Gastroenterology Job at Veterans Health Administration in Harlingen, TX

The VATVCBHCS is comprised of the Corpus Christi Outpatient Clinic, Corpus Christi Specialty Clinic, Harlingen Outpatient Clinic, Health Care Center at Harlingen, Laredo Outpatient Clinic, and McAllen Outpatient Clinic. The VATVCBHCS is an ambulatory health care system providing health care in medicine, surgery, psychiatry, and rehabilitation medicine. The VATVCBHCS also operates a 100-patient Home Based Primary Care program and a 200-patient Care Coordination Home Tele-Health Program. Through the utilization of inpatient/emergency department contracts, approximately 2600 inpatient admission and 5800 ER visits are managed by VATVCBHCS.

The Gastroenterologist clinical and administrative duties and responsibilities include but are not limited to:

Clinical Duties:  The staff Gastroenterologist is expected to remain privileged and practicing in their specialty field. The exact privileges and procedures for a particular provider will be approved by the Professional Standards Board.

• Patient Care: Practitioners are expected to provide patient care that is compassionate, appropriate, and effective for the promotion of health, prevention of illness, treatment of disease, and care at the end of life.
• Practitioners are expected to provide inpatient and consult service during off tours (nights, weekends, and holidays, as needed by the organization.
• Medical/Clinical Knowledge: Practitioners are expected to demonstrate knowledge of established and evolving biomedical, clinical and social sciences, and the application of their knowledge to patient care and the education of others.
• Clinical Judgment: To ensure practice-based learning and improvement, practitioners are expected to be able to use scientific evidence and methods to investigate, evaluate, and improve patient care.
• Interpersonal and Communication Skills: Practitioners are expected to demonstrate interpersonal and communication skills that enable them to establish and maintain professional relationships with patients, families, and other members of the health care team.
• Professionalism: Practitioners are expected to demonstrate behaviors that reflect a commitment to continuous professional development, ethical practice, and understanding and sensitivity to diversity, and a responsible attitude toward their patients, their profession.
• Systems-Based Practice: Practitioners are expected to demonstrate both an understanding of the contexts and systems in which health care is provided, and the ability to apply this knowledge to improve optimizing health care.

Administrative Duties:

• Leadership responsibilities: participation in staff meetings when available during tour of duty, hospital committees, and peer review process. Demonstrate effective communication both down to staff and up to leadership, to include heads up (for acute patient bad outcomes) and issue briefs, potentially acting as Section Chief when the Section Chief is on leave.
• Human Resources: Maintaining Veterans Affairs (VA) training requirements, timely completion of documentation and upkeep of credentials required for privileging and re-privileging.
• Staff Management: Participate in the Focused Professional Practice Evaluations (FPPE)/Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluations (OPPE) process. Adheres to employee health requirements. Participate in clinical pertinence reviews (routine medical record reviews).
• Clinical Management including indirect patient care: open encounter and consult management, Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS) documentation rules and requirements, adherence to clinic procedures for patient scheduling and access, ensuring staff productivity, oversight of relevant performance measures, and participation in the development of the new focus on the Medical Home and Patient Centric Care, Utilization, Quality, and Patient Safety oversight, process improvement (system redesign)

VA offers a comprehensive total rewards package.  VHA Physician Total Rewards.

Recruitment Incentive (Sign-on Bonus):  Authorized
Education Debt Reduction Program (Student Loan Repayment):  Authorized, see details in 'Education section'
Pay:  Competitive salary, annual performance bonus, regular salary increases
Paid Time Off:  50-55 days of annual paid time offer per year (26 days of annual leave, 13 days of sick leave, 11 paid Federal holidays per year and possible 5 day paid absence for CME)
Retirement:  Traditional federal pension (5 years vesting) and federal 401K with up to 5% in contributions by VA
Insurance:  Federal health/vision/dental/term life/long-term care (many federal insurance programs can be carried into retirement)
Licensure:  1 full and unrestricted license from any US State or territory
CME:  Possible $1,000 per year reimbursement (must be full-time with board certification)
Malpractice:  Free liability protection with tail coverage provided
Contract:  No Physician Employment Contract and no significant restriction on moonlighting

Work Schedule:  Monday-Friday, 08:00am - 4:30pm

A  relocation or recruitment incentive  may be available for a highly qualified candidate. This position is eligible for  the Education Debt Reduction Program (EDRP)

The COVID-19 vaccination requirement for federal employees pursuant to Executive Order 14043 does not currently apply. Some jobs, however, may be subject to agency- or job-specific vaccination requirements, so please review the job announcement for details.