Staff Psychologist

Staff Psychologist

This Staff Psychologist position is in Mental Health services at the VA White River Junction Healthcare System located at White River Junction, Vermont. Duties include but are not limited to:

• Serves as a consultant regarding the role and interaction of cognitive, personality, and psychological factors on various medical disorders.
• Provides psychological services including diagnostic assessments such as pre-bariatric surgery evaluations and pre-transplant surgery evaluations, psychotherapy (individual and group), risk assessments and treatment planning.
• Participates in the monthly or weekly committee/team meetings for the surgical/treatment candidates and follow up with those candidates or coordinate their care as needed or required by practice guidelines.
• Provides direct patient care in both outpatient and inpatient settings.
• Provides cross coverage for psychologists located in Primary Care Mental Health Integration and Outpatient Mental Health Clinic, with consultation to the Behavioral Health Interdisciplinary Program (BHIP) when needed.
• Provides a full range of psychological assessment services and diagnoses mental disorders, particularly for complex or unusually difficult patients.
• Provides group and individual interventions for health-related problems to include, but not limited to, pain management, sleep behavior/hygiene, smoking cessation, weight management, diabetes care, etc.
• Assists the Spinal Cord Injury staff by providing psychological services to patients with spinal cord injuries. Among other things, this will include yearly follow-up exams for patients with spinal cord injuries, MS, and ALS.
• Provides patient education and support services to medical and mental health service lines. Provides education to patients, family members, and significant others.
• Provides consultation to professional staff within the White River Junction VA Medical Center and to community providers, concerning clinical assessment findings and appropriate treatment plans for patients.
• Develops, implements, and documents the psychotherapeutic treatment plan for an assigned caseload of patients, including prompt completion of clinical reminders.
• Complies with national and local performance measures, including timely health care screening and completion of clinical reminders for patients.
• Complies with CPRS documentation procedures, including timeliness standards for documentation and proper patient check out procedures (e.g., entering diagnostic and procedure codes).
• Develops new and existing VHA health behavior programs, coordinate evaluations, and determine the efficacy of health promotion and disease prevention programs at the medical center.
• Serves as an active member of the Whole Health Steering Committee, MOVE! Committee, Health Promotion Disease Prevention Team, and other committees focused upon the promotion of preventive medicine and population health objectives as deemed appropriate.
• Adheres to operational policies and procedures for the treatment team, established by the Service Line Director.
• Provides clinical instruction for psychology and social work interns. If fully licensed, may provide clinical supervision, participate as an active member of the Psychology Training Committee, and contribute to the didactic training series for psychology trainees and staff.
• Provides didactic training in Whole Health, TEACH and Motivational Interviewing and offers clinician coaching in these areas.
• Provides clinician coaching and BHIP Team coaching to clinicians as requested.
• Performs additional duties as assigned.

Work Schedule:

Full-Time, Monday - Friday, 8:00 am - 4:30 pm.

Telework:
Ad-Hoc

Virtual:
This is not a virtual position.

Functional Statement #: F08615 at GS-11, F08616 at GS-12, and F08617 at GS-13.

Relocation/Recruitment

Incentives:

Not Authorized

EDRP Authorized:
Former EDRP participants ineligible to apply for incentive. Contact Hannah Neilson lson, the EDRP Coordinator for questions/assistance. Learn more

Permanent Change of Station (PCS):
Not Authorized

Notifications:

• This position is in the Excepted Service.
• This position is a Bargaining Unit position.
• This position is covered by locality-based comparability pay.
• Veterans' preference does not apply for internal or other current permanent Federal agency employees.
• Narrative responses to the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) may be required from the selectee in order to proceed with the appointment.
• Current and former Federal employees must submit copies of their most recent SF-50, (Notice of Personnel Action). The SF-50 must identify the position title, series, grade, step, tenure and type of service (Competitive or Excepted). In some cases, more than one SF-50 may be required to show a higher grade previously held.