VA Hospitalist Jobs

[Backpack234]

Any VA Hospitalists out there? A friend is working in the VA primary care clinic and is having a fairly bad time. Biggest issue is how much PCPs seem to get dumped on from every other specialty, leading to tons and tons of alerts that take hours to finish. They're considering a switch to hospitalist thinking it would be at least a bit better. But neither of us knows what VA hospitalist life is like.

What are the hours? What's the schedule? How many patients per shift? What are your experiences as a VA hospitalist?

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[CptNemo]

It depends. There is a lot of variability between VAs both for specialist work as well as hospitalist work. Each VA tends to be its own fiefdom, though they have some centrally planned framework within which they have to work (i.e., CPRS, salary ranges, approved number of beds per hospital, budget, etc.)

Also depends if the VA is affiliated with a residency/fellowship program and University. You may end up being mostly on a teaching service at some VAs vs. fully non-teach at other VAs. The quality of ancillary services and specialist backup will also vary. Some University affiliated VAs have tons of specialists always on call, other VAs, not so much. Some have a variable work schedule arrangement, some VAs are still rigidly tied to scheduling a set number of work in a pay period. Pay will also differ as there is a locality adjustment, but generally, for the same institution, hospitalist will pay a little more than primary care (~$10K-$20K) as it is in a higher pay table. See: VA.gov | Veterans Affairs

Your friend's best bet is to ask the local hospitalists at the VA he/she is looking to work for.

 

[DrMetal]

Any VA Hospitalists out there? A friend is working in the VA primary care clinic and is having a fairly bad time. Biggest issue is how much PCPs seem to get dumped on from every other specialty, leading to tons and tons of alerts that take hours to finish. They're considering a switch to hospitalist thinking it would be at least a bit better. But neither of us knows what VA hospitalist life is like.

What are the hours? What's the schedule? How many patients per shift? What are your experiences as a VA hospitalist?

I'm not, know plenty who are, and rotated through them as a resident.

Its not a fun system, the VA hospitals can be a real $%!t show. More so than their outpatient clinics? I dunno, probably the same, just a different set of problems. (most notably, poor case management! cant get anyone out of the hospital).

If you don't like the VA system, would probably be best just to get out of it altogether. Going from outpatient to inpatient is not likely to make you happier.

 

[collegestud2013]

Any VA Hospitalists out there? A friend is working in the VA primary care clinic and is having a fairly bad time. Biggest issue is how much PCPs seem to get dumped on from every other specialty, leading to tons and tons of alerts that take hours to finish. They're considering a switch to hospitalist thinking it would be at least a bit better. But neither of us knows what VA hospitalist life is like.

What are the hours? What's the schedule? How many patients per shift? What are your experiences as a VA hospitalist?

As mentioned will obviously vary but in GENERAL hospitalist jobs at the VA will be a bit more chill with lower patient volumes and less focus on metrics like LOS and getting patients out than in private community hospital. Pay will also be lower as well, and I've heard most places with near average COL, expect pay for full time hospitalist to be around $200-250k (usually slightly higher than doing PCP at the VA but still lower than community settings where average pay after accounting for RVU and quality bonuses is in the low $300ks nowadays) but there's no RVU bonus so you're pretty much just salaried and won't get paid any more in case the patient volume went up (eg if there were an understaffing issue). While the patient volumes are on average lower, the flipside is that getting consulting specialties to see patients at the VA is also generally a drag since they are also salaried and don't get paid more to more consults so more work probably falls on the hospitalist (since they are the primary admitting team) than in a community set up where PP groups are more eager to patients to get the volumes up. The VA tends to be good fit for older physicians nearing retirement or those wanting to cut back on workload (and also don't mind taking a paycut and the bureaucracy and inefficiencies that come with it). If that's not his style he might be better off just switching to a community hospitalist job. There may still be some "dumping" in the community hospitalist settings by other specialties but it doesn't tend to be as bad

 

[dozitgetchahi]

If your friend feels that outpatient VA work sucks, don’t go inpatient at the VA…at least at the VAMC in my residency, the inpatient side was way more of a ****show than the outpatient side…