Purchasing Agent

Purchasing Agent

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Butler, Pennsylvania

Salary Range: $46949 - $61033 Per Year

Job Summary: This position is located in the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Service (PMRS) under the supervision of the department Program Manager. The Prosthetics initiates and completes the procurement of prosthetics goods and services for eligible Veterans within all settings of the Butler VA Health Care System to include the Health Care Center (HCC), Domiciliary Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program (DRRTP), Community Living Center (CLC), and Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOC).

Major Duties:

• Work Schedule: Monday-Friday 8:00am to 4:30pm The Prosthetics Purchasing Agent receives and analyzes Prosthetic Consults, and prescriptions (VAF 10-2431) for items, services and home medical equipment from physicians, therapists, Medical Center personnel, patients, or their representatives. The incumbent reviews requests for completeness, comparing disability or diagnosis to equipment and/or services normally provided for the condition for which they are requested, and ensures that the proper documentation has been provided to justify the issuance and makes arrangements to procure these items. Major Duties Include but not limited to: Receives and analyzes Prosthetic Consults, and prescriptions for items, services and home medical equipment. Reviews requests for completeness, proper documentation and makes arrangements to procure these items. Establishes workflow protocols to ensure the timely execution of work. Coordinates work for special circumstances. Advise other services on the policies and procedures to establish requisitions for services, equipment, and commodities. Reviews requests from various sources and makes substitutions if necessary (within scope). Provide general guidance to potential vendors on requirements and information needed to be entered into the VHA's local vendor file. Examines clinical health records and claims folders to determine eligibility and entitlement for items and services. Advises Veterans and clinicians in relation to eligibility for entitlements for items and services. Reviews clinical requests, determines sources and determines the availability of replacement parts and alternatives for power mobility, artificial limbs, and other pieces of medical equipment. Reviews unique requests to ensure the requesting entity has addressed any special prescribing procedure or guidance. Reconciles all invoices for certification of payment by reviewing Veteran records against invoices to ensure that accurate cost is being charged for service/item rendered and verifies the correct total cost. Follows up in relation to parts and labor orders, returns shipping back to manufacturers and accounting for warranty work. Maintains accurate records of transactions and completes all adjustments to computerized system. Maintains accurate funding, billing, reconciling of accounts and sub-account balances to include the Prompt Payment Act as it affects vendors and the payment process between vendors and the VA Medical Center. Procures specialized medical equipment, supplies, and services for Veterans. Examples include, but are not limited to, augmented speech devices specialized for Veterans' individual needs such as eye tracking; custom wheelchairs built with measurements and specifications unique to the Veteran; vehicle modifications; specialized ramping with prep work and labor. Reviews various configurations and determines the most cost-effective measure to meet the Veteran's need. Procures specialized medical equipment with critical and unique characteristics and considers associated guidance from a variety of sources. Purchases various equipment, supplies, and services through the use of the government purchase card for micro purchase. The incumbent will be responsible and knowledgeable in various purchasing strategies, such as how to solicit, who to solicit, what clauses to include, which offers to accept or how much lead time. Negotiate prices with sole source vendors, persuade reluctant vendors and collect data for requirements not previously required. Authorizes and prepares complex purchase orders for a wide variety of devices, medical supplies, and durable medical equipment. Prepares complex purchase orders for a wide variety of devices, medical supplies, and durable medical equipment. Executes price adjustments; resolves any discrepancies, modifications, amendments to purchase orders and cancelations of purchase orders. Coordinates medical device orders that may require more than one vendor and more than one end user. Coordinate work with local vendors. Follow up communication and amendments to purchase orders are required to adjust for parts and labor, shipping parts back to manufacturers and accounting for warranty work. Represents the VA in discussions with vendors/contractors to obtain agreement on micro purchases and vendor/contractor compliance. Monitors vendor performance through personal contact, review of progress reports, and discusses reasons for delays, failures, or price changes. Compressed/Flexible: Not Available Telework: Not Eligible Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Purchasing Agent/PD04095A 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, 05/11/2026. 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-06 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-05. 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 as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-05 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: Receives and analyzes Prosthetic Consults, and prescriptions; Reviews requests for completeness, comparing disability or diagnosis to equipment and/or services; Examines clinical health records and claims folders to determine eligibility and entitlement for items and services; Use different solicitation methods, ordering or reporting procedures, purchasing methods, or clauses and provisions depending upon the type, complexity, quantity, dollar value, or urgency of the requirement. 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/12948674. 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, 05/11/2026. 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: 2026-05-11