Current Issues and Accomplishments
The new definition of total compensation used by the Department of Veterans Affairs to set maximum pay for Medical Officers should be adopted by all federal agencies since the new definition does not include several items, e.g. recruitment incentives, in determining maximum pay.
The annual PCA report should be modified to report on the base, market, performance and total pay of all federal physicians. Such a report is the only way Medical Officers will have access to data to determine if their own pay is competitive with the pay of their colleagues in the same specialty, years of experience and geographic area.
Accomplishments
For over 35 years, the Federal Physicians Association has been the principal advocate for the concerns of federal civil service physicians. FPA has worked on behalf of federal physicians to:
- Urge Congress to include the Physicians Comparability Allowance (PCA) in basic pay for retirement purposes
- Lobby Congress and the Clinton Administration to increase in the maximum PCA to $30,000 a year.
- Provide detailed pay and benefit information to ensure union contracts covering federal physicians include the most favorable pay and benefit guidelines.
- Secure a legal opinion to support a law that mandates periodic increases in physician special pay rates.
- Notify the Office of Personnel Management of an error in published special pay rates for physicians, resulting in a substantial pay increase for several GS-14/15 physicians..
- Lobby for federal government approval of the Department of Health and Human Services Title 38 physician special pay plan.