plasma center nurse

nurse coordinator

licensed practical nurse

health screener

plasma center technician

Biolife Plasma Services

BioLife (plasma centers in general) is a great opportunity for adults who want to get their foot in the door for health care. It is entry level and you can start in any area: reception, medical history (poking fingers, taking temps, etc), sample processing (freezer work, storage, taking samples from plasma units), phlebotomy (sticking donors, monitoring venipuncture sites for donors). 
Training is very in depth and the work is very much technical. If you can read and follow standard operating procedures and are able to self critique and grow, you will thrive in this work. 
That being said, you will be micromanaged on various levels. Upper management are on site and very resourceful when you need guidance. They try to keep an open line of communication with lower management. 
Lower management are spread thin. They are expected to cover the entirety of the donation floor, usually by themselves, upon occasion there may be two leads. This leaves phlebotomists struggling to find assistance if that leader is in a reaction or unavailable. 
The front half of the center (medical history and reception) are often left waiting for upwards of 10 minutes if they have issues. If a donor has an issue that needs management, the front of house is typically last priority. 
 The turnover is VERY high. Many people do not make it more then half a year outside of management. They implement a strike system for tardies, occurrences, etc. it’s on a rolling calendar so many people struggle with keeping this number down. Things happen, we’re all human. But I’ve seen people let go from coming back from breaks 6 minutes late and then being late, even when giving notice multiple hours in advance, that get let go. There is no ‘understanding’ here, it is just by the point system. 
Bringing up breaks, they will write down exactly when you should go and then not provide coverage. You will then be treated as a burden when you go to ask for coverage. But if you just go when scheduled, they will come find you and give you a warning. There is no winning here. 
They will schedule you 8 1/2 hours, and when you’re time comes to be off, especially if it’s a closing shift, they expect you to stay late. There is no asking for volunteers, or working together to get items done at the end of night. If they allow others to go home, and you’re the unlucky one that is left, you get stuck there by yourself and are expected to stay as late as is needed to complete items. 
Lower management, leads, often work much more than their scheduled to complete their work. They’re paid for it, of course, but do not have a choice besides working more to complete their workload. 
Moving onto donors, they’re awesome! They’re doing a great thing by donating their plasma for patients. BioLife is very conscientious about testing donors for sickness, making sure people are within safe parameters to donate and by training their staff to see the signs of a reaction during donation. But the company cares much more about getting donors in to the point that donors are often subject to long waits and stressed out phlebotomists. I’ve seen lines from the donor floor out of the building (40+ people waiting to get to a bed) and many more waiting to get checked in at the front. Donors should be able to expect that we are scheduling our appointments to accommodate them, and not to make the biggest profit. It is unfair to make them schedule an appointment that turns from 45 minutes to two hours depending on the day. 
Scheduling is not happening based off of donors for that shift. If they open 100 more appointments for that day, they’re not scheduling the extra staff to make that happen smoothly. Because of turnover, they may not even have the staff to schedule.  A phlebotomist is allowed to monitor 5 donors max at a time. If they flood a section with donors, they may have five disconnects to do at once. Or three disconnects and two sticks, but no one is able to help them with that because of low staffing. They over burden their phlebotomist but expect them to hold meaningful conversations with donors, while sticking, disconnecting and monitoring multiple people at once. They maybe also be putting up sets and liquids, stocking their carts, trying to send other peoples breaks and deal with reactions all at once. 
Benefits are pretty good! They offer 401ks, parental leaves are pretty solid, they have optional things like fitness reimbursement and tuition reimbursement that you are not required to pay back if you leave!
All in all, if you can handle more stress than most, don’t have any dependents, no health issues that may cause you to need to call out upon occasion, are okay with being micromanaged and are able to self govern, this is the job for you! 
If you are wanting to get your foot in the door for patient care because heading into the health care field, this would be a great option for you. But if you have college classes you need to schedule around, DO NOT apply. They say will they work about your availability, but beware: they will tell you that it is not possible and make you work you’re original availability, semester after semester.  

The Job Experience 
The job offers a lot of opportunity with no compensation in return. You only get a raise for learning how to do VPs and then if you move up. The issue with this is you will learn so much more and have the opportunity to learn so much more with nothing in return. The opportunity to become a trainer is there for you (if the supervisor likes you) with absolutely no pay raise or compensation for that choice. This opportunity will also not help you move up, as they will move someone up less experienced than you and give them the training that you already have. The game of favorites is spoken of by all employees and the person who will argue this is the center manager, who to most feel is strongly disconnected from the employees he promised to make a change to. For what you are doing, what you are working with, and the effort you put in, the job is not worth the stress. One thing to note is as a part timer, they have no problem working you past your shift well over 8 hours without giving you lunch. 

Management 
You have your upper management, management, supervisors, and lead techs. Honestly outside of two really amazing managers and the lead techs; upper management, management, and the supervisors could honestly care less for the employees. Most will address you with an attitude and majority as a whole will gossip about employees and show them little respect. Most of the time they are in their offices with about 10% to 20% being on the floor and helping. The two really amazing managers are always in the middle of the chaos and I can’t say enough how much I appreciate them. The center manager is rarely out of his office despite when I first started seeing him constantly in the action. 
There is no communication between management and most of the time the employees are left to clean up the mess, meaning you can never be sure when you are heading home. Saying that, it is not uncommon to hear management argue over the walky or change gameplans on top of previous. Because of this you will find yourself doing extra work because no one communicated until the last minute. 
I have watched twice now as donors get extremely aggressive towards employees and management just stand there. If people have to wait outside, they will send you out there to deal with the angry crowd before a single member takes a step towards that door. 

Your Health 
The way things are ran, you will be more worried about getting occurrences or getting fired than your own health, including in the covid19 pandemic, despite them no longer paying hazard pay while taking in covid19 patients (who have not shown symptoms in a set number of weeks and approved by a doctor). During my time here I had several people come in; and despite being brought in by a coworker; they did not inform us that they were covid19 donors. Some of these people still showed minor symptoms. At this current point in time the place is taking in more people than six feet apart can regulate and close contact is unpreventable.

The Few Pros
The MSS team is amazing. If you want to learn about the (real) medical field and obtain a knowledge of what the medical world is like, spend as much time talking to them as possible. They are your best resources. Not all donors care about you and only are there for the money, but the majority who are there to help are amazing. Some will make things difficult for you; especially when you first learn VPs; but the majority will encourage you and support you. The employees have all of their own separate chats to talk about management, and chats separate from those chats to talk about each other and as long as you are not a part of that level of drama the majority are amazing. You have to treat the place like high school which is unprofessional for a bunch of adults; but if you stay out of the drama you will have a lot of fun with fellow employees. The other huge pro that most  bring up is paid phlebotomy training. If you go for this job, mark it as a stepping stone and learn all that you can even beyond phlebotomy and then move on. Don’t invest in a company who will lie and say they are invested in you. 

While incredible benefits drive incentive to work here, it’s the line staff that do the actual work. Upper management will continue to push productivity and production down people’s throats just to get out of meetings. However, the lack of staff constantly is at ends with management. When someone decides to leave the company, the company refuses to replace any workforce. We lost 6 employees and only gained two in return. Good luck having support when students go home for breaks, because the majority of the workforce are students, so plan to run yourself into the ground, be asked to stay late, or call out sick because you surely won’t get any help from management to hire and focus on training to alleviate the stress, struggles, and unrealistic expectations for your team. And if you call-out, don’t expect someone to fill-in because there is no one that can. 

The job is extremely technical and precise and the working conditions don’t promote a healthy environment. Supervisors and Managers are forced to stay late, Medical Staff are forced to perform double duties as line staff and MSS roles, and line staff are the ones who suffer. The clear lack of support from district or the center managers is very evident. Write-ups are frequent, metrics run the building and not heart or empathy, and the real ones that truly care are the line staff, not management. The training department is neglected for production, everything is completed last minute, and Supervisors are stuck shrugging their shoulders at bad scheduling, work requests, and metric driven decisions instead of human ones.

The benefits are amazing, don’t get wrong, but everything else doesn’t make that worth it unless you are a local college student to take advantage of this system. Companies: learn from the benefits they provide and make them the standard, alongside poach the line staff employees; for they are the reason the center accomplished ANYTHING.

Employees: take advantage of the system. Use your abundance of PTO and sick time and benefits the company offers. But don’t expect much happiness or fulfillment from upper management. Supervisors will take care of you but no manager will. They are forced to rely on metrics and will squeeze you dry doing so. Wonderful part time positions but full timers will be taken advantage of. 

Company note: Employees of all areas and years of employment are leaving due to poor management, long hours, and lack of support. Managers need lots of things done, but are stingy on hiring staff to accomplish these tasks. They will also lie on any Memos or write-ups you give to show your “incompetence” and you are powerless to influence those decisions. They fake audits and lower appointments for the illusion of control rather than show a normal working day. Once someone looks, you all of a sudden have managers supporting the areas, lower appointments to finally be able to manage, and professionalism. The next day, back to the normal abuse in all areas.

In conclusion: work here for the benefits and not the pay. Work here for part time and take advantage of the system. While growth can be a good thing, but the illusion is because people are leaving those roles to get out of a corrupt and unethical system, not moving up and getting promoted. Managers will not support you, they will support the metrics they need. 

If you like a fast paced work environment, this is the place for you. Lots to learn and lots to do. Highly regulated industry and a lot of domestic and foreign regulatory organizations to keep happy.

I like this job because of the regular donors who come in and many of my coworkers. I enjoy the developing relationships and I am proud to be working in an environment that actually helps people.

With regards to donors, we all understand that donors come in for various reasons and mainly because they need some money. However, our primary reason for being there is to collect plasma that is used to save lives. When someone is deferred it is not becuase they are being picked on, singled out, or disrepescted. It is because we have to think about the person who will eventually receive the medication/treatment the plasma is turned into. No, that pimple on your arm or that runny nose or that higher temperature is not a big deal to you, but if it was your child depending on the medication, wouldn't you want to make sure it was collected from someone who is comepletely healthy?

At our center we have a lot of great, friendly, fun employees. However, the biggest employee issues we have (and these issues do impact donor wait times and team morale) are 1. employees complaining to donors when they do not like a process or decision implemented by the management team, 2. employees arguing with whoever is supervising the floor, 3. employees purposely go slow to avoid work (not talking about newer employees who are still learning and will pick up speed with more experience).

Schedules at our center are all over the place. One day you work 11 AM to 7:30 PM and the next day you work 4:45 AM to 2:30 PM and then the third you may have a split shift 5:25 AM to 10:30 AM and back at 2:30 PM to 7:30 PM. Breaks and lunches are usually done within two hours of the start of a shift, which makes for a long day when you are scheduled a 10 or 12 hour day.

A note to donors:
* Eat a healthy meal before you come in. Amazing how many people come in and have not eaten in over 12 hours... and, yes, an empty stomach will have a negative impact on your experience!
* Drink plenty of fluids, preferrably water. The better hydrated you are, the plumper your veins become and the better your blood will flow... and, yes, not being properly hydrated will have a negative impact on your experience!
* If you have a favorite phlebotomist, ask for them immediately. Please don't wait until the one in your section has a needle in hand. We are busy and it sometimes takes some juggling to trade places to meet your request, causing longer wait times for others. Also keep in mind your favorite phlebotomist was also new at one time and needed the experience to get where they are. Denying the newer phlebotomist experience really doesn't help you when your favorite calls in sick, is scheduled off, or eventually seeks other career opportunities.
* Don't pull your arm away when the phlebotomist is performing a venipuncture. Don't bend, lift, or wave your arm after the needle is in your arm. The hematoma, bruising, and pain you will experience is your fault, not theirs.
* If you have a complaint about your experience, it is better to discuss it after your donation with the Center Manager, Assistant Manager, or one of the Center Supervisors.

First of all, let me apologized with this lengthy review, but I want to make sure future candidates sees this, as some of you might be considering leaving your current job to join Biolife.

-Schedule: Unless you are part of management or the lead, you are not guarantee 40 hours even as a full-time employee. You will be lucky to get 35 hours a week as a full-time employee. The only day you work 8+ hours are Monday and Saturday, but since you're not getting 40 hours, those Saturdays are not overtime pay and regardless if you work days-or-not, you will have to come in at 7am on Saturday and work until close. Chances are also, if you are working a Monday on that week, you'll get Saturday off and vice versa.

When the building closes, this does not mean you get to leave right away. Since there are donors who loves to come in after the door closes we have to wait for the last donor to finish, before you can start your closing duties and go home. Closing duties are set from 1-7, with 7th being the last is usually the last to leave while the others get to leave first. Closing duties varies every day, but you will be surprised as how some always get to leave first and some always stuck being last.

-Break: This is how break works here: You come in at the start of your shift -- about an hour later -- they start break. This wouldn't be an issue, but this is the only break you'll get unless you're working Monday and Saturday, where you'll get a 30 minutes unpaid lunch also. Break are 20 minutes long, so you'll need to get everything done on your only break of the day. When you need to use the restroom, someone will have to relieve you while you are gone; however, when its get busy during rush hour, the chances of getting someone to just watch over your area for 5 minutes are even a challenge.

-Management: The turnover rate here is very high. Management usually hires people with little-to-no experience or education on the job and trains them (Yes, even Phlebotomists). With this strategy, we have to wait for them to finished their trainings which can take a while before they can help. This is very frustrating since many times we are underman with Phlebotomists during rush hour. When it comes to work, they seem more focused on hitting their daily numbers than their employees that they so "valued." ... Oh, and when it comes to vacation or holiday pay, you are only getting paid for 7 hours. Even if you put in your requests in advance, no guarantee that you'll be granted your vacation requests. The problem with this is your vacation will not carry over to the new year nor will you be compensated for your remaining hours left of vacations. I have talked to many employees here that have vacation to burn but can't use it because management denied vacation days. However, management can burned all of their vacation -- go figured!

These are some of many complaints I have here. Hopefully, this is enough for many of you to evaluate if this is right for you. Remember, there are cons and pros to every job. I just want to make sure the future candidates out there to know what they are getting themselves into.

Consider this place a stepping stone of sorts; you can work here and earn a paycheck, but that's about it. A sense of fulfillment or value quickly fades away after a year once you're doing the same thing over and over day after day. If you have any other skill of endeavor you'd like to pursue, work on that while you're here and leave ASAP.

You'll be on your feet walking up and down the building for 8+ hours a day and not allowed to sit on anything or lean because of "professionalism" and your measly 5 - 10 minute break or lunch isn't even mandatory since there are no labor laws protecting you. You can spend the entire day there without any sort of relief.

While job advancement is usually immediately available and the only source for a decent pay raise, training is at the discretion of management so if you're not one chosen from your group of new hires, you'll be left months behind while one single golden child is pushed too rapidly through other training to get them in a certain position in the left amount of time possible. 

The company is extremely strict about their metrics and numbers relative to other centers. Unfortunately though, the center here is one of the worst in the nation. Processing times are astronomically high, yield is dismally low, and the center is probably number one in the nation for employee turnover. Even transfers from other centers who have come down to help have entirely left BioLife after their experience with our management team. While not a quantitative measure, general employee morale is also disappointingly low as well.

The center is always run at bare minimum numbers of employees, which means unnecessarily large burdens places on the people already there, all in an attempt to keep a facade of productivity. The management team is lead by an idea, and direct quote, that "people who care about their jobs don't make mistakes" and so the problems we had with our center were only because of the lower employees and not the fault of the management team, that every time we mess anything up it's more paperwork for them and they are the ones in need of the sympathy. 

But if all you're looking for is just a place to earn some cash with a slightly higher than average starting pay, go for it. Just do not invest yourself emotionally into this place or you'll be rudely awakened by their lack of empathy and humanity once you become a commodity to them. Take advantage of their great health insurance and matching 401k plan, all while looking for a better place to work. After my many years with them and working many other jobs, this was the first and only one I've come to hate and the first I actually shed tears of relief once I was free and found somewhere else to work a long time ago.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The only positive part of the job was some of the coworkers. Most of the employees quit or were fired after a short amount of time so it was difficult to cultivate a team environment. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The understaff all areas in the company and expect the workers to manage the work of 2-3 people. We are underpaid and underappreciated. I would often stay after my scheduled shift by 1-2 hours because they overbooked donor appointments and expected the employees to stay over shift to accommodate this. I would often be the only nurse on staff managing the entire center and would not have lunch breaks or even time for bathroom breaks. There was little support for the nursing staff and may of the floor staff would call in sick, no show or quit, so there was no team environment. Employees are not valued, and it always came down to the company making money over donor satisfaction and employee satisfaction. The only reason donors keep coming back is because they need money and can make a small amount donating plasma. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Employees are not valued. There was little to no support from management. Concerns and solutions to problems would be taken to management and nothing would be taken into consideration or changed. There was poor communication between management and staff members.  The environment is one of always putting out fires instead of preventing them. The turnover rate for employees is extremely high and employee satisfaction and morale is low. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
As a nurse we would stay consistently busy with managing new donor physical assessments, question reviews, donor reactions, red blood cell losses, employee injuries. It was an environment of continued chaos, and we had little time to take lunch breaks or bathroom breaks. The morale among staff members was low and we had not team like feeling. You are expected to work hard and not receive any support or assistance from management. It is exhausting and you are definitely underpaid for the work you are doing. Many shifts you end up staying 1-2 hours over the time you are scheduled because management over schedules donors and staffing is low. You are not asked if you can stay over your shift, instead they expect it. If you tell them, you are not able to stay 1-2+ hours past the end of your shift they expect you to find a solution to the problem, which typically was to call another nurse to come in and relieve you. The other nurses were off and exhausted, they did not want to come in for 1-2 hours because management cannot schedule things appropriately.

I worked for this company for over a decade and had my fair share of ups and downs. Progression was difficult if you ever showed an inkling of anything your superior did not like - personal things, lifestyle choices, appearance, ideas and most of all - speaking your mind. Having a free will and expressing your thoughts and opinion will only hold you back, as a majority of the ones who progress are either programmable drones or suck-ups. The best thing about this job is the benefits. This is something that is noted on many occasions by the employer, however, we live in a time where we want things now and such benefits do not play in to the workplace environment. 

What kept me around was my will to never give up, and I wanted to climb the ranks so that I could improve the environment and culture for my co-workers of past, present and future. I wanted to help improve the image of the company and have people actually like their job, but this was more than an uphill battle. The company's goals are relentless and more is always wanted, with less resources. This may be standard for most companies, but you cannot successfully do such things if you are not keeping the employees happy.

It is extremely hard, fast, busy work for the production floor workers. I was in these positions for the bulk of my tenure, before making it to management. My goal and desire was to help reshape the center I was in, and eventually the company as a whole to bring back the pride employees have, with thought being "I love my job". This was something I heard far too little, as the expression of appreciation toward the general staff was rarely given by management. 

Eventually experiencing over 15 centers across the United States, I can say that in my experience I have only worked with 2-3 management teams (out of the 15+) that put their employees first, ensuring they're comfortable with their job. The results were always wonderful - when an employee loves their job, they will meet any goal and expectation you set. When someone does not like their job, their motivation to achieve said goals is null. 

I sadly feel that this is the growing trend in business - expecting too much from employees that get no appreciation or recognition for their job well-done. 

I wanted to help the company get on a list of "Top Places Employees are Appreciated" or something of that sort, but companies that do not land on these lists and/or are far from doing so do not want their top-level brass worrying about their employees before they worry about results. 

I must say that this is extremely non-progressive, as your "results" will become harder to achieve when no one likes their job.

You will be made to feel this place is awesome to work at when you first start here but think again. You will immediately see the difference after a month of being here. Management is horrible. They don’t give a cr*p about you. Some members of management do legit care but they can’t do much when higher ups control them. All they care about is numbers and stats. If you are having a bad stick day they say they will help out and put you somewhere else if you are cross trained in different areas but when you ask they just say do your best and won’t move you. That’s a donor safety problem in my opinion. They tell us we don’t have nearly enough donors but we feel extremely overworked and understaffed constantly. I don’t know what we would do if we had the amount of donors they want us to have. We work hard but are always made to feel like we don’t. You get overwhelmed, stressed, and need help but they won’t give it to you. Supervisors have power trips and are rude and controlling to employees. Nurses are incompetent and I wouldn’t trust them with my life at all if I was in a hospital setting. If you look at reviews for most centers you can see a clear pattern. Almost everywhere has the same complaints. Literally they all are almost word for word the same. Only reason I really stay is because it’s hard to find work right now where I live and the benefits are pretty good for me to have. This place is making my stress levels way too high and my health so much worse. You are constantly on your feet all day long. Made to always stay over your scheduled shift if you are a closer. You will get fired if you choose to just leave at the end of your scheduled shift. I am always told I would be a good asset for the management team but don’t ever feel like that’s true especially with how horrible our center is ran. Been told our center can be shut down if we don’t get more donors in the building but when staff keeps leaving at high rates we really can’t do more than what we are doing. We can’t watch more than 6 donors on our own so when we only have 4 phlebotomist that actually showed up to work just do the math on that per day. Donors even see how overwhelmed we are. Management literally says oh I should have 50–100 more appointments scheduled for the day for the amount of machines we have but we already can’t handle what we do have. A majority of my coworkers are awesome and caring. Of course we all butt heads but that’s at any work place especially when overwhelmed. Regular staff try to help each other as much as we can but we are only one person that can do so much. Wish we were treated like humans and not just robots that’s constantly make mistakes. 

Let me start by saying that Biolife is not a clinic/hospital, it is a plasma donation center. They are open six days a week and are only closed on Sunday. The only holidays you have off are Thanksgiving, Xmas and New years. The other holidays are open as schedule ... and chances are a regular full day.

The standard work day for a phlebotomist(s) is to hooked the donors to the plasmapheresis, perform venipuncture and in short, babysit the donors until they're done with their donation. You spent all day on your feet until your break time; however, breaks are very limited. Breaks are given between the first 2 hours of your shift, paid 20 minutes break, seems fair right? No, because this is your ONLY break of the day unless you're working 8 hours then you'll get an 30 minute unpaid lunch. 

However, most employees at Biolife are only scheduled to work 7-7 1/2 hours a day, so imagine taking your break the first hour and going the rest of the day without a break. Need to use the bathroom? You'll have to get someone to cover for you. Seems fair again right? No, because the staff are usually shorthanded due to a high turnover rate and when it gets busy, there is no guarantee that someone will cover for you. 

At Biolife, you'll work rotating weekends, however, when you're working Saturday—you won't get pay time-and-a-half—because it is your regular work hours and chances are: you are no where near the 40 hour mark to qualify for OT. Which defeats the purpose of working Saturday IMO. But management wants you to believe that Saturday is the day for hours because Monday and Saturday are the only days where most employees get an 8 hour shift. Remember, this is a rotating shift which means: one week, you'll work Monday-Saturday and get one day off in that time frame... the next week you'll work Tuesday-Friday and get a three day weekend.

I personally feel from experience that management doesn't care about the employees at all. They only see you as someone to help get their numbers. As evidence as giving you occurrences for every time you are not at work—even with a legitimate excuse for being absent—their reasoning is "You are on the schedule." In short, you will never feel appreciated for your efforts there. 

These are just some of my complaints that I wanted to share, if you feel that this not a deal breaker for you then, go a head and apply. With that being said, my experience there was not pleasant and I will not recommend this job to anyone.

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