ACS Views on Legislative, Regulatory, and Other Issues

Veterans Affairs—

staff contact: Geoff Werth, gwerth@facs.org

• Letter to Arlen Specter, 9/21/04

September 21, 2004

The Honorable Arlen Specter
United States Senate
711 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Specter:

On behalf of the 66,000 Fellows of the American College of Surgeons, I am pleased to extend our support for the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel Enhancement Act of 2004, S. 2484. This important legislation will revise the Veterans Administration's (VA) outdated physician compensation system and ensure all veterans have access to high quality medical care.

As you are well aware, VA physicians and dentists are currently compensated using an outdated compensation system that has not been substantively modified since 1991. This complex, inflexible system does not allow the VA to award competitive compensation packages for many medical specialties, particularly for surgical subspecialties that require significant training and technical expertise. As a result, VA total physician compensation lags behind the private or academic sectors by as much as 67 percent. These salary inequities have severely compromised retention and recruitment efforts, leading to workforce shortages that seriously threaten the VA's ability to offer a full range of health services to our veterans.

Your legislation would effectively correct many of these problems by finally allowing VA salaries to be set at competitive levels now and into the future. The bill establishes two components that together would make up a physician's total salary- base pay and market pay. Most importantly, market pay would be determined by the individual's qualifications, specialty, and geographic location, using national, specialty-specific, benchmark data obtained from two or more published salary surveys.

We appreciate your strong leadership on this important veterans issue and look forward to working together with you to pass this vital legislation into law. If we can assist you or your staff in anyway, please contact the ACS Washington office at 202-337-2701.

Sincerely,

Thomas R. Russell, MD, FACS
Executive Director

Online September 24, 2004

ACS Views on Legislative, Regulatory, and Other Issues

Advocacy and Health Policy