Nurse Practitioner Role at VA

Specialties Government

Published

So I've been scouring this site as I'm in the process of onboarding with the local VA for a psych NP position. I've actually been a FNP for 6 years and became dual certified with the PMHNP certification in 2018. I'm currently a university system employee so it was free and I had always been intrigued by the psychiatric patient population.

Long story short, I've decided to leave my current job due to the drastic changes by a new administrator which has turned the workplace into a hostile work environment. Due to Covid theres not many places hiring. I applied to the VA on a whim and actually thought I'd bombed the Skype interview. Apparently I didn't do as bad as I thought LOL.

I've been working in a correctional institution for the past 6 years. I'm leaving with about 4 more years before I'd be vested in the retirement plan and entitled to the 20% of my pay as pension at age 60. I plan to eventually come back to the system to finish those 4 years out, I'm only 30 and didn't feel I needed to stay 4 more years in the hostile environment on the gamble of making it to age 60 LOL.

So I'd really like to hear the perspective of what it's like working in the VA system from an NP standpoint. I've already been schooled to try to be boarded as a Nurse III. I've read the countless posts about the process even the 1000+ responses on the original VA hiring process post. I saw some NPs chime in but havent seen any posts regarding the work environment. Are there major differences in working in the VAMC vs the civilian world? How is the charting system and patient scheduling? Was the pay competitive? Are the benefits worth staying long term? Years ago, I heard many nurses left after the changes to the retirement plan. From what I gather the FERS retirement plan accumulates like 1% of pay per year so at 10 years you'd be entitled to 10% of your pay at age 60 with 1% for each additional year. Because of my age, I'm not too concerned about that as my plan is to get back into the university system to secure my 2% per year accrual. I do want to stay long enough to be vested with the VA.

Anyway please share your thoughts and opinions!

I really hope to get some responses in here. I was going to post in the NP forum but felt the post would just be moved by a moderator due to the subject matter.

0 Votes
Specializes in Cardiology.

Im not an NP but I work with some. I work on a cardiology floor. The two cardiac NP's usually handle the post caths, post ablations, post PPM/ICD's, med loads. I came from a hospital that used Epic. Now I love epic but the VA uses the EMR it created in the early 90's. It's fairly simple to use and I gotta admit I really don't miss the flowsheet style of Epic. The VA will eventually switch to Cerner but it will be a long time before the whole VA is on it.

In regards to pay I got a fairly large pay raise coming from a private sector hospital. I think NP pay is competitive compared to other hospitals in the area. I know Nurse 3's in my city make well over $100k and coast of living is not expensive either. Retirement is still better than most private sector. It's composed of SS, pension, and the government's version of a 403b called TSP. You can also retire with your medical insurance as long as its been the same the last 5 years. Unfortunately I am new to the VA (34 and been here 2.5 years) so I don't really know how to explain the payout in retirement. I do know though that after 5 years you are considered vested.

1 Votes
30 minutes ago, OUxPhys said:

Im not an NP but I work with some. I work on a cardiology floor. The two cardiac NP's usually handle the post caths, post ablations, post PPM/ICD's, med loads. I came from a hospital that used Epic. Now I love epic but the VA uses the EMR it created in the early 90's. It's fairly simple to use and I gotta admit I really don't miss the flowsheet style of Epic. The VA will eventually switch to Cerner but it will be a long time before the whole VA is on it.

In regards to pay I got a fairly large pay raise coming from a private sector hospital. I think NP pay is competitive compared to other hospitals in the area. I know Nurse 3's in my city make well over $100k and coast of living is not expensive either. Retirement is still better than most private sector. It's composed of SS, pension, and the government's version of a 403b called TSP. You can also retire with your medical insurance as long as its been the same the last 5 years. Unfortunately I am new to the VA (34 and been here 2.5 years) so I don't really know how to explain the payout in retirement. I do know though that after 5 years you are considered vested.

Thanks so much for that information!!

0 Votes
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