VA Mandates 90-Day Job Placement for Scholarship Grads, Bans All Vaping and Smoking on VA Property

The ‘Health Professionals Scholarship Program Improvement Act of 2025’ (HPSP Improvement Act) is essentially a two-for-one deal: it tightens up the VA’s hiring process for medical staff and completely overhauls its smoking policy. This legislation aims to solve two very different problems for the Department of Veterans Affairs: getting qualified people into needed jobs faster and improving public health standards across all VA facilities.

The Fast Track to VA Employment

If you’re a medical student or professional who took the VA’s Health Professionals Scholarship Program (HPSP) to help fund your education, this bill is a game-changer for your post-graduation job hunt. Section 2 mandates that the Secretary of the VA must offer a full-time clinical job contract to HPSP graduates within 90 days after they finish their schooling and get fully licensed. This is huge because it removes the uncertainty and lag time that often follows graduation. More importantly, the contract must include a ‘competitive salary and benefits package,’ matching what other VA employees in similar roles receive. This means the VA can’t lowball you; they have to compete with the market.

For veterans relying on the VA, this provision means critical staff — like doctors, nurses, and specialists — will be deployed much faster to facilities that need them most. The VA is required to report its placement progress to Congress every 180 days, ensuring accountability until September 30, 2027. While this mandatory placement is great for staffing, it does mean that HPSP participants are locked into service almost immediately, limiting any post-graduation flexibility they might have hoped for.

Clearing the Air: Total Ban on VA Property

Section 3 introduces a comprehensive, property-wide ban on smoking across all Veterans Health Administration (VHA) facilities. Forget the designated smoking areas — under this new rule, if the VA controls the land or building, you can’t light up there. Crucially, this ban isn’t just about traditional cigarettes, cigars, or pipes. The bill explicitly includes a prohibition on ‘any electronic nicotine delivery system,’ meaning e-cigarettes and vape pens are completely off-limits on VA property, too.

For veterans and VA staff, this means a cleaner, healthier environment from the parking lot to the clinic door. For those who smoke or vape and rely on VA services, this change will require them to leave the property entirely to use nicotine products. This is a clear public health move, establishing a completely smoke-free zone, which aligns with modern healthcare standards and removes any ambiguity about where smoking is allowed. The bill also cleans up some outdated language in the Veterans Health Care Act of 1992, removing an old section that this new, broader ban replaces.