The bill also would authorize the VA to make special payments for executive nurses and pharmacists. Image: Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe Senate has readied for floor voting S-10, the latest in a series of bills aiming to address chronic understaffing at the VA. Among other provisions, the bill would require the VA to:
* replace its current pay system, which includes components for base pay, market pay, and performance pay, with a single component system that compensates physicians, podiatrists, dentists, and optometrists at amounts sufficient to meet the department’s recruiting and retention goals.
* reimburse additional types of health care providers for continuing professional education expenses and to pay for the costs of licensing exams and certifications for people who receive health professional scholarships from the department.
* make other health care employees, including nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, and physician assistants, eligible for reimbursements of expenses relating to continuing professional education that now are available only to full-time physicians and dentists.
* pay the costs for any licensing exams and certifications that are required for recipients of its health professional scholarships such as the Readjustment Counseling Services Scholarship Program and the Employee Incentive Scholarship Program.
It also would authorize the VA to pay, as a recruitment and retention incentive, additional special payments for executive nurses and pharmacists.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., has introduced S-2718, which among other things would provide higher salaries for VA employees who schedule appointments and “education incentives and pathways to support other administrative offices that have high vacancy rates, including human resources.”
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