“A number of unanticipated events impacted our ability to fully execute these provisions,” Surgeon General Jerome Adamsaid in a Jan. 31 letter. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Public health workers find surprise cuts in paychecks

About 3,000 Public Health Service physicians and other workers saw their paychecks unexpectedly slashed last month because of government delays setting up a payment system Congress ordered a decade ago.

“A number of unanticipated events impacted our ability to fully execute these provisions,” Surgeon General Jerome Adams told Public Health Service Commissioned Corps officers in a Jan. 31 letter obtained by POLITICO.


Doctors, nurses, physician assistants and others in the corps work in underserved parts of the country, including on Native-American reservations and in prisons, as well as abroad on projects to combat HIV/AIDS and promote vaccinations. There are more than 6,500 health care workers in the corps.

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Some officers saw cuts of up to $1,700 a month, according to anecdotal evidence from the Commissioned Officers Association of the USPHS, which advocates for corps officers.

“We understand that the approximately 3,000 officers of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps who are impacted by the new Health Professions Special Pay plan are concerned," an HHS spokesperson said. "The special pay will be retroactively restored. We are committed to re-establishing the special pay for those impacted as quickly as possible."

The cuts stemmed from a change in the monthly bonuses that commissioned corps officers get on top of what they earn at the normal military pay scale, to partly offset the cost of their medical training and provide an incentive to keep them from going to the more lucrative private sector. Congress in 2008 converted existing pay rates into the Health Professions Special Pay Plan and ordered it to be implemented by Jan. 28, 2018.

Adams told officers that long-term plans called for finishing the work on time but that the work got delayed. He did not detail reasons why.

"They just didn't get it done in 10 years," said Jim Currie, executive director of the Commissioned Officers Association. "It caught everybody by surprise."

The smaller paychecks — which don't reflect the old or promised new bonuses — will go out for three to four months, but Adams wrote that they “anticipate special pay will be authorized retroactively from” last week.

The surgeon general, who oversees the corps, said repairing the program is a “top priority” for his office and acknowledged that the gap “may create a significant financial challenge” for officers. He said that if necessary, his office will communicate with banks or creditors on officers’ behalf.