Department of Veterans Affairs

Administrative Officer

Fort Wayne, Indiana Full time

Administrative Officer

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Fort Wayne, Indiana

Salary Range: $61722 - $97087 Per Year

Job Summary: The Administrative Officer - Surgery Service (AO) is located in the office of the Associate Chief of Staff for Surgery Service (ACOS), VA Northern Indiana Health Care Systems (VANIHCS). VANIHCS is a multi-site health care system with main campuses located in Fort Wayne and Marion, Indiana, and Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOC) in Mishawaka, Goshen, Peru, and Muncie, Indiana. The Surgery Service is a multi-disciplinary clinical and surgical service which includes multiple sub sections.

Major Duties:

  • Program Administration (50%) - Provides oversight for receiving and reviewing all incoming correspondence and determines whether correspondence should be brought to the Chief, referred to Health System Specialist, or handled by the incumbent. Follows up on incoming mail to ensure timely and accurate responses. Reviews and approves all outgoing correspondence for neatness, accuracy, adherence to established format, and adherence to Medical Center policies and procedures. - Act as an administrative extension of the Contract Officer Representative (COR) by serving as the control point clerk responsible for accurate Form 2237 submission. - Assist the Health System Specialist with administrative oversight of staffing and equipment contracts to include auditing time sheets and assigning required bi-annual chart review OPPES. - Serve as secondary timekeeper for all staff in the Acute Medical Service, including Physicians, Physician Extenders, Technicians, Intermittent & Fee-Basis providers. - Will ensure that all staff can utilize the timekeeping programs accurately/timely- through ad hoc targeted training with new and existing providers. Explain the time and leave process and expectations of requesting leave in advance. - Attends all service meetings, overseeing the preparation of agendas, and minutes. Meetings can include, but not limited to, staff meetings and events planning involving other service. Data Collection / Analysis (30%) - Responsible for daily reporting and review of consults, open encounters, and alerts within Acute Medical Service. Triage and alert appropriate stakeholders of delinquencies ensuring timely completion to ensure high quality patient care. - The incumbent analyzes, evaluates, and manages data associated with the administrative activities of Acute Medical Service, to include workload statistics, chart reviews of a demographic nature and staffing coverage daily. The incumbent completes multiple reports for the service, analyzes trends and deficiencies, and works with the Chief to review and solve any issues that may arise - Evaluates, analyzes, and shares requested data for VISN 10 Surgical Service for the VISN 10 Lead Surgical Chief (e.g., encounter trends, etc.). - The incumbent performs all other duties as assigned by the Chief/ACOS. Customer Service (20%) - Interacts frequently with VANIHCS management and personnel, VACO, VISN, and community officials to keep abreast of substantive service issues within the organization. Works as the primary liaison for the Associate Chief of Staff as issues are being addressed and resolved throughout the VISN - Respond to and coordinate resolutions for patient complaints within Acute Medical Service. - Serve as the point of contact for all patient experience related initiatives and initiates service level patient experience process improvements by identifying trends in satisfaction through V-Signals and other surveys. 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: 8:00 am - 4:30 pm (Monday - Friday) Compressed/Flexible: Not Authorized Telework: Not Authorized Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Administrative Officer/PD028060 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 04/27/2026. 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-09 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-07. For a GS-11 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-09. 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: GS-09 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: Creating reports, coordinating and scheduling meetings, and submitting requests/work orders using a personal computer and office automation programs (such as word processing, spreadsheets, etc.); accurately preparing timecards for submission and processing; managing and balancing financial aspects of general fund control points and purchase procedures; and performing various human resources/personnel management duties related to recruitment, disciplinary actions, and/or awards. 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. 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 graduate education and Specialized Experience. Such experience and education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work. GS-11 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: Creating reports, coordinating and scheduling meetings, and submitting requests/work orders using a personal computer and office automation programs (such as word processing, spreadsheets, etc.); maintaining and updating department or service-level databases and shared computer drives; accurately preparing timecards for submission and processing; resolving timekeeping issues related to overtime, holiday pay, unscheduled hours, and various types of extended leave; managing and balancing financial aspects of general fund control points and purchase procedures; and preparing and submitting requests for recruitment, promotion, reassignment, and disciplinary actions. OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree, or 3 full years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to such a degree, or LL.M., if related. Such education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work. 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 a Master's Degree (leading to a PhD) and Specialized Experience. Such experience and education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work. 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 to Apply: Please read the entire announcement and all the instructions before you begin an application. To apply for this position, you must complete the initial online application, to include the initial online questionnaire and submission of the required documentation specified in the How to Apply and Required Documents section. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on the closing date of the announcement to receive consideration. To preview the application questionnaire, click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12916865. The application process is as follows: To begin, click Apply Online to create a USA JOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USA JOBS resume and/or other supporting documents. Answer the questions presented in the application and attach all necessary supporting documentation. Click the Submit Application button prior to 11:59 PM (ET) on the announcement closing date, 04/27/2026. If you are required to complete any USA Hire Assessments, you will be notified after submitting your application. The notification will be provided in your application submission screen and via email. The notification will include your unique assessment access link to the USA Hire system and the completion deadline. Additionally, in USAJOBS you can click "Track this application" to return to your assessment completion notice. Access USA Hire using your unique assessment link. Access is granted through your USAJOBS login credentials. Review all instructions prior to beginning your assessments. You will have the opportunity to request a testing accommodation before beginning the assessments should you have a disability covered under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended. Set aside at least 3 hours to take the USA Hire Assessments; however, most applicants complete the assessments in less time. If you need to stop the assessments and continue later, you can re-use your unique assessment link. NOTE: Your responses to the USA Hire Assessments will be reused for one year (in most cases) from the date you complete an assessment. If future applications you submit require completion of the same assessments, your responses will be automatically reused. Visit the USA Hire Applicant Resource Center for practice assessments and assessment preparation resources at https://support-usahire.opm.gov/hc/en-us. To update your application, including supporting documentation: During the announcement open period, return to your USAJOBS account, find your application record, and click Edit my application. This option will no longer be available once the announcement has closed. To view the announcement status or your application status: https://help.usajobs.gov/how-to. Your application status page is where you can view your application status, USA Hire assessment completion status, and review your notifications sent by the hiring agency regarding your application. Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. Helpful Hints for Creating a Two-Page Resume: Prioritize most relevant and recent experience Use concise, results focused language Align language from the job announcement Focus on demonstrating skills and competencies Remove outdated or unrelated experience Use the USAJOBS resume builder Additional guidance on this new requirement and resume building tools can be found at https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/page-limit

Application Deadline: 2026-04-27