Defense Health Agency offers voluntary buyouts as part of workforce reduction effort

The Defense Health Agency is granting voluntary buyouts to certain employees on a job-by-job basis as the Trump administration’s large-scale government workforce reduction campaign plows on.

After approving more than 1,000 officials to exit through the Voluntary Early Retirement Agreement (VERA), Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) and other methods extended by the Defense Department to date, DHA leadership has “authorized Network Directors to offer the Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment or VSIP” options to interested personnel, an agency official told DefenseScoop on Monday.

DHA, a combat support agency, delivers health care for service members and their families. The organization manages the Military Health System and supports its infrastructure for DOD, and also steers a range of other research, training and modernization initiatives.

Notably, DHA has reported recent progress in its pursuits to strategically set the foundation for the integration, adoption and deployment of reliable artificial intelligence in military medicine. Last year, agency officials produced an inventory of AI use cases, new planning guidance and a digital health strategy. Among other activities, they also completed an exercise to identify potential vulnerabilities, biases and risks associated with emerging generative AI capabilities.

According to DHA’s official website, 130,000-plus staff members operate more than 700 facilities worldwide.

At the beginning of his second term, President Donald Trump launched a disruptive initiative known as DOGE, to uncover “waste, fraud and abuse” across the federal government and slash some spending and staff positions to spur savings.

Per Trump’s directions, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth swiftly ordered a “strategic reduction” of 5-8% of DOD’s civilian personnel, through incentive opportunities such as DRP and VERA, and other means of cutting the workforce.

By early August, defense officials confirmed that roughly 55,000 applications had been approved for DRP across the department.

In an email to DefenseScoop on Monday, a DHA official said: “As of Aug. 8, 2025, 972 employees within all DHA-administered properties opted for the Deferred Resignation Program (both the [White House Office of Personnel Management] and DOD programs), and 49 persons opted for the Voluntary Early Retirement Agreement option.”

The agency also moved to authorize network directors the option to offer “the Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment or VSIP incentive as they deem necessary to shape their workforce to continue to provide safe, high-quality health care for our beneficiaries and sustain our critical readiness support mission,” they confirmed.

VSIPs essentially refer to specific financial incentives — typically in the form of lump-sum payments — that the federal government can present to encourage federal employees to make the choice to leave their positions, through retirement or resignation. 

“This is a voluntary program and Network Directors retain authority to approve or disapprove of requests,” the DHA official said.