Half of critical positions open at some VA hospitals
Posted almost 10 years ago by Nicholas M Perrino
"About one in three jobs are vacant at nine of the nation's regional Veterans Affairs health care systems, leaving veterans waiting weeks to get care.
Nationally, one in six positions — nearly 41,000 — for critical intake workers, doctors, nurses and assistants were unfilled as of mid July, in part due to complex hiring procedures and poor recruitment, according to critics of the nation's network of 139 hospitals and clinics that treat veterans.
Physician assistants, who manage a caseload of patients, have prescribing duties and often are called to run rural clinics or serve as first-assist on surgeries, have slowly been seeing vacancy numbers rise for the past two decades, said Rubina DaSilva, president of the Veterans Affairs Physician Assistant Association.
By next year, 37% of PAs in the VA system will be eligible for retirement. If they all took it, DaSilva said, it would reduce the VA's caseload capacity by 1.1 million appointments a year.
That's particularly troubling to DaSilva because the military gave birth to the role of physician assistants, as skilled military medics and corpsmen returning from Vietnam were steered toward that level of medical training. Graduates from the country's first PA program worked at a Veterans Affairs hospital. But as the private sector has bought in to the idea of PAs serving as an economical primary medical care, demand has grown, and now salaries and benefits in private medical practices outpace what the VA can offer in most locations, she said.
The group has recommended the VA do a local pay scale survey and universally cover more licensing and professional development costs, things DaSilva said were 'easy fixes' that could go a long way in retaining talent. PAs have the highest turnover rate of all the medical positions deemed as critical needs by the Inspector General."