Clarification from the agency

Current, Permanent VA Employees and CTAP Eligibles

Videos

Duties of the Medical Administration Specialist include but are not limited to:

• Delegated full authority and responsibility to exercise the Medical Center Director's prerogative in medical administrative matters and issues that may arise.
• Represents management in (non-policy making) administrative matters.
• Represents management in matters pertaining to the lawful retention of veterans in the VAMC.
• Maintains continuity of functions and provides full medical administrative support during other than normal tours of duty to clinical and administrative medical center staff.
• Responsible for achieving management objectives and supporting the decision of management in carrying out duties.
• Provides technical guidance necessary to meet procedural, legal, and administrative requirements relating to the care and treatment of patients to achieve optimum use of available resources.
• Processes administrative issues surrounding beneficiary death, seriously ill cases, elopements, suicides, assaults, deaths on arrival (DOAs), homicides, code blue, cost recovery matters, and facility or community disasters, etc.
• Assists in responding to emergencies, determines priorities and nature of action to be taken.
• Assists with computer issues during non-business hours.
• Maintains good public and media relations as instructed and trained by the Public Affairs Officer until the designated employee arrives.
• Conducts analytical studies on operational processes, issue topics, or related special projects as assigned.
• Reviews data and information for trends, problem areas, and makes recommendations to management to resolve issues.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Promotion Potential: The selectee may be promoted to the full performance level without further competition when all regulatory, qualification, and performance requirements are met. Selection at a lower grade level does not guarantee promotion to the full performance level.

Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 4:00pm - 12:00am, with rotating weekends and holidays
Virtual: This is not a virtual position.
Position Description/PD#: Medical Administration Specialist/PD99368S and PD99385S
Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized
Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved
Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized

Conditions of employment

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959
• Subject to background/security investigation
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents). Effective May 7, 2025, driver's licenses or state-issued identification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment.
• Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP)

As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1-year probationary period or 2-year trial period during which we will evaluate your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest. In determining if your employment advances the public interest, we may consider:

• your performance and conduct;
• the needs and interests of the agency;
• whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and
• whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service.

Upon completion of your probationary period or trial period, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 07/20/2026.

• 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-07 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-05 and below. For a GS-09 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-07. 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.
• Applicants must be eligible under the VA Interchange Agreement, having served continuously for at least one year in the other merit system under this interchange agreement. For more information regarding the VA Interchange Agreement please visit: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-authorities/competitive-hiring/.
• All Title 38 Veterans Canteen Service (VCS) employees must have served in their Excepted Service position for at least 90 days in order to be eligible for a position within the Competitive Service.
• Applicants who were previously selected under a Competitive Delegating Examining Office (DEO) announcement must have served in their position for at least 90 days prior to being eligible for other positions within the Competitive Service.

You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below:

GS-07 Specialized Experience: You must possess one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-05 level in the Federal service. Specialized experience is defined as experience which equipped you with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities required to perform successfully the duties of the Medical Administration Specialist, and that is typically in or related to the work of the position. Examples of specialized experience include: Basic knowledge of medical center organization, functions, specialties, and programs, i.e., Social Work, Nursing, Laboratory, Radiology, etc.; experience locating and interpreting regulations from a wide range of sources; reviewing data and information for trends, problem areas, and makes recommendations to management to resolve issues; ability to cope with wide variety of problems and to resolve them quickly and decisively; and explain and organize complex issues in writing. NOTE: Experience must be fully documented on your resume and must include job title, duties, month and year start/end dates AND hours worked per week.
OR,
GS-07 Education: You must possess one year of graduate-level education or Superior Academic Achievement (SAA). One year of full-time graduate education is considered to be the number of credit hours that the school attended has determined to represent one year of full-time study. If that number cannot be obtained from the school, 18 semester hours should be considered an academic year of graduate study. SAA is based on class standing (upper third), GPA of 3.0 or above based on four years of education, or honor society membership.
OR,
GS-07 Combination of Experience and Education: You must possess a combination of experience and education to qualify at the GS-7 level. This will be computed by first determining your total qualifying experience as a percentage of the experience required for the grade level; then determining your education as a percentage of the education required for the grade level; and then adding the two percentages. The total percentages must equal at least 100 percent to qualify. For example if you possess nine semester hours of graduate education (50% of the education requirement) and six months of qualifying experience (50% of specialized experience requirement) you meet 100% of the requirement and be qualified.
OR,
GS-09 Specialized Experience: You must possess one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-07 level in the Federal service. Specialized experience is defined as experience which equipped you with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities required to perform successfully the duties of the Medical Administration Specialist, and that is typically in or related to the work of the position. Examples of specialized experience include: Assisting in processing administrative issues; acquires and maintains a working knowledge of relevant laws, regulations, policies, standards, or procedures; promoting and maintaining good working relationships with key individuals or groups; monitoring, maintaining, and updating data, records, or other information; reviewing reports, documents, records, data, or other materials to verify completeness, correctness, consistency, and compliance; notifying individuals of decisions, problems, or further actions needed.
OR,
GS-09 Education: You must possess a Master's or equivalent graduate degree or two full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree, or an LL.B or J.D., if related.
OR,
GS-09 Combination of Experience and Education: You must possess a combination of education and experience to qualify at the GS-09 level. Only graduate education in excess of the amount required for the GS-07 level (1 year) may be used to qualify. For example, the position to be filled is a Medical Administration Specialist. You have six months of specialized experience equivalent to GS-07 and one year of graduate level education. You meet 50 percent of the required experience, but none of the required education, since you do not have any graduate education beyond the GS-07. Therefore, you meet only 50 percent of the total requirement and are not qualified for the position.

Preferred Experience: Experience in eligibility, travel and emergency department administration.

You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position:

• Administration and Management
• Decision Making
• Organizational Awareness
• Problem Solving
• Self Management
• Communication

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 much walking through the medical center with occasionally the requirement to lift objects such as suitcases, clothing, or medical charts. Work is accomplished in a busy, generally congested office area. The HOD routinely goes to most sections and buildings, including offices, clinics, wards, laboratories and the morgue.

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/.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE WILL NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE.

Narrative responses are not required at this time. If you are referred for consideration, you may be asked to submit additional job related information, which may include, but not limited to; responses to the knowledge, skills and abilities; completion of a work sample, and/or contact for an interview. Your resume and/or supporting documentation will be verified. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your rating or consideration for employment.

The Department of Veterans Affairs performs pre-employment reference checks as an assessment method used in the hiring process to verify information provided by a candidate (e.g., on resume or during interview or hiring process); gain additional knowledge regarding a candidate's abilities; and assist a hiring manager with making a final selection for a position.

For more information on the "Who may apply" eligibility requirements, please refer to the OHRM Status Candidates and Other Candidate Definitions document.

Placement Policy: The posting of this announcement does not obligate management to fill a vacancy or vacancies by promotion. The position may be filled by reassignment, change to lower grade, transfer, appointment, or reinstatement. Management may use any one or any combination of these methods to fill the position.

It is the policy of the VA to not deny employment to those that have faced financial hardships or periods of unemployment.

Veterans and Transitioning Service Members: Please visit the VA for Vets site for career-search tools for Veterans seeking employment at VA, career development services for our existing Veterans, and coaching and reintegration support for military service members.