The Home-Based Primary Care Program is a comprehensive specialty interdisciplinary care team that delivers primary care to Veteran patients in a longitudinal rather than episodic fashion and that has as its focus: prevention; health promotion; coordination; and chronic disease self-management in their home/community. The medical social worker functions as a proactive care coordinator with a panel of Veterans to ensure that health care meets the needs, as defined by the Veteran.
Learn more about this agency
U.S. Citizens, Nationals or those who owe allegiance to the U.S.
NOTE: The 2-page Resume requirement does not apply to this position. For more information, refer to Required Documents below.
VA Careers - Social Work: https://youtube.com/embed/enRhz_ua_UU
Total Rewards of a Allied Health Professional
The Senior Social Worker for the HBPC is responsible for developing and directing medical social work services serving primarily housebound medically complex older adults, Veterans, and their families in their homes/community in the local area. The incumbent works collaboratively with the HBPC team in assessment, treatment planning, organizing, managing, and evaluating the social work services needed to further the mission of the Veteran's self-identified whole health goals in providing exceptional health care to improve the health and well-being of the Veterans served by the team.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF ASSIGNED DUTIES INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO:
- Develops, adapts, and directs social work services to meet the changing needs of the HBPC Team and any specialty clinics at the VA DoD CBOC while engaging with patient and family to address bio-psycho-social needs.
- Will be responsible for tracking and managing internal HBPC medical social work consults and troubleshooting data management.
- Coordinates medical social work services, including home visits and referrals to community resources, and provides support services in these areas and serves as an advocate for Veterans while addressing system and psychosocial barriers to care to track opportunities for quality improvement that should be tracked and adapted to improve processes.
- May provide support to Primary Aligned Care Team as directed by the supervisor.
- The Senior Social Worker is a seasoned clinician with advanced clinical skills and knowledge in medical, psychiatric, geriatric, and rehabilitation specialties.
- Provides independent and expert clinical psychosocial and case management services in a specialized area of practice (Home Based Primary Care) to Veterans who tend to have serious and severe crises, may lack any familial and community support, may be poor self-monitors, may frequently fail to comply with instructions and treatment, or may have major deficits in coping skills and require continuing professional psychological support.
- Must be able to ethically weigh the needs of individual patients and overall program function, including difficult resource ethics questions that have far-reaching impact for individuals and the health care system, and an ability to maintain an objective point of view is also required when confronted with the often-conflicting expectations of staff, VAPAHCS, and patient/family demands.
- Other duties as assigned.
- Motor Vehicle Operator (MVO) Licensure: Must possess a current, unrestricted driver's license; Driver Safety within 90 days of start of employment.
Work Schedule: M-F 8:00 am - 4:30 pm or as determined by the supervisor.
Compressed/Flexible: This may be authorized at the supervisor's discretion.
Pay: Competitive salary and regular salary increases. When setting pay, a higher step rate of the appropriate grade may be determined after consideration of higher or unique qualifications or special needs of the VA (Above Minimum Rate of the Grade).
Paid Time Off: 37-50 days of annual paid time off per year (13-26 days of annual leave, 13 days of sick leave, 11 paid Federal holidays per year)
Selected applicants may qualify for credit toward annual leave accrual, based on prior [work experience] or military service experience.
Parental Leave: After 12 months of employment, up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave in connection with the birth, adoption, or foster care placement of a child.
Child Care Subsidy: After 60 days of employment, full-time employees with a total family income below $144,000 may be eligible for a childcare subsidy up to 25% of total eligible childcare costs for eligible children up to the monthly maximum of $416.66
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Retirement: Traditional federal pension (5 years vesting) and federal 401K with up to 5% in contributions by VA
Insurance: Federal health/vision/dental/term life/long-term care (many federal insurance programs can be carried into retirement)
Telework: Not Authorized
Virtual: This is not a virtual position.
Functional Statement #: 01200-F
- 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.
- Must be proficient in written and spoken English.
- 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.
- Must pass a pre-employment physical examination.
- Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP).
- Complete all application requirements detailed in the "Required Documents" section of this announcement.
As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1- 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 trial period, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.
Basic Requirements: The basic requirements for employment as a VHA social worker are prescribed by statute in 38 U.S.C. § 7402(b)(9), as amended by section 205 of Public Law 106-419, enacted November 1, 2000. To qualify for appointment as a social worker in VHA, all applicants must meet the following:
- United States Citizenship: Non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy.
- Education: Have a master's degree in social work from a school of social work fully accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). Graduates of schools of social work that are in candidacy status do not meet this requirement until the School of Social Work is fully accredited. A doctoral degree in social work may not be substituted for the master's degree in social work. Verification of the degree can be made by going to http://www.cswe.org/Accreditation to verify that the social work degree meets the accreditation standards for a master of social work.
- Licensure: Persons hired or reassigned to social worker positions in the GS-0185 series in VHA must be licensed or certified by a state to independently practice social work at the master's degree level. Current state requirements may be found by going to http://vaww.va.gov/OHRM/T38Hybrid/.
- Failure to Obtain License or Certification: In all cases, social workers must actively pursue meeting state prerequisites for licensure or certification starting from the date of their appointment. Failure to become licensed or certified within the prescribed amount of time will result in removal from the GS-0185 social worker series and may result in termination of employment.
- Loss of Licensure or Certification: Once licensed or certified, social workers must maintain a full, valid, and unrestricted independent license or certification to remain qualified for employment. Loss of licensure or certification will result in removal from the GS-0185 social worker series and may result in termination of employment.
- Physical Requirements: See VA Directive and Handbook 5019, Employee Occupational Health Services.
- English Language Proficiency: Candidates must be proficient in spoken and written English to be appointed as authorized by 38 U.S.C. § 7403(f)
May qualify based on being covered by the Grandfathering Provision as described in the VA Qualification Standard for this occupation (only applicable to current VHA employees who are in this occupation and meet the criteria).
Grade Determinations: In addition to the basic requirements for employment, the following criteria must be met when determining the grade of candidates.
Senior Social Worker, GS-12:
- Experience/Education: The candidate must have at least two years of experience 8 post advanced practice clinical licensure and should be in a specialized area of social work practice, of which one year must be equivalent to the GS-11 grade level. Senior social workers have experience that demonstrates possession of advanced practice skills and judgment. Senior social workers are experts in their specialized area of practice. Senior social workers may have certification or other post-master's training from a nationally recognized professional organization or university that includes a defined curriculum/course of study and internship or equivalent supervised professional experience in a specialty.
- Licensure/Certification: Senior social workers must be licensed or certified by a state at the advanced practice level which included an advanced generalist or clinical examination, unless they are grandfathered by the state in which they are licensed to practice at the advanced practice level (except for licenses issued in California, which administers its own clinical examination for advanced practice) and they must be able to provide supervision for licensure.
- Demonstrated Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities: In addition to the experience above, candidates must demonstrate all of the following KSAs:
- Skill in a range of specialized interventions and treatment modalities used in specialty treatment programs or with special patient populations. This includes individual, group, and/or family counseling or psychotherapy and advanced-level psychosocial and/or case management.
- Ability to incorporate complex multiple causation in differential diagnosis and treatment within approved clinical privileges or scope of practice.
- Knowledge in developing and implementing methods for measuring effectiveness of social work practice and services in the specialty area, utilizing outcome evaluations to improve treatment services and to design system changes.
- Ability to provide specialized consultation to colleagues and students on the psychosocial treatment of patients in the service delivery area, as well as role modeling effective social work practice skills.
- Ability to expand clinical knowledge in the social work profession, and to write policies, procedures, and/or practice guidelines pertaining to the service delivery area.
- Assignments: For all assignments above the full performance level, the higher-level duties must consist of significant scope, complexity (difficulty), and variety and be performed by the incumbent at least 25% of the time. Senior social workers are licensed or certified to independently practice social work at an advanced level. Senior social workers typically practice in a major program area such as but not limited to: Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center or Polytrauma Network Site; a Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Center, or a national VHA referral center, such as a national Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or a national Transplant Center, or other program areas of equivalent scope and complexity. The senior social worker may be assigned administrative responsibility for clinical program development and is accountable for 9 clinical program's effectiveness and modification of service patterns. Assignments include clinical settings where they have limited access to onsite supervision such as CBOCs or satellite outpatient clinics. The senior social worker collaborates with the other members of the treatment team in the provision of comprehensive health care services to Veterans, ensures equity of access, service, and benefits to this population, and ensures the care provided is of the highest quality. The senior social worker provides leadership, direction, orientation, coaching, in-service training, staff development, and continuing education programs for assigned social work staff. They serve on committees, work groups, and task forces at the facility, VISN, and national level, or in the community as deemed appropriate by the supervisor, Social Work Executive or Chief of Social Work Services. This assignment is to be relatively few in number based on the size of the facility/service and applying sound position management. This assignment must represent substantial additional responsibility over and above that required at the full performance grade level and cannot be used as the full performance level of this occupation.
Reference: For more information on this qualification standard, please visit https://www.va.gov/ohrm/QualificationStandards/.
The full performance level of this vacancy is GS-12. The actual grade at which an applicant may be selected for this vacancy is the GS-12.
Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/.
Please note: The Social Worker Qualification Standard does not allow for foreign education equivalency.
Receiving Service Credit for Earning Annual (Vacation) Leave: Federal Employees earn annual leave at a rate (4, 6, or 8 hours per pay period) that is based on the number of years they have served as a Federal employee. Selected applicants may qualify for credit toward annual leave accrual, based on prior work experience or military service experience. This credited service can be used in determining the rate at which they earn annual leave. Such credit must be requested and approved prior to the appointment date and is not guaranteed.
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.
This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies.
This position is in the Excepted Service and does not confer competitive status.
VA encourages persons with disabilities to apply. The health-related positions in VA are covered by Title 38 and are not covered by the Schedule A excepted appointment authority.
If you are unable to apply online or need an alternate method to submit documents, please reach out to the Agency Contact listed in this Job Opportunity Announcement.
Under the Fair Chance to Compete Act, the Department of Veterans Affairs prohibits requesting an applicant's criminal history prior to accepting a tentative job offer. For more information about the Act and the complaint process, visit Human Resources and Administration/Operations, Security, and Preparedness (HRA/OSP) at The Fair Chance Act.
Candidates should be committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passionate about the ideals of our American republic, and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution.
A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. Opens in a new windowLearn more about federal benefits.
Review our benefits
Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.
You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.
IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE MAY NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE. Your application, resume, C.V., and/or supporting documentation will be verified. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect consideration for employment.
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.
The Department of Veterans Affairs performs pre-employment reference checks as an assessment method used in the hiring process to verify information provided by a candidate (e.g., on resume or during interview or hiring process); gain additional knowledge regarding a candidate's abilities; and assist a hiring manager with making a final selection for a position.
It is the policy of the VA to not deny employment to those that have faced financial hardships or periods of unemployment.
Veterans and Transitioning Service Members: Please visit the VA for Vets site for career-search tools for Veterans seeking employment at VA, career development services for our existing Veterans, and coaching and reintegration support for military service members.
To apply for this position, you must provide a complete Application Package which includes:
Special Note for Applications: To complete your application, please use the following link https://vacareers.va.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/Resume.docx to download the standard Clinical Resume Document. This one-page document does not need to be modified and must be uploaded into the two-page restricted 'Resume' document upload field.
Your full resume/CV may be uploaded without page limitation into the 'Other' document upload field.
The following documents are accepted and may be required if applicable to your eligibility and/or qualifications for this position. Please ensure you have included all documents required for your application, such as a copy of your transcript (if using education to qualify), SF-50s (current/former Federal employees), etc.
- Cover Letter
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DD-214/ Statement of Service
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Disability Letter (Schedule A)
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Disability Letter (VA)
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License
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Other (1)
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PCS Orders
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Professional Certification
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Resume
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Separation Notice (RIF)
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SF-15
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SF-50/ Notification of Personnel Action
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Transcript
Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications. Therefore, provide only the attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
Failure to provide all of the required information as stated in this vacancy announcement may result in an ineligible rating or may affect the overall rating.
All applicants are encouraged to apply online. To apply for this position, you must complete the full 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 07/29/2026 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/13015845.
- To begin, click Apply Online to create a USAJOBS 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.
Leslie Doyle
Phone
928-445-4860 X6968
Email
Address
Palo Alto VA Medical Center
3801 Miranda Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94304
US
Once your online application is submitted you will receive a confirmation notification by email. After we receive application packages (including all required documents) and the vacancy announcement closes, we will review applications to ensure qualification and eligibility requirements are met. After the review is complete, a referral certificate(s) is issued and applicants will be notified of their status by email. Referred applicants will be notified as such and may be contacted directly by the hiring office for an interview. All referred applicants receive a final notification once a selection decision has been made.
You may check the status of your application at any time by logging into your USA Jobs account and clicking on Applications. Information regarding your application status can be found in the USAJobs Help Center.
NOTE: Participation in the seasonal influenza program is a condition of employment and a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP). It is a requirement that all HCP to receive annual seasonal influenza vaccination or obtain an exemption for medical or religious reasons. Wearing a face mask is required when an exemption to the influenza vaccination has been granted. HCP in violation of this directive may face disciplinary action up to and including removal from federal service. HCP are individuals who, during the influenza season, work in VHA locations or who come into contact with VA patients or other HCP as part of their duties. VHA locations include, but are not limited to, VA hospitals and associated clinics, community living centers (CLCs), community-based outpatient clinics (CBOCs), domiciliary units, Vet centers and VA-leased medical facilities. HCP include all VA licensed and unlicensed, clinical and administrative, remote and onsite, paid and without compensation, full- and part-time employees, intermittent employees, fee basis employees, VA contractors, researchers, volunteers and health professions trainees (HPTs) who are expected to perform any or all of their work at these facilities. HPTs may be paid or unpaid and include residents, interns, fellows and students. HCP also includes VHA personnel providing home-based care to Veterans and drivers and other personnel whose duties put them in contact with patients outside VA medical facilities.
Accepting applications
Posted this month · Apply today
Due by 11:59 p.m. ET on July 29, 2026
Location
1 vacancy in the following location:
No matching locations found.
Work site options
Relocation expenses reimbursed
No
Salary
$129,222 - $167,993 per year
Pay scale & grade
GS 12
Learn more about pay scale and grade
Pay scale and grade determines the salary of the job.
Travel Required
Not required
Appointment type
Permanent
Occupations and job series
Federal service type
This job is in the Excepted Service
Represented by a union
Yes
Position sensitivity and risk
Non-sensitive (NS)/Low Risk
Jobs require a background check and some require a security clearance. The type depends on the job.
Background check type
- Credentialing
- Suitability/Fitness
Financial disclosure required
No
Some jobs require financial disclosure to identify conflicts of interests.
Announcement number
CBSW-13015845-26-LD
