Patient Representative (Facility Patient Advocate)

Patient Representative (Facility Patient Advocate)

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Redding, California

Salary Range: $61111 - $96116 Per Year

Job Summary: The incumbent serves as a Patient Advocate within VA Northern California Health Care System. This position covers a variety of difficult and complex patient concerns, issues, and contacts for the Facility with the goal of providing resolution. Patient Advocates are primarily responsible for complaint resolution with service recovery, receiving compliments, working with Service-Level Advocates to help resolve issues and concerns and communicating with patients about their experiences of care.

Major Duties:

• Major duties include but are not limited to the following: Complaint Resolution: Manages the facility VCCR process, including complaint resolution, data capture and analysis of issues/complaints to make system improvements. Assists SLAs and front-line staff in resolving issues that occur at the point of service, while also addressing more complex complaints that were not able to be resolved at the point of service. Identifies existing or potential problem areas and suggests solutions or alternatives to existing procedures which contribute to these problems. Independently resolves the most difficult and complex complaints, expedite services, and implement necessary corrective measures within established facility policies. Comprehends and explains numerous government laws, directives, and policies is required to provide information to individuals representing various levels of educational and cultural backgrounds. Patient Representation: Serves as the liaison between the Facility, patients, staff, and the community, ensuring Patient Rights and Responsibilities, advocacy, and services are available. Interprets the Facility's mission, policies, procedures, and available resources/services to the patient and presents the patient's concern, opinions, and needs to appropriate staff and management. Assists patients, their families and representatives, and facility staff members in recognizing and removing institutional barriers to the provision of optimum health care to patients. Assists patients in understanding the Clinical Appeal Process and how to proceed with a clinical appeal request for reconsideration. Data Analysis/System Improvement: Serves as a staff member directly supporting facility Executive Leadership responsible for planning, organization, development, direction and evaluation of VA Medical Facility administration. Works to identify the elements of clinical or administrative practices which contribute to or create an atmosphere for patient dissatisfaction and recommends appropriating official changes which will reduce or eliminate substantiated complaints. Serves on committees whereby patient complaints are identified, resolved, classified, and the data is utilized to improve overall services to patients. Produces, on a regular basis, a cumulative report which includes a categorization of patient inquiries to track and trend the patterns to identify opportunities for improvement. Relationship Management: Maintains a strong and consistent focus on Complaint Resolution which must always be accompanied by attempts at Service Recovery. Works closely in identifying, training, and consulting with SLAs, and front-line staff, in resolving issues on first contact within their service area and use of PATS. Responds to patient inquiries through multiple VA approved forms of contact (e.g., Inquiry Routing and Information System (IRIS), MyHealthyVet, Secure Messaging, E-mail, Phone, Walk-in, Town Halls, etc.), where patients pose questions, complaints, compliments and suggestions. Maintains a strong relationship with Veterans Service Organizations and others whose interests are in helping and protecting Veterans, their families, and their representatives. Works closely with Public Affairs to include patients' feedback and increase community and Veteran awareness of VA health care resources. Safeguards privacy data/sensitive policy-making data against unauthorized disclosure. Notifies the Supervisor and Privacy Officer upon disclosure or suspected disclosure of sensitive data by others. Performs additional activities assigned by the Supervisor. These special activities may be complex in nature requiring immediate attention, rapid coordination and planning, compiling data, preparing reports, and summarizing surveys. May perform other duties not listed 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: Full-Time; Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 4:30pm Telework: This position may be authorized for ad-hoc telework as needed. Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Patient Representative (Facility Patient Advocate)/PD99864-A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved 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, 11/26/2025. 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. For a GS-11 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-9.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-9: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-7 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: providing customer service to patients; assisting patients and staff with resolving problems or complaints; assisting with identifying problem areas and suggesting solutions or alternatives; explaining policies and procedures; keeping accurate records and preparing reports and/or written correspondence. OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have 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 equivalent combination of successfully completed graduate level education (beyond the first year) and specialized experience as described above, to meet the total experience requirements. The education portion must include graduate courses that demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do to the work of this position. This education must have been obtained in an accredited college or university. GS-11: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-9 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: providing customer service to patients and staff with resolving problems or complaints; identifying problem areas and suggesting solutions or alternatives; explaining policies and procedures; keeping accurate records and preparing reports and/or written correspondence; collaborating with facility staff to improve the patient experience. OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have 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. OR, Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have equivalent combination of successfully completed graduate level education (beyond the first 2 years) and specialized experience as described above to meet total experience requirements. The education portion must include graduate courses that demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do to the work of this position. This education must have been obtained in an accredited college or university. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Compliance Decision Making Interpersonal Skills Listening Organizational Stewardship Problem Solving Veteran and Customer Focus Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. Physical Requirements: The work includes walking. standing, bending, carrying of light items, and occasionally assisting with a wheelchair. In some instances, relationships with patients and caregivers can become intense and the incumbent is constantly exposed to high levels of stress and anxiety. This position demands emotional stability, as the incumbent is deeply involved with many challenging. seriously ill, and/or dying patients and their caregivers. 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: All applicants are encouraged to apply online. To apply for this position, you must complete the questionnaire and submit the documentation specified in the Required Documents section below. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on 11/26/2025 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12837721. 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 and complete the occupational questionnaire. Click Submit My Answers to submit your application package. NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date. 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. If initial application submission is updated and resubmitted with a new resume, only the most current resume will be reviewed for consideration. 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 https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-information/merit-hiring-plan-resources/applicant-guidance-on-the-two-page-resume-limit/ The Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) and Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced Federal/VA competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be qualified you must submit appropriate documentation (a copy of the agency notice, your most recent performance rating, and your most recent SF-50 noting current position, grade level, and duty location) and be found well-qualified for this vacancy. To be well-qualified: applicants must possess experience that exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position including all selective factors, and who are proficient in most of the required competencies of the job. Information about ICTAP and CTAP eligibility is on OPM's Career Transition Resources website at http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/employee-guide-to-career-transition/. During the application process you may have an option to opt-in to make your resume available to hiring managers in the agency who have similar positions. Opting in does not impact your application for this announcement, nor does it guarantee further consideration for additional positions.

Application Deadline: 2025-11-26