Transportation Assistant

Summary

This position is located in the Veteran Transportation Service (VTS) within the Patient Administrative Service at the Oscar G. Johnson VAMC, Iron Mountain, MI, a Complexity Level 3 VHA facility. The primary purpose of the position is transportation work load forecasting, scheduling design, procedure development, and quality improvement implementation, modification of processes, evaluation and ongoing operational flow of the VTS program.

Duties

• Major Duties: Serve as a primary contact for Veterans, doctors, nurses and administrative staff to arrange travel for eligible Veterans to appointments and residence when appropriate. Using laws and regulations to distinguish/ensure reimbursements are legitimate or if fraudulent activity is being conducted by the beneficiary. Correctly determining eligibility for the program, and processing requests. Correctly determining which of several fund control points to utilize, entering authorizations, maintaining manual and electronic accounting records, performing regular reconciliations and adjusting account balances. Contact approving official to authorize obligations and requests for additions, deductions, and/or movement of funds. Determining method of payment for authorized and unauthorized ambulance claims submitted for consideration. Receives invoices for payment of transportation services: Forwarding all invoices certified for payment to Fiscal Service for processing. Writes or selects appropriate letters explaining disposition of unauthorized travel claims. Responsible for explaining regulations and guidelines to beneficiaries. Reconciles vouchers against authorizations for accuracy prior to preparing certifications for payment. Other duties as assigned. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 7:30am - 4:00pm Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Transportation Assistant/PD23047A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not authorized

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 09/15/2026. 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: Ability to meet and deal effectively with a wide variety of staff from many educational and skill levels, for the purpose of communicating clear instructions and interpretations. Ability to prepare and produce written instructions, and a variety or correspondence. Proficient in using Microsoft software and other medical center automated systems, such as: Computerized Patient Record Systems, Scheduling Package; Patient Care Encounters; and Consult Management Process. Knowledge to deal effectively with problems, issues, and situations which occur in the daily activities of the unit and during emergency situations to establish and maintain effective working relationships which contribute to the attainment of the organizational and service goals. Knowledgeable in regard to consult management, scheduling, admissions, discharge, transfer, and administration with patient processing including diagnostic tests and studies within the Medical Center. Knowledge of the structure of electronic medical records. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Administration and Management Auditing Clerical Integrity/Honesty Interpersonal Skills Reading Comprehension Reasoning Self-Management 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: Incumbent will be exposed to stressful working situations that will require a mature attitude and collective reasoning to overcome. The incumbent is subject to a great deal of stress because of the high volume of work, the need for accuracy, frequency of interruptions and ever changing demands due to program changes. 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/.

Requirements

You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job All applicants tentatively selected for VA employment in a testing designated position are subject to urinalysis to screen for illegal drug use prior to appointment. Applicants who refuse to be tested will be denied employment with VA. Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959 Subject to background/security investigation Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents). Effective May 7, 2025, driver's licenses or state-issued identification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment. Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP) As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1-year probationary period or 2-year trial period during which we will evaluate your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest. In determining if your employment advances the public interest, we may consider: your performance and conduct; the needs and interests of the agency; whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service. Upon completion of your probationary period or trial period, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.

Education

There is no educational substitution at this grade level.

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 09/15/2026 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/13057611. 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. 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/ 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.