Lead Transportation Assistant

Lead Transportation Assistant

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Portland, Oregon

Salary Range: $53831 - $69984 Per Year

Job Summary: The position is at the full performance level located in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Veterans Health Administration (VHA), at the Portland VA Medical Center (PORVAMC) in the Health Medical Administration Department (HMAS) /Veterans Transportation Service. The Lead Transportation Assistant is organizationally aligned within HMAS.

Major Duties:

• Duties include but not limited to: Distribute and balance the workload among employees in accordance with established workflow or job specialization, assure timely accomplishment of the assigned workload, and assure that each employee has enough work to keep busy. Keep in touch with the status and progress of work, and make day-to-day adjustments in accordance with established priorities, obtaining assistance from the supervisor on problems that may arise, such as backlogs which cannot be disposed of promptly. Instruct employees in specific tasks and job techniques and make available written instructions, reference materials and supplies. Give on the job training to new employees in accordance with established procedures and practices. Maintain a current knowledge and answer questions of other employees on procedures, policies, directives, etc. and obtain needed information or decisions from supervisor on problems that come up. Check on work in progress or spot check work not requiring review (e. g., filing or direct services) and review completed work to see that supervisor's instruction on work sequence, procedures, methods, and deadlines have been met. Amend or reject work not meeting established standards, refer to supervisor questions or matters not covered by standards and problems in meeting performance standards. Monitor working conditions such as seating, ventilation, lighting, safety, etc. Approve leave for a few hours or for emergencies. Inform employees of available services and employee activities. Resolve simple, informal complaints of employees and refer others to supervisor. Report to supervisor on performance, progress, and training needs of employees, and on behavior problems. Provide information to supervisor as requested concerning promotions, reassignment, recognition of outstanding performance, and personnel needs. Ensure the Beneficiary Travel office staff provide transportation at Government expense to beneficiaries and their attendants traveling to and from VA facilities and other places for examination, treatment, or care. Determine eligibility for the program, and processing requests. Determining which of several fund control points to utilize, obligating funds, maintaining manual and electronic accounting records, performing regular reconciliations, and adjusting account balances. Assists the supervisor with contacting the approving official to authorize obligations and requests for additions, deductions, and/or movement of funds Determine method of payment of authorized and unauthorized ambulance claims submitted for consideration. Receives invoices for payment of transportation services. Investigates authorizations, orders, and/or utilizes the Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS) to review medical records, forwards for supervisory approval, and submits all documents for payment utilizing the appropriate fund control point for reference. Processing of Veteran claims reimbursements utilizing BTSSS which provides a more veteran-focused experience for beneficiary travel reimbursements, allowing claimants to submit and track travel claims at their convenience. The Lead Transportation Assistant is responsible for the processing of Veteran claims reimbursements via paper submission and work towards increase efficiency and accuracy in claims processing, provide letters to noncompliant claims that include rejections codes. Responsible for forwarding all invoices certified for payment to Financial Resource Management Service (FRMS) for processing. Documents and prepares account synopsis for contracting officials quarterly to justify yearly ambulance contractual compliance. The Lead Transportation Assistant assists with the arrangement for all modes of transportation via air ambulance, commercial air, taxi, ambulance, bus, and/or contracted transport services. Reviews requests for reimbursement of travel costs for assuring compliance with regulations and procedures, completeness, accuracy, internal consistency, and agreement with basic authorization. Reconciles vouchers against authorizations for accuracy prior to preparing certifications for payment. Leads office staff in documenting the funds deposits and withdrawals of Veterans' personal funds held by the VA Medical Center during brief and extended periods of hospitalization. The Lead Transportation Assistant serves as customer service representative for all matters involving Beneficiary Travel, communicating, and interacting with patients in a manner appropriate to cognitive, emotional, and chronological maturation needs of the adult and/or geriatric patient. Assures that all appropriate VA forms are used correctly, and regulations followed. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 6:30am - 3:00pm PST Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Lead Transportation Assistant/PD216580 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet specialized experience requirements within 30 days of the closing date of this announcement, 11/24/2025. 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 within 30 days of the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-07 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-06. 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 specialized experience as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-06 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: Patient transportation support functions, dispatching and/or transportation coordination Entering and tracking data related to transport workload Scheduling transportation to ensure timely arrival of appointments Ability to independently plan and carry out successive steps to complete transportation support duties You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Computer Skills Decision Making Technical Competence 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: The work requires no special physical demands, but will require some physical effort such as standing, walking, bending or sitting. 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: 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 11/24/2025 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12831465. 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/ Special Employment Consideration: VA encourages persons with disabilities to apply, including those eligible for hiring under 5 CFR 213.3102(u), Schedule A, Appointment of persons with disabilities [i.e., intellectual disabilities, severe physical disabilities, or psychiatric disabilities], and/or Disabled veterans with a compensable service-connected disability of 30% or more. Contact the Agency Contact for information on how to apply under this appointment authority via the Selective Placement Coordinator. The Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) and Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced Federal/VA competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be qualified you must submit appropriate documentation (a copy of the agency notice, your most recent performance rating, and your most recent SF-50 noting current position, grade level, and duty location) and be found well-qualified for this vacancy. To be well-qualified: applicants must possess experience that exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position including all selective factors, and who are proficient in most of the required competencies of the job. Information about ICTAP and CTAP eligibility is on OPM's Career Transition Resources website at http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/employee-guide-to-career-transition/. 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.

Application Deadline: 2025-11-24