Program Specialist (Service Recovery)

Full Job Description

The position serves as a Service Recovery Specialist for the STVHCS.

The position is in alignment to the Patient Experience Section Chief under the Organizational Experience Service in fulfilling its responsibility to optimize the health and healing of every Veteran, the VA has embraced a patient-centered focus.

Moving to a patient-centered approach will require a culture change across the VA.

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 02/26/2026.

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-9 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-7. 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: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-07 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization.

Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: screening correspondence for clarity, completeness, and grammatical and procedural correctness; document requests for information, navigate the Veterans Signals (VSignals), prepare monthly reports on VSignals volume, levels and categories of compliments, concerns, and recommendations, serves as Facilitator of WECARE Leadership, work with Patient Experience Team to resolve problems, track patient feedback, develop and maintain automated tracking system for all complaints and feedback, coordinates administrative activities with the section.OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience.

To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have a master's or equivalent graduate degree or 2 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree or LL.B.

or J.D., if related. (TRANSCRIPT REQUIRED) OR, Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level.

You must have an combination of specialized experience and education beyond one year of full-time graduate education.

(TRANSCRIPT REQUIRED) 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/.

Physical Requirements: The work is sedentary. It occasionally requires carrying light objects such as files, books, and papers. No special physical qualification is required.

Walking, standing, and bending may occur daily. Considerable time may be spent on the computer and using a keyboard. Major Duties:

Duties may include but are not limited to: Screens all prepared correspondence for clarity, completeness of response, and grammatical and procedural correctness.

Reviews material for grammar, neatness, technical accuracy, adherence to established format, sensitivity to subject and conformance with VA and STVHCS policies; Has comprehensive knowledge of the organization and functions of the Health Care System, as the incumbent will utilize this knowledge daily to ensure that requests for information are documented and routed to the appropriate Services for responses utilizing the Patient Advocate Tracking System Reporting (PAT-R); Navigates the Veterans Signals (VSignals) feedback tool to appropriately review incoming VSignals responses received from Veterans who had an experience within the Health Care System; Determines the appropriate assignment for response as necessary, assign a due date for response, and monitor for final disposition and closeout; Incumbent will verify that resolution is documented in VSignals.

Responsible for independently preparing monthly reports on VSignals volume, levels and categories of compliments, concerns, and recommendations, and submitting to Supervisor for Experience Board consideration; Serve as a Facilitator for WECARE Leadership and Safety rounding; Facilitates feedback sessions following rounds, determining when action and response are necessary.

Will track all actions resulting from WECARE rounds, assigning to appropriate Services for response, and ensuring all actions are closed out timely and completely.

Responsible for documenting all WECARE rounding information accurately and timely into a centralized database and providing information for analysis on a regular basis; Works with the Patient Experience Team to resolve problems or expedite service within established Health Care System policies; Tracks, and trend patient feedback, concerns, compliments and suggestions presented to the incumbent by patients and staff through feedback mechanisms and correspondence.

He/She will synthesize feedback from various areas regarding concerns from Veterans in an electronic database Patient Advocate Tracking System Reporting (PATS-R) and notify supervisor of duplicate concerns; Develops an effective automated tracking system for all concerns and feedback; Responds personally to nontechnical requests for information regarding programs and functions, project assignments, and current work status.

He/She provides coordination of administrative activities within the Section; The incumbent will receive all Veterans Hotline formerly known as White House Hotline concerns from Patient Advocate Tracking System Reporting platform (PATS-R) and independently analyze the correspondence to determine the nature of the problem and/or request for data and assigns to the appropriate office that has the staff responsibility regarding the concerns addressed by the correspondence.

Serves as controller of all Veteran Hotline correspondence and liaison between Veterans Integrated Service Network 17 and Health Care System staff.

Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 7:30am-4:00pm or 8:00am-4:30pm Telework: This position may be authorized for telework. Telework eligibility will be discussed during the interview process.

Virtual: This is not a virtual position.

Position Description/PD#: Program Specialist (Service Recovery)/PD03909A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized