The Telephone Operator position will be assigned to the Patient Experience Service Line, Associate Director for Patient Care Service, VA Puget Sound Health Care System (VAPSHCS).

Duties

Duties include but are not limited to: You will perform technical work in monitoring and operating multiple communication systems, including processing, and transferring incoming calls. Also included are duties such as the 911 emergency line. You will serve as patient information resource for staff and Veterans, provides necessary look up of Medical Center staff phone numbers and pager numbers. You will communicate on a daily basis with the VA Police, Facilities Management using the high frequency radio to notify them of all emergency situations. You will prepare and print out the computerized on-call schedules, quick reference guides, and other organizational telephone and reference lists utilizing Word and Excel computer programs. You will provide verification of clinician names, pager numbers and home phone numbers for use with the on-call schedule. You will gather enough detailed information from caller to determine most efficient way to provide assistance. You will maintain a current knowledge of and ability to answer inquiries from other employees on procedures, policies, directives, and information related to Veteran benefits, eligibility, pharmacy refill options, outpatient clinic locations, code procedures, etc. You will comprehend and utilize the information in the Medical Center Cascade Call Back notebook to activate the Cascade Call Back procedure as directed by the Director's office. These duties are for a Fully-Trained Telephone Operator. We provide 4-6 weeks of training to bring an operator up to speed. Two weeks at American lake, two weeks at Seattle. Then two weeks of supervised work from the assigned location (Seattle or American Lake).

Requirements

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 09/03/2023. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-4 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-3 level. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment. You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below: General Experience: Applicants must possess one (1) year of general experience that equipped you with the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to successfully perform the duties of this position. General experience is customer service; place, receive, and transfer local, regular, and special long-distance calls; progressively responsible clerical, office, or other work that indicates ability to acquire the particular knowledge and skills needed to perform the duties of the position to be filled. NOTE: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have successfully completed two (2) years of education above the high school level in any field? This education must have been obtained in an accredited business, secretarial or technical school, junior college, college or university for which high school graduation or the equivalent is the normal prerequisite. One year of full-time undergraduate study is defined as 30 semester hours, 45 quarter hours, or the equivalent in a college or university or at least 20 hours of classroom instruction per week for approximately 36 weeks in a business, secretarial or technical school. (TRANSCRIPT REQUIRED) OR, Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have an combination of successfully completed post-high school education and experience to meet total qualification requirements at the GS-4 level. The total percentage must equal at least 100 percent to qualify for this grade level. (TRANSCRIPT REQUIRED) You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: CommunicationsCustomer ServiceTelecommunications Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. Physical Requirements: The work is primarily sedentary with reaching, dialing numbers on the console, keyboarding, carrying of light supplies required. Because calls received are emergent and so varied, the position can be emotionally taxing. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

Education

A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education.

Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. For further information, visit: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-visitus-forrecog.html.

Contacts

• Address VA Puget Sound Health Care System 1660 South Columbian Way Seattle, WA 98108 US
• Name: Heidi Winters
• Phone: 509-434-7607
• Email: [email protected]