How the Department of Government Efficiency May Effect VA Healthcare and VA FTCA Claims
- David Tierney
- Mar 26
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 27
You may have heard that the Department of Government Efficiency has begun several projects designed to reduce the size of the United States government work force.
In particular, you might be concerned about what effect any layoffs might have within the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.
The short answer is we don't know for sure how these cuts might affect VA healthcare, VA benefits decisions, or tort claims against VA. We are assuming that cuts anywhere within these services will, at the very least, cause delays, but we do not know many or how long. We have seen some delays already.
On January 20, 2025, the President issued an Executive Memorandum ordering all departments and agencies take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis." One of the potential outcomes of employees not returning to work was that these employees could be dismissed or would, at least, be placed on administrative leave.
On January 28, 2025, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM, essentially the Federal government's HR) offered most of the federal government workforce what they called a "deferred resignation," allowing those employees to resign, be placed on administrative leave with pay until up to September 30, 2025. On February 7, 2025, VA sent an email to its workforce exempting 130 positions from this deferred resignation. From the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), these exemptions included doctors and nurses, but also included laundry workers, cooks, and others. From the Veterans Benefits Administration, these exemptions were limited to five occupations: rehabilitation counselor, general legal, veterans claims examiners, appraisers, and vocational rehabilitation.
On February 13, 2025, VA announced via press release that it had dismissed "more than 1,000 employees." In that press release, VA stated that the cuts were to “non-bargaining unit probationary employees who have served less than a year in a competitive service appointment or who have served less than two years in an excepted service appointment." The press release did not state explicitly which types of employees were dismissed, just that the "vast majority" of the more than 43,000 probationary employees were exempt from these dismissals because they either, "serve in mission-critical positions," are "covered under a collective bargaining agreement," or VA employees who elected to participate in the Office of Personnel Management's deferred resignation program.
On February 24, 2025, VA announced, by press release, that it had dismissed more than 1,400 employees. In this press release, it stated what VA considers "mission critical," included Veterans Crisis Line responders, but did not list what other positions VA considered mission critical. In this press release, approximately 2 weeks after the above press release, also stated that there are "currently nearly 40,000 probationary employees." This press release also stated that, "These moves will not hurt VA health care, benefits or beneficiaries."
There have been legal challenges to all of these actions. Some have had more success than others, but many employees were either dismissed, or participated in the deferred resignation program before details were set or legal challenges occurred which might have prevented them from leaving service.
So, what do we know about the effect of all of the above on the time it takes to get medical care, have a benefits claim processed, or have a tort claim reviewed?
Some years ago, I worked for the Board of Veterans Appeals within VA. I can only speak of my experience there and how it might relate to the termination of remote work. At the BVA, many attorneys were granted remote work status, and many attorneys performed their work remotely. As they only had to return to the office for a brief period every so often, many of those attorneys returned to their home states and worked remotely from there. They had homes and families in places far away from D.C. If they were forced to end their remote work or resign, some would choose not to uproot their lives and families to move back to D.C., and would instead resign. The Board did not have a sufficient number of attorneys to process the appeals when I worked there. If attorneys resign, the wait on appeals' decisions can only get longer. But, we do not have knowledge of any who have retired.
We do not have direct knowledge of hospital staff who have resigned, though it seems entirely possible. We have known for a long time that VA medical centers have historically been understaffed. Any reduction in staff, whether that is to medical or janitorial personnel, will inevitably lead to delays in care.
We do have direct knowledge of at least one of the VA attorneys who processes FTCA claims who have taken the deferred resignation. Some others we know are unsure about the security of their jobs. Reductions in legal or legal support staff, voluntary or otherwise, in the Torts group of VA general counsel would, of course, lead to delays.
So far, we have not experienced increased delays that we can say were definitely caused by resignations, early retirements, or dismissals. We also do not yet know whether significant delays will occur. We are carefully optimistic that any tort claim delays, should they arise, will be short-lived. Nevertheless, we are prepared to pursue litigation for appropriate matters should delays at VA become unreasonable.
But, we are all crossing our fingers.
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