Administrative Support Assistant

Summary

This position is part of the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Service (P&LMS) within the Eastern Oklahoma VA Health Care System (EOVAHCS). It is currently based at the Jack C. Montgomery VAMC and will transition to the James Mountain Inhofe VAMC once the facility opens. The role provides primary clerical and administrative support for the service, assisting the Service Chief, Laboratory Manager, pathologists, supervisors, and other staff with a wide range of administrative and procedural tasks.

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Duties

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Duties include, but are not limited to the following tasks:

• Proficient in applying complex medical terminology specifically related to anatomic pathology and clinical diagnoses to transcribe meetings, communications, handling medical document and packages.
• Performs medical transcription that involves specialized terminology dictated by several individuals and/or skill in transcribing material involving non-specialized terminology such as live conferences, teleconferences, or similar proceedings when an accurate recording is required.
• Maintains office compliance regarding regulations, policies and guidelines as established by laboratory accreditation bodies, CPT coding and SNOMED policy relating to diagnostic indexing of surgical, cytology and autopsy reports in order to assure compliance with reporting requirements.
• Performs timekeeping duties using pay and leave laws. rules. regulations, and agency policy regarding entitlements to overtime, differential, hazardous duty, holiday and special rates and premium pay.
• Maintains calendar for lab service, i.e. scheduling appointments.
• Takes and transcribes Service supervisor meeting minutes.
• Schedules for mandatory reviews are presented at various medical executive cancer committees, tumor board and other meetings.
• Prepares agenda with attachments for Service supervisor meetings and distributes to section supervisors.
• Drafts, reviews, controls, and edits the laboratory's standard operating procedures in assigned clerical and administrative support areas.
• Screens calls and visitors and refers to other staff members only those calls or visitors requiring their attention. Interacts with customers, visitors, and coworkers in a courteous, tactful, helpful manner, exercising mature judgment and diplomacy appropriately.
• Handles requests for information and resolves or assists in resolving a variety of inquires made by the facility regarding laboratory-related matters.
• Provide exceptional customer service to professional and para-professional personnel within the Medical Center.
• Reviews outgoing correspondence and reports prepared for signature of the Service Chief, ensuring proper format, correctness (mathematical and grammatical, as applicable), and ascertaining that all necessary coordination of facts has been completed and is in accordance with established policy.
• Serves as send-out coordinator for anatomic pathology, logging and tracking all materials (generally, tissue blocks and slides) that are sent to reference labs.
• Analyzes existing or proposed internal reports to ensure procedures are followed.
• Maintains master files and reports related to record disposition and retention, creating, and updating files as necessary to maintain compliance with all VA and other applicable regulations.
• Proper handling of biological and infectious samples in order to minimize and prevent risks of contracting contagious transmittal disease (ie: HIV, Hepatitis, etc.); knowledge and use of proper universal precautions.
• Knowledge of proper packaging, handling, and shipping of pathology materials.
• Utilize a range of software applications such as Word, Excel, Power Point, Outlook, Access, VHA, and VA databases to extract and organize data, produce reports, and to prepare a variety of specific working documents and forms.

Work Schedule: 8am-4:30pm Monday-Friday

Compressed/Flexible: Not Available

Telework: No Authorized

Virtual: This is not a virtual position.

Position Description/PD#: Administrative Support Assistant/ PD147830

Requirements

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Conditions of employment

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job
• To be considered for this position, you must complete all required steps in the process. In addition to the application and questionnaire, this position requires an online assessment. The online assessment measures critical general competencies required to perform the job.
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959
• A pre-placement physical examination is not required.
• 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 ( 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, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 07/22/2026.

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-7 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-6 . 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 and/or education as described below:

• Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-6 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: knowledge of office administrative practices and procedures; service organization and workflow; correspondence and report control processes; records maintenance and retention requirements; timekeeping procedures and systems; and administrative procedures related to pathology material tracking, shipping documentation, routing, and filing; knowledge of the functions of laboratory sections sufficient to route inquiries, coordinate administrative actions, retrieve records, maintain files, and support the administrative operations of the service; skill in the use of office automation software and systems, including word processing, email, spreadsheets, shared drives, and applicable electronic health or laboratory information systems, sufficient to prepare documents, maintain records, track actions, and obtain administrative information; knowledge of customer service with oral and written communication skill is required to respond to procedural inquiries, prepare correspondence, maintain records, and coordinate actions with internal and external contacts. (Note: Experience must be fully documented on your resume and must include job title, duties, month and year start/end dates and hours worked per week.)

For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at

Education

There is no educational substitution at this grade level.

Additional information

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.

Reasonable Accommodation (RA) Requests: If you believe you have a disability (i.e., physical or mental), covered by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended that would interfere with completing the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments, you will be granted the opportunity to request a RA in your online application. Requests for RA for the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments and appropriate supporting documentation for RA must be received prior to starting the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments. Decisions on requests for RA are made on a case-by-case basis. If you meet the minimum qualifications of the position, after notification of the adjudication of your request, you will receive an email invitation to complete the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments, based on your adjudication decision. You must complete all assessments within 48 hours of receiving the URL to access the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments if you received the link after the close of the announcement. To determine if you need a RA, please review the Procedures for Requesting a Reasonable Accommodation for Online Assessments.

This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies.

The Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced 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

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.

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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.

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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.