Manhattan VA is no longer paying for a ARNP degree

U.S.A. New York

Published

I've been working at the VA Manhattan for a few years and decided to go back for a ARNP degree. The benefit package claims they will pay for an advanced degree after a year of service. If you go to school for three years then you work off your debt for another 3 years in exchange for tuition. Fine with me. Looked into applying for the benefit and they tell me there are too many ARNPs and they refuse to pay at THIS time. Meaning they MAY pay for it later on down the road. Next I asked my nurse manager about the change and she was unaware that this occurred. Weird. Soooo I then go to the union about it along with a few other nurses. Plead my case and................6 months later......here we are in November with no progress. The Manhattan VA never formally announced this decision to the nursing staff, never informed nurse managers, and is unable to comment on when they will pay for this degree. They are pushing the nurses into the new Clinical Nurse Leader "CNL" program. It is like a CNS but on the opposite end of the spectrum. It is described as a "generalist" position instead of a specialist.

To wrap this up, I just wanted to make future and current VA nurses aware of this change in the education benefits.

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Specializes in Tele, Dialysis, Med-Surg, ICU,GI.

Unfortunately with the bad economy, all these educational programs funded by the gov't are drying up.

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But yet they have money to fund a new program, ie CNL?

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How is the work enviornment at the NYC VA? No one answers in the other threads...

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I've been working at the VA Manhattan for a few years and decided to go back for a ARNP degree. The benefit package claims they will pay for an advanced degree after a year of service. If you go to school for three years then you work off your debt for another 3 years in exchange for tuition. Fine with me. Looked into applying for the benefit and they tell me there are too many ARNPs and they refuse to pay at THIS time. Meaning they MAY pay for it later on down the road. Next I asked my nurse manager about the change and she was unaware that this occurred. Weird. Soooo I then go to the union about it along with a few other nurses. Plead my case and................6 months later......here we are in November with no progress. The Manhattan VA never formally announced this decision to the nursing staff, never informed nurse managers, and is unable to comment on when they will pay for this degree. They are pushing the nurses into the new Clinical Nurse Leader "CNL" program. It is like a CNS but on the opposite end of the spectrum. It is described as a "generalist" position instead of a specialist.

To wrap this up, I just wanted to make future and current VA nurses aware of this change in the education benefits.

Any healthcare facility/organization that offers this kind of assistance to employees does it to meet the facility's needs, not out of the goodness of its heart and concern for the employees' best interests. You state yourself that they feel that have more than enough NPs -- in that case, it only makes sense (from their perspective) to stop paying to produce more. I have heard that the VA system, across the board, is strongly supporting the CNL role (they're apparently the only ones :)) and has made a commitment to use them throughout the VA system, so that would explain why they're still offering assistance for current employees to move in that direction.

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Other VAs I've been to are organized, have new equipment, and nicer nursing lounges. The Manhattan VA lacks in all these areas. There are better environments out there for nurses.

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Specializes in ICU, Cardiac Cath/EPS Labs.
I've been working at the VA Manhattan for a few years and decided to go back for a ARNP degree. The benefit package claims they will pay for an advanced degree after a year of service. If you go to school for three years then you work off your debt for another 3 years in exchange for tuition. Fine with me. Looked into applying for the benefit and they tell me there are too many ARNPs and they refuse to pay at THIS time. Meaning they MAY pay for it later on down the road. Next I asked my nurse manager about the change and she was unaware that this occurred. Weird. Soooo I then go to the union about it along with a few other nurses. Plead my case and................6 months later......here we are in November with no progress. The Manhattan VA never formally announced this decision to the nursing staff, never informed nurse managers, and is unable to comment on when they will pay for this degree. They are pushing the nurses into the new Clinical Nurse Leader "CNL" program. It is like a CNS but on the opposite end of the spectrum. It is described as a "generalist" position instead of a specialist.

To wrap this up, I just wanted to make future and current VA nurses aware of this change in the education benefits.

Thanks for the warning! I had gotten an offer at the Manhattan VA for a Day position w/rotating shifts....turns out that "rotating shifts" means you could very well end up working the NIGHT shift for weeks/months at a time, depending on the "need"...I politely declined the offer....What's the point of calling it a "DAY" shift if there's no guarantee you will in fact be working DAY shifts (when I applied, there were two openings offered: a DAY and a NIGHT position, and I stated that I only wanted to apply for the DAY position)....Nurses with family, kids, personal responsibilities cannot always be so flexible...otherwise, I would have considered the offer, but now that I hear they won't pay for my NP degree.......

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