Doctors at the Veterans Affairs Department have yet to receive a pay bump despite a recent law authorizing the increases, which has drawn bipartisan criticism from lawmakers.
Currently, VA doctors are capped at earning $400,000 per year, a restriction that has been in place for years. A measure with broad, bipartisan support—known as the Dole Act—that President Biden signed into law shortly before leaving office allowed VA to issue 300 waivers to that cap to recruit or retain staff in critical health care roles. It also allowed VA to retroactively pay employees who previously earned extra compensation but were unable to collect it because they had hit the statutory limit.
VA has yet to put forward guidance to implement the provisions, despite it taking effect last July. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., the top Democrats on the Senate and House Veterans Affairs Committees, respectively, spearheaded a letter this week to VA Secretary Doug Collins calling the delay in implementation “unacceptable” and requesting detailed information about physician pay, current staffing levels, recruitment efforts and where things stand with the Dole Act.
In a House hearing earlier this year, Collins requested authority to pay some doctors more than the $400,000 cap, despite the law already providing it. The lawmakers said VA has provided updates to committee staff stating the delay stemmed from internal disagreements over how to distribute the waivers.
“We would welcome the opportunity to work with you to ensure maximum utilization of the authorities provided to you in this effort,” the Democratic lawmakers said. “However, we request that you genuinely prioritize recruitment and retention of VA’s workforce by discontinuing your attacks on the VA workforce and effectively and expeditiously making use of the various tools Congress has provided.”
The department has seen a net loss of medical officers since Trump took office last January, according to data maintained by the Office of Personnel Management. Around 3,300 physicians left VA in the last 15 months, while just 2,200 have joined. Collins last year spearheaded an effort to push out a total of 30,000 VA employees, which followed longstanding efforts to grow the workforce commensurate with a growth in the number of veterans eligible for department care.
“Your continuous complaints during congressional hearings about this singular barrier to recruitment only attempt to deflect accountability for your apathy and ineptitude in implementing a solution to this issue and shift blame away from your misguided policies that have doctors and health care professionals leaving the department in droves,” the Democrats said.
Quinn Slaven, a VA spokesperson, said the department is still looking to put the Dole Act provisions into practice.
“VA is working to implement this provision of the Dole Act in a way that benefits as many Veterans as possible and will respond to the lawmakers’ letter directly,” Slaven said.
The lack of implementation has also sparked concern among Republicans. Sen. Jon Husted, R-Utah, and Rep. Max MIller, R-Ohio, wrote a similar letter to Collins in November, urging the secretary to issue regulations that would enable VA to institute the higher pay caps and unwind staffing cuts. Collins originally put forward a proposal to cut 80,000 VA employees through layoffs and various incentives, but pared back the plan after it received bipartisan pushback.
“The waivers authorized under this provision will give your department the ability to not just stem the flow of physician departures from VA medical centers, but also to reverse that flow by attracting high-quality physicians from the private sector that want to answer the call to care for America’s veterans,” the lawmakers said.
The caps previously drew bipartisan attention and Biden administration officials said lifting them was a “top priority.” President Biden signed the PACT Act into law in 2022, which enabled VA to raise pay caps for nurses which led to 10,000 workers receiving a raise.
Collins has rejected the notion that VA needs more staff, recently telling Congress that “throwing employees” at the department’s problems creates “more bureaucracy, more overhead” that leads to “slowing down and actually removes folks from actually supporting our veterans.”
After boasting of its efforts to shed 30,000 employees and installing new caps on staffing levels across the country, however, the Veterans Affairs Department said in its recently released budget that it is looking to add 9,000 employees in fiscal 2027, a growth of 2%. Most of those hires will go to medical services.
