The incumbent provides administrative and program support for the Veteran Transportation Program (VTP), Portland VA Medical Center (PVAMC); Portland, Oregon. The employee provides oversight of the financial and data aspects of the VTP program. The employee obtains and organizes reports, numerical data, and correspondence in order to prepare data validation status reports, pays invoices, performs monthly reconciliations, audits and internal processes.

Duties

Major duties include but not limited to: Program Administration & Organizational: Incumbent must possess knowledge of pertinent Veteran Health Administration (VHA) directives, policies, guidelines and procedures. Knowledge of beneficiary travel and veteran transportation services (VTS) activities and policies, as well as a thorough knowledge of Veteran Health Information & Technology Architecture (VistA) applications related to beneficiary travel. Incumbent must possess the skills necessary to apply this knowledge in assisting in development of local policies and procedures as well as training programs for VTP staff. The incumbent serves as the key advisor to management and researches, evaluates and recommends the appropriate actions to resolve various program support issues and develops program information and resource materials. Incumbent will effectively manage cost control and will investigate travel fraud and abuse. The incumbent is expected to research transportation innovations around the country and implement validated best practices. Incumbent is held directly responsible for interpreting VA regulations and policy to correctly determining eligibility for veterans participating in the program. Reviews requests for reimbursement of travel costs for the purpose of assuring compliance with regulations and procedures, completeness, accuracy, internal consistency, and agreement with basic authorization. Incumbent responds to inquiries by veterans, Medical Center staff, and veteran service organizations. Employee coordinates with travel facilities in other VA Medical Centers throughout the VISN to track potential fraud, waste and abuse cases within Beneficiary Travel. Operates automated equipment including word processing and personal computers. Creates, copies, edits, calculates, revises, retrieves, stores and prints a wide range of documents in final form. Prepares graphs, statistical reports and other correspondence using various software, including word processing, electronic mail, spreadsheets, database and graphics programs. Types a variety of correspondence, forms, reports, etc., from rough drafts or previous example. Refers to style manuals, dictionaries, and similar guides in order to determine format, arrangement, spelling, punctuation, etc. Incumbent complies with information security requirements as well as the Privacy Act of 1974 in order to protect confidential patient information recorded in different Automated Data Processing (ADP) systems as well as hard copy records. Data Collection & Tracking Support: Incumbent regularly encounters problems and challenges that require analysis and resolution within an area of the program or functional specialty defined by management. Awareness and understanding of overall VTP, Business Office, Veteran Integrated Service Network (VISN) and Medical Center goals and objectives are critical to the successful accomplishment of the duties assigned to this position. Performs work involving the collection, compilation and/or tracking of data and statistical information in support of the Veteran Transportation program operation. Assists in planning, review and reporting of data/statistical results of program/project studies. Incumbent opens, adjusts, reconciles, and closes out 1358's within established timeframes and reconciles financial data with and against Fiscal Service's budgetary and expenditure data for VTP. This includes the processing of ambulance claims, special mode and taxi invoices for beneficiary travel and vehicle costs and various expenditures for VTS. Incumbent is responsible for the budget management associated with VTP fund control points. Major fund control points used in the VTP include, but not limited to: authorized and unauthorized ambulance claims, air ambulance, special mode and cash to patients. Contract Management: The incumbent is the primary point of contact for all transportation vendors requiring monthly communications with vendors to trouble shoot and review contract performance. Documents and prepares monthly account synopsis (contract performance) for contracting officials to justify compliance and makes recommendations to exercise additional option years or not. Prepares written reports on a monthly basis and can deliver verbal briefings to end users of the contract and management about performance of transportation vendors including supply, demand, cost, accuracy and distribution of services. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, between 7:30am - 4:30pm Compressed/Flexible: Not available. Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Telework: Up to 40% may be available to a highly qualified candidate. Position Description/PD#: Program Support Assistant/PD20914-0 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Financial Disclosure Report: Not required

Requirements

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet specialized experience within 30 days of the closing date of this announcement, 09/05/2023. 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 within 30 days of the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-06 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-05. 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 specialized experience as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-05 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: providing and scheduling orientation for new staff; keeping managers informed of the status of on-going personnel actions; providing advice on solving personnel related problems; monitoring and coordinating all mandatory staff training and continuing education, and maintaining competency assessment checklists; serves as the primary timekeeper for the Service; and preparing, maintaining timely submission of time and attendance reports for each employee whose record has been assigned to their jurisdiction. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Administration and ManagementClericalOrganizational Awareness 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 requires no special physical demands. It may involve some walking, standing, bending, or carrying of light items. Concentration and sustained performance under prolonged stress is required because of the time factors involved with completion of work. 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

There is no educational substitution at this grade level.

Contacts

• Address VA Portland Health Care System 3710 Southwest US Veterans Hospital Road Portland, OR 97239 US
• Name: John Buan
• Phone: 503-220-8262 X59964
• Email: [email protected]