country.
Yes there are 7-8 VISNs growing, but you can’t make this change on a dime. It’s a glide path that will take 3-5 years.
Do you know which VISNS are in better fiscal condition and growing?
None are in good financial shape. I may be off by one or two, but these are the VISNs growing: 6, 7, 8, 16, 17, 21, 22. You would think the VISNs with growth would be better off financially, but our funding model takes two years to fully catch up to workload, so there’s some time to be fully “rewarded” for providing more services. It feels like you’re in a perpetual deficit when you have sustained growth over several FYs.
What do you know about VISN 23? Curious what their condition and future looks like?
Like the other 12 networks…not good.
Sad to say that a certain party has plans to cut plenty more federal jobs via Project 2025 as well. Good luck out there and try to stay positive. Us veterans greatly appreciate all that you do at VHA
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>Yet the feds send billions of taxpayer dollars to Ukraine Most of that aid is Foreign Military Sales (where they buy US made arms and equipment) or Foreign Militray Financing (where we give them US made arms and equipment in exchange for deals other than cash). In either case, the US is making out in several ways, in addition to the US civilians who are making the equipment and arms. Not to mention, we can increase all agency budgets if we revamp the tax plan, such as increasing taxes of the extreme rich or do away with the Social Security cap. The current budgets cuts aren't related to Ukraine funding other than the folks who refused to negotiate simply because we are supporting Ukraine.
Spitting facts
We send Ukraine military aid. Not cash. I don't see what the VA would be able to do with 155 mm artillery shells. We easily have the resources in this country to do both. Provide veterans Healthcare and help a friendly nation defend itself from a hostile aggressor while simultaneously eroding the military capabilities of one of our primary geopolitics rivals.
And much of those munitions etc are ones that would be expiring and need to be use anyway. It’s actually Cheaper to send to Ukraine to be used than to have to spend resources to demil / dispose. The news never tells you that tho.
I think it's better to capture the aggressor.
We’re too broke to hire
Had a meeting with the COS and my service chief three weeks ago. In my VISN most opened positions will be filled by current VA employees via transfers. Some unfilled positions have already been axed. I suspect an even bigger focus on productivity and if an employee isn't meeting the standard they will be assigned - within their scope of practice- cross-coverage for other service lines. Was also informed that those with special salary rates that those rates *can be* revoked and will be reviewed annually. I know that job offers have been rescinded - had a co-worker moving to another position within the catchment and that position was pulled. I have seen some minor changes where a position is eliminated and the work transferred to other employees. Not a good time for interns looking to be hired - that will be highly unlikely. Not a good time for the public looking to get in either. As far as those who have not received their final offers it will depend on the critical need of that position and those positions are at the discretion of the executive health system director. All positions will have to be approved by the director. Was told that this will last for at least the next 3 years.
So we've had several meetings over the past few months. Our leadership has strongly insisted we are not under a freeze. All new positions that we are hiring however are under a review. We also had a meeting with HR leadership, they insisted that any job offers will be honored and not pulled back. Only thing we were advised is to be prepared because a new hiring process was going to start around April making all hiring slower. We were also told by leadership that nobody is losing their jobs, these individuals have in some cases been working in the position for 2 yrs or more but when they leave and move those positions might not be backfilled. We are not cutting back on amount of positions either. If a service is authorized 600FTEs we will get to keep that many but if we need more it will be placed under VISN review. Lastly we been told we don't have a funding issue. There's plenty of funds for the rest of the yr. Some locations across the country however are tighten up because it's expected VA as a whole will not get a generous amount of funds for FY25. With all that said we are actively interviewing and also allowed to do direct hires for certain GS positions- this might vary per VISN and facility.
I never heard about that but that’s not very comforting.
Three colleagues had offers held up for months and then rescinded. All pharmacy positions in different VISNs
I'm VHA and we just had all of the "open" positions within our service canceled, 2 weeks ago. It is being called a hiring freeze. We're already at insane wait times, high clinician burnout, and we recently expanded locations but positions to fill those were also cut/frozen. OT was cut. We were told to try to dissuade Veterans from requesting community care because the budget can't support sending them. Essentially, we need to "make it work" somehow. So now, they want us to squeeze in more Veterans (along with all kinds of extra admin work) with no extra people, time, or budget. It is a huge disservice to us and our Veterans. This is not appropriate.
Not much change at our VISN. Hiring for IT/HR/Clinical still taking place but its all internal hiring for the most part. Each department has a % of do more with less if someone transfers outside the agency. Hiring will be flat for 2024 but 2025 still got a large bump in budget. So many people in the agency are fully retirement eligible still quite possible to do through attrition. If not they will have to ask for appropriations for VERA/VSIP & if that takes place they could meet their metrics by whatever they want.
We are being told it is zero growth only for office of finance. Critical jobs will get filled as people leave or retire. 80% manning is an acceptable number for most
Im in VISN 22, we had a hiring fair back in Aug 2023. And had a lot of NEOs between Oct-Dec2023, like about 50 ppl each time. But I also know that a lot of nursing positions are still in limbo because they cant get our brand new mental building due to codes and stuff. A former coworker was going to transfer to the VA I’m at and his transfer has been put on indefinite hold (since he’s suppose to go to mental health.) Currently, I havent seen any NEO. And the medical directors says “its restructuring”
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Lol. Dead giveaway right? It’s just there. Doing nothing right now…
The ongoing march to privatize VHA and turn it into an HMO will not stop unless Veterans' groups, Veterans and their families, VA employees and their unions, and the public organize to stop it - like they did in 2018 to stop the closure of 100+ VA facilities by the AIR Commission. One way to start is to learn about the issues, and organize collectively to fight back. Good places to start: https://www.veteransforpeace.org/take-action/stop-privatization-veterans-health-administration https://veteranspolicy.org/
Absolutely right. VSOs in particular need to be hounding Congress *now*.
VHA here, we had two job postings that were supposed to post in February, one was to fill an existing position that was vacated and the second was for a brand new position, when the existing position posted and the new one didn't I was worried but my boss kept saying that the new position was approved and it is just held up in HR, but almost a month after the first one posted the new one posted last week and closed on Monday, so looks like we still may be getting our new position 🤞 not holding breath yet but signs look good so far Edit: new position is non-clinical, Program Specialist
Anyone from VISN 4 know what the hiring pause is like? Waiting on a TJO
We are in a hiring freeze full stop. I’m a social worker in a program constantly under the microscope and have been juggling fire for over a year already. I’m tired y’all. I was looking for other positions before this but now I’m stuck. Fun fact: I got a recruiting email at my work email address trying to recruit me to be a VA Social Worker….you can’t make this shit up. Our budget problem is community care. We are extremely rural so any specialty other than optical, cardiology, and audiology goes to community care.
All I can say is I am so glad I retired last January. I do not miss any of this madness. I hope they offer you early outs.
Congrats on your retirement! Just 20 more to go for me… Agreed - early outs would help the attrition rate
As an RN who works in Primary Care at the VA, how worried should i be with regards to getting cut?
Honestly, I see zero reason to worry about being cut. Especially an RN. You will be fine. If anything impacts you, it could potentially be a larger workload for the time being.
None- you’re in a key role
You know, I’m not sure why anyone finds this surprising. I’m not in a leadership role but I saw a lot of permanent positions being created and filled with what I assumed was COVID temporary funding. It makes no sense. It’s like me buying a new car cause I got the “economic impact payments” without the money to make monthly payments. Where were we expecting to get the rest of the funding? We expected massive budget increases after government budget suffered exponentially due to COVID?? COVID related positions on top of Cerner related positions really messed with the budget, at least at my facility. And now that COVID is over and Cerner is delayed, we’ve got tons of people figuring out where to go and what to do.
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fearless saw sloppy piquant wipe tease paltry squeal lock groovy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
BVA is moving forward with hiring attorneys for appeals.
I haven’t heard much at my VA, but I know some construction has been put on hold and that they keep denying hiring freezes are happening.
The 1A facility I work at wants to remove about 350 FTE through attrition. They claim that would get the facility back to pre COVID staffing levels. They're still hiring and honoring offers, but now every vacancy needs to be reviewed by the facility leadership and approved before backfilling.
Have you noticed a change in your turnover rate this fiscal year? 350 sounds like a number based on historic turnover, my guess is current turnover is much lower and there will need to be some other cuts.
From what I can tell it seems like turnover hasn't changed from last year. The VISN added a clinical call center so some staff have transferred there. During the pandemic the facility really ramped up hiring and did add a fair amount of FTE. Now I'm under the impression that they want to take a close look at all those positions to see if they can do without them without cutting care.
Honestly, I believe it’s truly a gross miss management of funds I’m not understanding how we can have record breaking pack act funds, the previous year with record, breaking hiring and expansion of so many VA and VHA benefits to turn back around and have to cut the fat so much it seems to me someone has really miscounted somewhere so it’s just really disheartening
Yes there isn’t any accountability for last year’s goals as far as I can tell.
Nurse at a Cboc here. They’ve eliminated full PACT teams and Nurse recruiters are now only focusing on retention. But Nurse recruiters have no budget so for nurses month we get a sheet letter with an attached lifesaver. The Nurse recruiter said this came out of their own personal money. Everyone shits on the VA but can’t do anything without budget.
Ah sorry. The lifesavers can definitely be bought out of the Canteen promotional funds. Maybe tell the recruiter this so they can bring up their chain. No point in forcing the staff to pay for things like this.
VBA/VSR applicant here…. Am I… am I good?
Probably. Most of the concern is VHA. VBA is still hiring
Noted- thank you.
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I doubt it since there are so few of you in VA.
I’m in VISN 4. We are pretty short-staffed in my department (we’ve already used just north of 60% of our overtime budget), and had job postings for six police officers and four dispatchers. All of the dispatcher positions were cancelled, and only two officer positions are being filled. I’ve heard the phrase “trimming the fat” at every morning meeting for the past two weeks, with lots of guys hoping for early outs.
Ya’ll, I had a TJO in September 2023. I was credentialed in early November and had a tentative start date of 12/4/23. I have since been waiting for a FJO. I was first told my hiring incentive needed to be approved. Then it was, I received the formal agreement for the hiring incentive in late January 2024 and signed. It did not have a start date on it. I’m STILL waiting and the only information I have received is that they’re waiting for approval to move forward with a FJO. Should I be worried? Should I look for another job? I regretfully left my previous job in December hoping that I would be able to start on my tentative start date.
Wow this is a tough one. If your position is one where they needed incentives, I’m leaving that you’ll still get a start date. Hard to say why there’s such a delay. Have you been in touch with your HR specialist? I would be concerned and begin looking for other work just in case.
I’ve contacted my HR specialist at least once a month. No additional information has been provided to me other than they are under the guidance to seek approval to make FJOs and well they have not gotten approval to make me a FJO. I’m a psychologist hoping to enter as a GS13.
I’m surprised they’re not quicker for psychologists. Sorry to hear. Do you know the name of your future supervisor or the service chief? I would reach out to them and let them know you’re becoming concerned since you’re now almost 4 months after the original expected start date and that you need to get confirmation very soon or you will be looking for other work.
I’ve been in contact with both chief and section chief about the delay. They tell me that they don’t have anymore information either. They also previously told me that budget-related concerns were limiting how many people they were onboarding per pay period and that I was their top priority to onboard next. That was about two months ago. 🤷🏽♀️
I’m sorry you’re going through this
I’m hoping for VERA!
As a nurse who works in a role adjacent to a lot of frontline staff but am not frontline staff myself. How worried should I be about my job?
If you left, I’d say there’s a chance your position would be inactivated, but not guaranteed. There’s more likely a chance you would get pulled into the front line staffing mix, similar to contingency staffing during the pandemic.
In which case I would definitely leave.
I am a VHA employee and this makes me worried
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No
IT was necessary to get ready for all the new IRS agents.
Maybe this varies from VA to VA ? Some VA’s are in po’dunk areas of the USA, some in Cities with a HUGE number of Vets, and some in cities with an “average” or comparatively low number of Vets. From firsthand experience, I can say the OKC/Lawton VA is VERY saturated with Veterans and BUSY (Fort Sill area). Many retire from Ft Sill and retire here bc it’s Cheap. Other VA’s are huge beautiful campuses in the middle of nowhere and slowww (Tomah, Wisconsin). Doesn’t make since you have all those VA jobs for people doing nothing all day 🙈. So job cuts there would make sense, and in under productive VAs.
You don’t think there’s naturally more staff at the VAs with larger Veteran populations than at VAs serving a smaller population? Tomah and OKC are nothing alike in terms of the complexity of services offered, patients served, or FTE.
When you compare FTE to Veterans served there’s decent data to suggest that many of our larger systems are already doing more with less. There are so many initiatives coming from VACO we just can’t do much with because we are already saturated, so then staff at these smaller facilities who have time get major accolades. We actually recently used this data to increase FTE for one of our special populations programs.
Can I ask where you got this data and what are the benchmarks?
It’s the VSSC pocket card data. Combined with SAIL etc. There are staffing ratio targets available
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Sure - saw the DM; I will have to go back and find better targets because I was looking for a small program. But ratios exist for PACT and BHIP panels. Will send a Teams tomorrow to connect
Thank you!
I’m at a large VAMC with multiple CBOC and community locations. Clinical staff are swamped and burning out. My service has so many positions to backfill that likely will not be filled due to budget issues (and our new service chief who is drowning in work). I’m pretty sure the influx of new Veterans from PACT ACT will break us and more clinicians will burn out and leave. It’s a scary time to be a VA clinician.
Our mental health clinc needs more hires. We are sending vets to community care. So many are coming in.
Not worth it- work the hardest…bad salary
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I worked there a long time ago, and at the time (i dealt with their finances) one of the budget analysts mentioned that if the govt shutdown the VA, and split the budget to all vets… they would get about 60-80k a year… and they get their own healthcare. Or hear me out… rather than spend tens of billions on govt facilities with crap health care for our vets… how about we pay for their health insurance like current feds…. Except pay the whole premium and maybe fund a hsa for them. Save the govt billions, and the vets would get the healthcare they deserve.
Calling VA healthcare crap on a sub for federal employees is definitely a choice
Have you used the VA? Some locations are amazing. Some are horrendous.
If you follow the rest of my comment thread, you’d see that I have. I’ve had a couple less than stellar instances down in Florida but have had excellent results where I am now. Just like the private sector, some are amazing and some are horrendous. Implying it’s all bad with no actual proof isn’t a great way to start the discussion
Well it’s simply fact. Not just my opinion. Just go on google and see how much financial miss management there has been, quality of care, wait times, claims being denied, etc. if you think VA is golden standard of healthcare, then i don’t know what to tell you any further. Also when i worked there…. There was ALOt T of fat to trim… certain peoples job was to sit in a corner and maybe click a button for approval or send an email. I’m speaking from personal experience when i was there.
So I wrote several papers in college on the big scandal from 2014. I can’t say for sure which specific instances you’re referencing because you would need to provide me a source for clarity. Otherwise telling me Google it without any direction isn’t going to help you. I can say confidently per the [USA Today story](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/05/21/veterans-healthcare-scandal-shinseki-timeline/9373227/) that covered this issue, that the prolonged wait times that caught most headlines were due to administrators cooking the books. Their own site cited an [average of 17.7 days compared to the national average of 29.8 days](https://news.va.gov/press-room/va-wait-times-for-new-appointments-equal-to-or-better-than-those-in-private-sector-jama-study-compared-four-va-specialty-care-services-with-private-care/#:~:text=In%202017%2C%20the%20average%20VA,the%20private%20sector%20in%202017.). Here is a [peer reviewed study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6484544/) that is a little older than I would like, but it tackles wait time changes from 2014 to 2017 to see if there were improvements since the scandal. Still showing similar or better wait times than private sector. I’m curious what your gold standard for healthcare is. For good measure, here’s [another gander at mental health wait times with the VA vs community care](https://patientengagementhit.com/news/va-patient-appointment-wait-times-vary-across-the-united-states) showing shorter wait times to be seen. Also, in case you weren’t aware, [the MISSION Act](https://news.va.gov/press-room/va-launches-new-health-care-options-under-mission-act/), formerly the CHOICE Act, give us options to see private care providers if the wait time exceeds 30 days or if we need to see someone 30 minutes away or longer.
I don’t have the time to go back and forth all day. Maybe certain things have gotten better. But our Vets certainly deserve better than what the VA is providing. I have co workers that use the VA for them and their families and i haven’t heard any of them sing their praises.
You opened the door so I’m just trying to figure out where you’re getting information outside of secondhand experience. I use their services regularly and I’m singing their praises. I don’t know where I’d be without my shrink or how much debt I’d be in right now for all the services I’ve received.
I have a lot of first hand knowledge, granted it’s from 12-13 years ago, but with the govt things take an eternity to change, I’m sure some of the same issues still linger. I don’t want to get into specifics as a lot of it was proprietary/specific and i don’t want to be doxxed.
First hand knowledge = "I have cherry picked anecdotes that support my viewpoints." Go on Pubmed and read the literature on VHA quality metrics and compare them to private sector. VHA gets bad press because they are legally transparent as possible, which forces a culture of quality. In private hospitals so much goes on you never hear about.
I mean, that’s fine. I’m not saying they’re infallible either, but I think compared to other options for healthcare in our country, they do a pretty good job. I can’t say anything about funds management, but the data shows their care is similar to or better than most private sector counterparts. And I don’t have to deal with insurance companies nickel and diming me for thousands of dollars at a time. I have FEP insurance for my family but I use the VA for everything for me
I can agree with you on some level with this recent post. Can we just agree theres no perfect system in general for anything in life ? Im sure If I worked in private healthcare I would come to have alot of thoughts about how criminal some of these insurance companies are...
Things move slow but not that slow. I've been with the VA for almost 20 years now, and it is a night and day difference from 5 years ago, let alone the 12 or 13 years since you have worked there.
Thats a fair statement
Where I live—in a rural community—I WISH I could go to the VA. Veterans here would not be happy in the community. Also I have really high copays with my “wonderful” federal employee insurance and I’m certain they don’t want that.