Paralyzed Veterans of America has partnered with UnitedHealth Group create recommendations that promote the hiring of veterans in the health sector. These recommendations are contained in a new joint policy paper titled “Converging Lines: Veterans, Health Care, and Jobs.” The paper focuses on resolving veterans and caregiver unemployment by promoting increased hiring in clinical and nonclinical health sector occupations.
“There is a symbiosis between those who deliver health care and veterans who increasingly rely on the quality of care in [Veterans Affairs] VA and the private sector,” Sherman Gillums, Jr., deputy executive director of Paralyzed Veterans of America stated in a press release. “A military veteran, spouse or caregiver will likely bring a high level of compassion and experience to a job where ‘healing’ is the ultimate objective, whether it is nursing, coding, billing, cybersecurity or the myriad other jobs in health care. We believe the ideas and recommendations presented in this paper will help promote veteran and caregiver hiring into an environment where they are likely to thrive.”
The paper’s ideas are a result of a forum that brought together representatives from the White House initiative Joining Forces, the U.S. Senate, the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Labor, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes initiative, and Booz Allen Hamilton, among others.
Sherman Gillums, Jr.
Ideas proposed in the paper include: the development and expansion of federal initiatives to train and certify veterans for health care jobs and careers; the creation and expansion of health care industry campaigns to inform, identify and train veterans for health care openings; the use of a nationwide clearinghouse for public and private health care career opportunities, training and job openings; education for exiting military and current veterans that provides information, materials and resources on the range of health care positions and careers, with added emphasis on non-clinical opportunities; and the encouragement of military spouses and caregivers to train and apply for full-time or flex-time health care jobs, such as billing and coding specialists, referral specialists, call center reps and others, as well as encouragement of health care providers and support firms to reach out to these populations.
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