Clinical professional positions at the Veterans Health Administration have continued to face rising losses, a July 29 report from the Government Accountability Office has found.
The report examined the attrition rate of five clinical jobs that the VHA considers in short supply—including physicians, nurses and psychologists—and found that the rate of professionals leaving the agency had increased by 31 percent, from 5,897 positions in 2011 to 7,734 in 2015.
Related:Read the report
The report comes at a time in which the VHA is trying to better its response time to an increasing number of veteran health care issues.
"Despite its hiring efforts, we and others have expressed concerns about VHA's ability to ensure that it has the appropriate clinical workforce to meet the current and future needs of veterans, due to factors such as national shortages and increased competition for clinical employees in hard-to-fill occupations," the report said in a letter to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
The five shortage positions accounted for nearly half of the total clinical positions lost in 2015, driven largely by voluntary resignations and retirements.
The report found that professionals in the clinical shortage positions that left the VHA cited the following in exit interviews:
- 28 percent said advancement had played a role, while 21 percent said that dissatisfaction, including "such as concerns about management and obstacles to getting the work done, was the primary reason they were leaving."
- 71 percent said no single event convinced them to leave the VHA.
- Half of the respondents said they were generally satisfied with senior management, while 31 percent said they were not.
- 65 percent were generally satisfied with their jobs, while 25 percent said they were not.
- 50 percent said they would have stayed if they had benefits like alternative or part-time schedules or student loan repayment or tuition assistance.
The report is part of an annual assessment of the five clinical positions with the largest staffing shortages in the VHA, which is required by The Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014.
The GAO didn't offer any recommendations on how to stem the losses, but the Department of Veterans Affairs said in the report that the attrition levels had returned to the pre-recession rates of 2006-2007 after they declined due to the economic downturn.
The agency also said the shortage mirror those in the private health care sector, where there is increased competition to fill physician and nurse shortages, but that it was still working to address them in-house.
"VHA is strongly committed to developing long-term solutions that mitigate risks to the timeliness, cost-effectiveness, quality and safety of the VA health care system," the agency said in response to the report.
