Tester looks to shore up rural VA staffing

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, last week introduced legislation intended to bolster recruitment and retention of clinicians, particularly those in rural areas, at the Department of Veteran Affairs.

Tester, the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman, teamed up with U.S. Sen. John Boozman, a Republican from Arizona, to introduce the VA Clinician Appreciation, Recruitment, Education, Expansion, and Retention Support (CAREERS) Act.

“As Chairman, I often hear from veterans in Montana and across the country about the lack of providers in rural communities,” Tester said in a press release. “We need VA to hire providers faster and be able to retain high-quality talent in rural areas.”

Staffing issues in VA facilities have been previously studied. In the spring of 2022, the American Federation of Government Employees and the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute surveyed VA employees about challenges related to unsustainable work demands. More than 2,300 employees completed the survey.

According to the survey, 60% of respondents reported losing staff and resources needed to serve veterans over the last four years. Nearly 90% of respondents said their facilities needed more frontline staff.

The Office of the Inspector General at the VA conducted a review last year to identify clinical and non-clinical occupations experiencing staffing shortages within the Veterans Health Administration, and found that all 139 VHA facilities in the country reported at least one severe occupational staffing shortage.

According to Tester’s office, the VA CAREERS Act has provisions that aim to modernize VA’s pay system including pay for licensure exam costs for future clinicians participating in VA scholarship programs, expanded eligibility to reimburse health care workers for ongoing professional education costs, and increased workforce data reporting requirements.

“Chairman Tester’s VA CAREERS Act will have a big impact on ensuring veterans in Montana have access to their earned health care benefits,” John Burgess, president of Northwest Montana Chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America, stated in the press release. “I believe it will give the VA what it needs to get the clinicians in the areas they are needed and give the highest quality of care to our nation’s veterans.”

Last Congress, Tester passed the PACT Act, successfully securing other key workforce provisions to support the VA and expand health care coverage for toxic-exposed veterans.

While the PACT Act aimed to deliver care to toxic-exposed veterans, it also included resources to increase hiring and retention. This next bill is a step further on those provisions.