case manager

licensed clinical social worker

patient services representative

certified medical assistant

mental health technician

Bowen Health, Inc.

I was in the position of a skills coach/case manager for about a year and a half. I struggled with service hours the majority of the time I had employment at Bowen. The company boasts that its a nonprofit organization, while pushing billing guidelines detrimental to your own mental health. I learned not to trust mostly everyone in upper management while they masquerade as your friend. Most of the time I questioned the companies ethics as they can score patient's accordingly to ensure qualification of services through CANS/ANSA assessments. Employees with a 4 year bachelors could administer intakes and diagnose mental health disorders at the discretion of a licensed doctor. This essentially would be the diagnosis of opposition defiance disorder, (which anyone qualifies for) ADD, or ADHD by an unlicensed clinician. Of course, the doctor would approve the diagnosis without ever meeting said patient face to face. I'm not quite sure why I am the only one that recognized this and had an issue with this. The flexibility of the work hours was the positive of the job and why I stuck around for so long. You can make your own schedule which is great for someone in school or with a family.

The biggest cons are the amount of stress and compensation. I have never been more mentally unwell in my entire life than I was while working for this mental health company. They emphasize boundaries etc, but provide no extra mobile device besides a surface pro which is required to enter notes into the company's database. Employees usually utilize their own cellular devices and phone numbers to contact patients thus allowing patients to contact you 24/7, even when you have implemented appropriate boundaries. Company also does not provide payment for required cell phone services, but they do provide mileage for travel. The work and home life border is blurred often because patients can contact you around the clock. It makes it extremely difficult to disconnect. The amount of stress regarding service hours is ridiculous. Compensation is not adequate for the amount of stress you will encounter. 

Also, they have moved to online trainings, which are very convenient and cost effective. The information retained from online training is dramatically lower than in person trainings, personally. In my opinion, this is to curb the high cost of a high turnover rate. 

Bottom line. It is a good company to start for, but long term is not ideal.

 Do they really care about the patients or is just about the money?

For 150 per month you can get health insurance with a 3000 deductible for 1 person. If you hit it, the insurance company will say they won't pay unless you hit a 7/8000 max out of pocket. If you want real health insurance it's 300 a month just for 1 person. Changes in procedures and expectations occur on a dime and often, many times with no heads-up.  If you're lucky you will get an email on a change.  
You may fill out a ton of releases only to find that management decided to change the format causing you to start all over.  If your clients are not available you are not allowed to use PTO to cover your hourly expectation. You must work late and often the following day, or week if you are shy of any production related expectation. High turn over and burn-out occur at the Skill Coaching position. The biggest obstacle is not client related, but management. Deciphering what is being asked will be the challenge. Never-ending change in policies is the norm. 
The job in itself is not difficult. Quality of care and seeing the clients, while rendering evidence based interventions is not difficult. Putting your schedule into Avatar/Outlook, plus an other phone app throughout your day will cause you to feel so micromanaged you'll feel your soul is being drained. Skills Coaches do all the CANS/ANSA, care plan, care plan reviews, releases, attestations and bill for services rendered. 
Management will periodically read notes, follow employees around, micromanage you and so forth.  Skill Coaches do everything assessment related, legal related, DCS reports, etc., management just makes sure you get your hours and bugs anyone who's not keeping their schedule up to date. Your schedule will change hourly, or even minutely depending on your client's needs. The insurance is so bad that many people turn it down all together. Stay under the radar if you decide to work here.  People get terminated often. The job culture is to terminate employees. If you get your hours and get everything paperwork related in on time you'll be okay.  It's a good starter job in the mental health field, but very high turn over, high stress- not because of the job- but because of management.

I started my internship at Bowen and then was offered a full-time position.  I really enjoyed working with all my clients. I really enjoyed helping my clients with different skills.  For the most part, I loved my job.

On the other hand, management sucked, there were times it felt as if the "left hand was not talking to the right hand" at all.  New policies would constantly come from corporate, but staff was never told about new policies so we would get into trouble for doing something the wrong way.  Training was a joke.  Management would make promises and then not follow through with them; management was the worse at stabbing you in the back especially when you spoke your mind.  Management was hardly around especially when you needed them.

Pay was not as much as if you applied somewhere else.  We did get mileage and every once in while you could get approved for maybe $10 for supplies or doing something special for you clients.  Use of your cell phone, so make sure you have unlimited minutes, and no reimbursement for even a part of cell phone bill.

Alot of stress; unable to do self-care.  Once you learn how to do something you will be asked to take it over, without any additional training; and when you asked for help no was is around.  Productivity hours vs client no shows/cancel; watch out because you will get blamed for clients that no show or cancel.  Caseloads are crazy ridiculous.  

What was very interesting during my time there,was when someone from corporate wanted to make an appearance at the county office it turned into a whole production.  It no called a staff meeting, but it actually a meet and greet/birthday party for someone from corporate, which no one knew who they were. 

Those at corporate headquarters really should walk a day in the shoes of the skills coaches; starting sometimes at 6am and finishing at 6pm and then having to do the same thing the next morning.  In my opinion, most of those at headquarters have no idea what is it like to be skills coach, therapist, or administrative support staff on the county offices.

First off, understand that I enjoy working with clients so much. I have been proud of my successes and things that I've accomplished with the people I work with. This could be the most rewarding job on the planet if we actually were focused on client care. However, I have been around the block long enough to learn that the focus is on the money. From an unrelenting service hour expectation to being told regularly that we have to find hours to cover the hours we lose from cancellations/no-shows, we face uncertainty in our days and the hours we'll actually work with clients which results in disciplinary actions that can lead to firing. We talk about the circle of control to our clients but even with solid reasons on why we can't meet the expectation due to things outside of our control, it's still our fault and 'you're not doing your job' or reaching out for enough opportunities. In my office, the management is always ready to blame those of us on the front line without addressing problems that we're facing on the front line. They say you should practice self-care but they make it incredibly hard to do so with having an ever changing schedule and the expectation to work late nights constantly. If your clients cancel on you, it's your fault for not being a good enough 'salesman' for your services. It's slightly confusing to have been told to be a salesman when working for a non-for-profit organization. If it weren't for the coworkers, I'd have left long ago. The coworkers on the front line are super supportive and understanding. I used to love coming into work when I felt supported by management but that has definitely changed. The hardest part of this job is finding the good you are doing. You make a difference to someone at some point but the company only sees it as dollar signs. Those good things you do are the most enjoyable parts of the job.

I will begin by saying I loved the actual job I did at Bowen. That's the only good thing I can say.
Turnover for Skills Coach is 90%+! That should tell you just about all you need to know in the way they treat those who fill this position.  They are using Bachelor Level employees to perform far outside of their scope (and that's not even taking into consideration "Skills Tech"--non-degree position, doing what Skills Coach do, but for less money). 
A Skills Coach is providing counseling level services to clients without the proper training to do so. And when a Skills Coach seeks additional knowledge from Licensed Counselors at Bowen, they will face consequences.  This is because if they are seeking assistance from another employee, they cannot provide "face-to-face" services (aka: service hours) with their clients.  When a Skills Coach is not providing face-to-face services, Bowen Center is not making money.  The Kos County Asst Director once told me I should limit my time speaking with a counselor about a specific client's needs to 15 minutes.  She went on to tell me I learn far more providing f2f than I do from a Licensed Counselor!! 
Direct management is underqualified in most situations to provide valuable and necessary leadership and direction to those in coaching/tech positions.  In the almost three years I was with Bowen, I had FIVE new direct supervisors.  My last and final supervisor never held an actual job out of college and had zero experience in ANY position at Bowen Center!
If you choose to work here understand you ARE dispensible.  If you cannot live and die by meeting service hours and sacrificing the needs of the clients you are supposed to be serving, turn around and walk away, because that is the choice you will have to make, without question, every single day.

Poorly trained, high stress, expectations to perform are far too tight, unsympathetic management, lazy human resources, carelessness with ex-employees. All this causes Skills Coaches and Skills Techs to alter their view of working to change the lives of their clients for the better...to working to meet the service hours quota.

It's all about making hours. Freedom to set one's schedule is a bit of a myth, as there's little freedom toward the end of the week when you have multiple cancellations and a major stressor by way of having to make up hours to not get in trouble. 

Fridays can be terrible due to this....and sometimes your Saturdays can be ruined by clients who just don't care as much for themselves as you do for your hours. 

That's all it comes down to: you need hours, they need help. Break either of those and the job becomes a mess. That's what the role was for me towards the tail end of my job: a mess. 

I didn't enjoy anything inherently unique to the job. Some of my clients were pleasant to be around, but outside of the workspace, there were a very rare couple whom I could see myself wanting to become friends with. 

I think if you get into the role and you are lucky enough to get a good caseload of cooperative folks, and you are fine with being on the road a lot, visiting people's homes which can be bothersome to be in, and can find a way to minimize interactions with management, you could feasibly make a long-term role with this. However, the chances of this happening are low; and the converse is very high.

You will find yourself feeling unhappy at some point, and will realize the only way out is, well, getting out and washing your hands of it all.

I personally had a quite negative experience with the Skills Coaching position at Bowen Center. I found the overall experience to be quite punitive. From my earliest days of trying to build up my caseload I was not given ample enough clients to successfully meet the service hour expectation. I was not supported by management in this struggle and received multiple disciplinary actions. My caseload was in a constant state of flux from individuals leaving service or never beginning services. Cancellations and no shows were a daily occurrence for me. I was expected to makeup for the shortcomings of the flawed service hour system by continually scrambling to make up for the service hour deficit that was beyond my control. I used up all of my paid time off quite quickly trying to offset the difference. During times of severe client shortages that affected all of the Skills Coaches and Skills Techs the organization continued to hire new Skills Coaches. I have been around the block long enough to know that they are simply expecting a regular turnover rather than fixing the root of the problem. In the end the only option presented to me was to take a cut in pay and slightly reducing my service hour expectation until I was able to regain all the lost service hours or termination. Again this puts all the burden and penalty on the Skills Coach and again does not address the core issue of inadequate and unrealistic caseloads. 

I’m so disappointed as I really enjoyed being able to help out children that were in tough family situations. I may have lost my job but it is the clients who are loosing what could be a great service if viewed through the eyes of the client and not the billing department.

Long long story short. I was only 3 months into this job. I was at the Pierceton location. The in patient stay. I was told that the training was awesome and they would completely prepare me for this job...wrong. It was totally a sink or swim deal. And plus if you weren't in the IN crowd don't bother. Management was sketchy at best. Punishing some employees for something but not others. I was given not a lot of training and expected to know it all by a week. I was told once by a manager that I had a bad attitude. I know for a fact that is a lie. I was not in the IN crowd. I feel I was picked on and not treated fairly. Examples of poor management. When asking for a day off you fill out a form. Ok no big deal. But when that form is not even used and in was scheduled on days I asked off and wasn't even told my days were denied...this didn't only happen to me but 3 other employees I knew about. You can't leave the building with out clocking out. So if you forgot something in your car and need it clock out or you will get a point. When I was fired I was given one warning and one warning only. They didn't follow protocol and why I was fired was for reasons that every employee was doing. This was a bad to place to work. Unfortunately I did really love helping the clients but management and other employees were a total joke. You never got to leave on time. I was told to do better and I really really did try. But apparently my nose wasn't brown enough.

I only worked at Bowen Center for 4 months.  At the start it was fun and they got you super into your job, but if you’re a male I hope you’re prepared because you’re going to get thrown to the wolves.  My case load kept getting bigger and bigger because there was such a need for male skills coaches and I had almost zero free time and on the weekends I was mentally and physically exhausted the whole time.  I would have clients start as early as 7-8am and most days I’d be out until 7pm or later.  There were some clients I would have to drive (using my own personal vehicle) round trip an hour plus and still have to make time for other clients that lived farther away.  I loved my clients and the families I worked with and it broke my heart to tell them I was quitting but during my 4 months I had 4 different managers because they all kept quitting and no one was on the same page.  During the end of my time there I was threatened to be written up for filling case notes wrong when I was taught 4 different ways by 4 different people.  I felt like I was on my own 95% of the time and had no support nor did I feel like I could talk to my supervisors about struggles without some form of pushback.  The pay for the amount of work and time you put in is abysmal.  I know it’s a non profit but wow they community based skills coaches are seriously underpaid.  If you want to get into the mental health field you can definitely find something better.  I encourage you to.

The providers, medical assistants, and support staff are compassionate, hardworking, and genuinely care about their patients. The organization also provides strong onboarding and training for new providers. However, the culture places a heavy emphasis on productivity and patient volume at the expense of provider wellbeing and work-life balance. Providers are often expected to see 25+ patients per day while managing extensive documentation, inbox responsibilities, and administrative tasks, frequently resulting in work weeks that extend well beyond scheduled hours. Required trainings and other responsibilities are often completed outside normal working hours, and there is little flexibility for providers who need a slower ramp-up period. The pressure to move patients through quickly can make it difficult to provide the thoughtful, patient-centered care that many clinicians value. Burnout among providers is common and appears to be viewed as an expected consequence of the workload rather than a systemic issue requiring meaningful organizational change. Leadership seems more focused on productivity metrics than creating a sustainable environment that supports provider wellbeing and retention. The people are excellent, but the expectations and culture are difficult to sustain long term.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Case manager 65 salaries reported	$20.05 per hour
Licensed clinical social worker 83 salaries reported	$88,057 per year
Patient services representative 28 salaries reported	$18.02 per hour
Certified medical assistant 26 salaries reported	$21.68 per hour
Mental health technician 36 salaries reported	$16.82 per hour

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