medical assistant

certified medical assistant

radiologic technologist

medical receptionist

registered nurse

Carbon Health

There are so many things to say about this company and its culture that is far from positive. I would keep it short but I wanted to express how awful my experience was as a clinical employee. I never wanted to be one to talk down on a company I used to represent, but I really believe people who are considering joining Carbon should know about these experiences and I know many have experienced similarly. Please look elsewhere if you are considering to applying.

I joined Carbon Health because I wanted to expand my clinical skills and learn under various providers. I also aligned with their vision and core values and I was amazed to be able to see a modernized and patient-centric company that’s one goal was to expand access to care. Unfortunately, I quickly realized how disconnected upper management is to their clinic teams. They made decisions that negatively affected clinic teams with a for-profit approach, leading to clinician burnout and patient dissatisfaction. 

First, they lacked a proper training system. There was no structure and no process to follow, thus there were gaps in clinic flow. I only had 6 days of training, then after that I was staffed to be the only MA running the clinic with the provider. 6 days of training is not enough to begin doing tasks on your own especially in busy clinics that require in-house procedures. Many of the things I learned was because I had to research on my own, make many mistakes and later be corrected. There were also times when a clinician asked me to perform a procedure that I was not taught while training. Because they under staff clinics, there was no one to reach out for help and instead, I had the clinician teach me which I felt so terrible about because I knew they had so much on their plate already. I was lucky that most clinicians I worked with were so supportive and encouraging to their MAs. 

Second, terrible communication between clinic managers and clinic teams. For the time I was there, I had three different clinic managers and was never told who they were nor how to reach them. This also shows how QUICK the employee turn-over rate was. Every shift I worked, something new changed and you would only know if word got around fast enough to you - no one was ever on the same page.
Within one of my first months working at Carbon,  I showed up to clinic and I was the only one there. No support staff and no clinician. It was 30 minutes into clinic already and I wasn’t told anything until I contacted someone. Another MA had called out and the clinician that was supposed to come in, didnt. Isn’t it the responsibility of a clinic lead or manager to effectively communicate to their team if there would be disruption to clinic flow? 

Third, they began to shorten staff, remove our central support and stopped staffing clinics with the proper technicians. However, they did not change the appointment availability, allowing patients to book a slot that already had 2 or 3 patients scheduled. Carbon also began to stop staffing every clinic with an X-ray technicians, limiting a clinician’s ability to properly assess and evaluate a patient. Even though a clinic did not have a X-ray technician staffed, they would still advertise “X-ray on site” and allow patients to book a slot. The patient would show up, need an Xray and we’d unfortunately have to send them to another clinic that did have X-ray. This is incredibly frustrating to the patient because who would want to travel from clinic to clinic with an injury because your clinic didn’t have Xray on site. Its inconvenient to the patient and disregards the idea of “hassle-free scheduling”. 
They also stopped staffing clinics with support staff, who usually have front desk responsibility and shifted those tasks to the MAs without any increase in compensation. This meant that MAs were responsible of front desk duties and back office duties. Tell me how one MA is supposed to take care of the front desk, answer phone calls, triage 3 patients for the same time slot and perform necessary procedures in the span of 15 minutes. How are clinicians supposed to see 3 patients at the same time in 15 minutes? This obviously led to longer patient times and led to many complaints to our staff when none of these decisions were in our control, it was upper management’s. It’s hard to provide the high-quality care Carbon boasts about when they understaff clinics and overload the schedule. 

This could have been such a wonderful place to continue to work at, but any concerns that were brought up, there would be no movement or another person would get laid off or fired for speaking their truth. In order to provide the high quality and efficient care they advertise, the clinic teams need to be properly trained, have consistent communication with any changes and have proper staffing to handle a clinic work day. These are all things Carbon lacks and refuses to address because they have become so money driven. I understand that healthcare is still a business, but that shouldn’t disregard a company’s responsibility to adequately take care of their employees and their patients. I know this isn’t impossible for a healthcare company because I currently work for a private clinic that does everything to take care of us yet make the business profitable without sacrificing patient care. 
The one thing that Carbon did do really well with was hiring genuine and personable employees, but unfortunately, everyone I have worked with was so unhappy and burnt-out they eventually left like I did. 



It started off as such a great place with great people. Staff were really valued and appreciated. The clinical leadership team was constantly asking for feedback from staff and asking how the company could be better. But a lot has changed in the last 6-12 months - big changes started to occur mid-2023 and has continued in a downward spiral. 

The leadership (likely board members and investors) made some very poor spending decisions early on with their cash and had awful billing procedures in place. Any new business takes 3-5 years before it turns a profit, and one should plan on having the cash to support it during that growth phase. All of their projections showed a new clinic becoming profitable within 6-12 months, which is not realistic. They burned through their cash/investment funds on opening too many new clinics and acquiring other practices. There was also a TON of work that we were never reimbursed for from a billing standpoint. Once corporate realized they were running out of money and investors weren’t going to keep pouring cash in, they panicked. 

They started laying people off, cutting necessary resources clinics need (downsizing staff, x-ray services, testing supplies, phone support, central support, communication service - slack), benefits were cut (higher insurance, 401k cut, UpToDate subscription no longer). 

•	Anyone who asks questions or is an advocate for employees is laid off or terminated. 
•	They implemented a new staffing model in July 2023 which makes teams chronically understaffed with the promise that when they get to a certain number of patients per day, they’d get to add on another staff member. Then once they actually hit the target, they raised the bar to a higher number and made it impossible for the team to ever get there. So essentially, teams are left understaffed. 
•	This has created a terrible work environment where staff are burned out, not getting a lunch break, frequent turnover at every position. No one wants to help cover call-outs or extra days. 
•	Be prepared to have your hours/shifts cut/sent home early, clinic operating hours change on a whim, clinic closures, layoffs with minimal notice / no severance. 
•	We can't order necessary supplies like strep, covid and flu tests. We're always out of them. They won't even allow us to order gloves!

The main issue is that they have opened up the appointment bookings to an infinite number of appointments at any given time slot. For example, when you start your day, you have 10-15 “appointments” at 9am. They lie to the patients and don’t tell them their appointment is shared with 10+ other people so staff are left trying to explain this to people and get the brunt of the expected response one would get from a patient who has to wait 2+ hours for an “appointment” at clinic opening. It’s OK if the demand is high at certain times, we all understand that, but we also expect the technology to support our teams and not work against them. This is a company that has a cultural tenet of “Be Transparent.” But this process is very deceptive, unethical and lies to patients. 

It is obvious the board is doing whatever they can do get the financials to look good enough to sell it off and cash out. This is at the expense of their patients and employees. This is the saddest thing I’ve experienced in healthcare and this is why venture capitalists should not be involved in anything that has to do with taking care of people. Clinic staff don't enjoy working here anymore and I would strongly recommend against working at Carbon Health in its current state.

Advice to management:
-Be transparent with patients and change the phrasing on the website when they are booking an “appointment” that it is rather a place in line. Help set those expectations for clinic teams. The current process is deceptive and unethical.  
-Sell off to a company with the financial clout to support and allow clinics the proper time to grow without being short-staffed. 
-Scrap your current staffing model and start over. A 2-person clinic team should not exist. It is a model that leads to poor patient/staff experience and has a high turnover rate, and ends up costing more in the long run. 
-Bring back x-ray to every clinic. We need proper resources to assess and treat patients. It also helps increase volumes and revenue.  Patients with injuries go elsewhere when they find out we don't have xray.  You may save a few dollars on the XRT, but lose 5-10 patients/day by not having it. (Save $200 on the XRT, but lose $1000+ worth of office visits / xrays). Patients do not want to go to another site for an xray. 
-Stop with the micromanagement. Too many frequent changes. 
-Get back to focusing on retaining and caring about your staff. 
-Stop trying to push medical decisions that are being guided by financial considerations. It's obvious to every clinician here and a disservice to patients.


I’ve been with this company for quite a while and indubitably, all of us have experienced growing pains as this place continues to expand greatly. Since upper management cares about patients more than clinical staff by five-fold, that leads to many problems staff has to experience. The lack of straight forward protocols when issues arise (wifi/power outage, app unresponsive, no radiologist reading X-rays past clinic hours, no supervisors at home willing to help even though clinical staff is still on-site prior to closing) with no one to actually help the team is very disappointing. What kind of a team are we that Carbon continues to advertise and throw at us as “superstars” when there’s no support to change.

On the slack channel, you would see occasionally that clinicians and support staff bring up a concern and you would see the practice manager become defensive and quickly dismissive. I have heard clinicians in person that whenever they bring up a concern privately, the higher management tends to be defensive as well. If there are any technological issues that arise, the practice manager will email/message you directly in a tone of “you did this wrong”, “you messed this up”, “you didn’t read it correctly.” With the practice manager being a liaison between on-site staff with upper management, it is extremely disappointing to see any change when the practice manager themself is always so quick to dismiss any concerns. The people who make these protocols are hardly ever in the clinic themselves to see issues that arise. Many competent and brilliant clinicians have left due to being abused and tossed around to help. 

If you’re not a clinician or an X-ray tech, the two highest paid in-person clinical staff, you have to submit your availability 2-3 months in advance. This is simply not fair since none of us know what we’re going to do or what to expect as we go through our life within the next 2-3 months (esp now in a pandemic), meaning that if a time conflict does come up, the responsibility will ALWAYS be on you and NOT the company if you can’t make it to your shift. 

The only reason why the job itself can be enjoyable is the staff. The co-workers make a big difference. There is drama in the company unfortunately since there is favoritism. There are people who get promoted even when they don’t do the job well because they have connections or are favorites of higher management. 

I can’t say much anymore. Hopefully management can see this at some point and see how there are still many issues that arise but are temporarily shoved under the rug. Since issues get swept away, I want to put most of the issues with Carbon Health here to show how the disconnect of management and the ridiculousness of availability schedule is. Maybe then there will be some change, the fact that there still is no support other than receiving $35 wine in the mail after achieving net worth of $10 million, maybe not.  

You rotate with your partner from front to back office when you feel comfortable, you can ask questions whenever and they will be there for you. I have learned a lot from the company and they're very open to new ideas as well. Manager was difficult at times and favoritism was played, they stated not homework but two other employees were doing it just fine in front of provider and herself, phones were not being helped with, no phones are allowed but any other employee is okay, when partnered with another nurse and we rotate to take back patients said nurse when get up to take patient back but continue watching reels or movies when brought up to management she stated to tell her myself which i have and still did not change and management did nothing, patients always complaining and rightfully so that they never see the manager around, get phone calls returned and when i let manager know there is a patient asking for her, she tells me to tell them she is not there but i tried to help them anyway without her help. I have asked important questions about clinic in the clinic group chat but would get scolded to only ask important urgent questions but other employees send instagram reels, memes, GIF's, flirting jokes with each other and other inappropriate statements manager did not scold them in group chat if anything she piled on- very confusing and when i have complained about anything she is not in the office all of a sudden and booked with meetings and would not return my phone calls, emails, text messages and having to find out through co-workers what decision she made. I have a service dog and going back and forth with manager and then HR and it total was 6 months to get my dog in the clinic with me although the provider gets to bring his two dogs most days he works and not trained to stay in one spot or be quiet as they would be whinning every now and then, manager again did not help there either, she was okay with it. Nobody would check mail, fax or voicemails so there was a lot to do in the front office when it was my turn ( i had been here for about a year and i would be the only one in trouble by the way) and disclosed personal complaints to said employees and did not help most of the time but scheduling, accommodations for disability and open shifts they were good at, just not a lot of fairness going on, you have to really bite your tongue and keep you head up and days will get easier and theyr'e all wonderful people i promise 

Carbon Health is a sinking ship. It is a very very new company that originally started as just an EHR. They then decided to open up a bunch of urgent cares during ~2020. Their horrible business model was relying on COVID-19 visits to keep them afloat. Now that the pandemic is over, they do not have nearly enough patient volume to sustain its clinics. In July of 2022, they laid off 25% of its employees according to their Wiki. In Jan of 2023, they laid off majority of its IT division. Then, just this week, they laid off almost all of their medical scribes and a majority of their X-ray technicians. Mind you, they did not reimburse me my unused PTO. They also gave me severance based on my average paycheck over the last twelve weeks (even though I had to call out for being sick twice during this period, causing the severance to be lower than what I would've usually gotten paid). 

Everyday, a manager of some kind would annoy us about accepting more patients and that we are not seeing enough, like it's something we could control. The whole environment was very corporate; everything was to save money. They constantly were trying to replace physicians with PAs or NPs. They pestered us about not accepting patients who would come in at 7:55 when we close at 8PM, going as far as to check cameras and monitor phone calls to make sure we did not turn anyone away. They refused to give us new scrubs. The PTO accrual was brutal (with 0.07 hours per work week for FTs and 0.04 for PTs) and they got rid of the 401k matching this year. Their insurance also got much more expensive. On top of all this, the company is entirely run by a bunch of software engineers and physicians who have NO clue how to run a business.

I will say that I loved most of the clinical staff. But, with the current condition of the company, unless you want to be laid off in the next six months, do NOT work here. Every employee working at Carbon should find a new job with the unpredictable state it is in. In fact, after being laid off myself, many of my old coworkers voiced that they will begin looking for opportunities elsewhere as they are concerned for their future at Carbon.

The company has amazing staff but this new  management is horrible. They have their favorites and if you are not that you will be treated as such. Unless your clinic is in a certain area! They don’t appreciate staff, you’re over worked, underpaid with no lunch break at times while they add extra patients to be seen then complain about meal penalties. They change your schedule at the last minute asking you to drive to other clinics that may not be close because of staffing on their end. They expect you to fill all roles including front and back while working alone with just the provider. They have all these FAKE  mottos but don’t follow any of them. I would not recommend this company as they may seem all good and nice but they are heartless. They have lay offs every few months without notice they stopped covering insurance but have it listed they cover it NOT and they don’t match 401k. If you are looking for something consistent this is NOT THE PLACE FOR YOU. Things change daily based on the amount of money they have coming in. They want us to lie to patients and tell them we accept their insurance when we are not contracted with them. They monitor your calls so they will know if you tell the patients the truth. You have to put a card on file to even check in and they charge your card without notice if you have a balance. Billing has issues because they have been behind for years. Which patients have been frustrated about since they are not being notified before this happens and just being charged. If you want a fair honest employer keep looking because they will fire or lay you off in heartbeat especially if the revenue is down. This company only cares about money not you, your life, safety or anything that you would care about when it comes to human life. You will be treated like a number and they will toss you around with no problem. Basically DONT WORK HERE. I wish I knew this before I did let me save you a step. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
Location was close to where I lived.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Their app/website allowed patients to make appt online. So, all the appt time slots would fill up the day before, leaving little room for walk-ins. Super low staffing forced us to turn away a lot of walk-ins, causing a lot of frustrations for potential patients. The leadership expected us to squeeze every patient in, but yet they refused to staff the clinic appropriately to handle those volumes, and no business likes to pay OT to stay late to handle the extra walk-ins…. Not to mention, we weren’t a 24hr clinic, so the employees would obviously want to be able to leave on time… a no-win situation all around…. Additionally, some of their processes and use of software/technology ended up causing more headaches than they solved. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
I actually liked working with the people/coworkers. The ‘idea’ behind CH’s mission & values were good, but I felt like it was poorly executed, especially trying to open a brand new clinic right in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic… granted, I’m sure it made a lot of business sense to try and capitalize on the situation too. I don’t blame the company for wanting to do that, but brand-new places inevitably have growing pains and need time to get a feel for certain things, like workflow, frequency of use items & re-ordering supplies, staffing expectations, etc. In theory, CH’s culture sounded great on paper; they seemed to be very interested in focusing on both patient and employee experience & encouraged feedback. Whether they listened to that feedback is not something I feel I could comment on, either positively or negatively since I did not work there long enough to get a feel for that.

Full-time clinician work here is 3 shifts per week, though there is the option to work more if desired.  Shifts are 10 hours long, usually 8am-6pm.  There is a brief huddle in the mornings, and I usually leave the shift on time.

Base pay is competitive with a significant RVU bonus.  There is an annual merit / performance review.

Many growth opportunities, whether that is getting involved with the product team working on the EHR or growing and leading a clinic.  There are bi-weekly educational conferences where the group reviews interesting cases or invites external speakers (derm, hand, ortho) -- these are awesome learning opportunities.

Leadership is approachable and supportive.  The CMO and National Medical Director still work shifts regularly.  Although there is a lot of change and growing pains, our Medical Director and Clinic Managers have always been transparent and are all-around amazing people.  We get together socially as a team roughly every month.  It's a fun group.

The culture is refreshing.  Cultural tenets such as " Be unapologetically human," "Your problem is my problem," "When in doubt, take it back to the bedside" have resonated true during my tenure here.

The hardest part of the job is the amount of change as the company has evolved.  As others have mentioned, Carbon went through several rounds of layoffs.  It does seem that it is in a financially stronger position now.  Shifts can be busy (40 patients in a 10 hour shift), but I enjoy the fast-paced environment, and it's still way more manageable than my previous work in the ER.  The patients are awesome.  The AI-assisted charting in the homegrown EHR is also a game-changer.  I pretty much never bring any charts home.

I love the people, especially this Seattle crew.  Awesome MAs, great patients, supportive leadership,  clinics in the community I live in, and the best work life balance I've ever had -- I highly recommend.

There is a huge disconnect with the Corporate side and the front line. They are constantly pushing for new programs, products, and pilots with little warning and no training. They also are always understaffed and are pushing for the staff to see more patients. It’s rare when staff get to have lunch on time and with a 10 1/2 hour working day a lunch is very necessary for the staff and quality care. They just laid off a large amount of staff and are not being completely honest with where they are going with this new model that they were trying to implement. It’s very apparent that they are trying to push a new workflow which involves laying off one department (or not replacing them) and increasing the workload of another department without fair compensation.
They also like to put up this façade that they are listening to the staff although they do give a very political wordy answer with no real solution or answer. As somebody that works closely with the MAs they do tend to be extremely overworked and now they’re going to add more responsibilities to them and I only hope that those MAs are able to stand up and ask for the compensation that will be necessary for them. They do not offer a living wage to those who work front desk MA or x-ray tech. 
When I started working for this company it seem to be a really great company at first although I joined this company right when things were just starting to change and those changes have made a big impact and unfortunately for the staff have made a negative impact. I don’t know many people anymore who are excited to come to work.
I would not recommend this job for anybody who has a great and strong résumé. Although this job may work to help somebody get their foot in the door when they are just starting off in healthcare as an MA or x-ray tech. Although this is not a sustainable job for long-term.


A typical day at Carbon health was extremely stressful due to chronic understaffing and unrealistic expectations. Medical assistants were expected to manage front desk, responsibilities, phone ringing nonstop, patient check-in, scheduling and paperwork and insurance issues  while simultaneously working in the back triaging patients taking vitals, assisting providers and at times performing blood work, balancing both roles at once was overwhelming and unsustainable.

Management was largely unresponsive to concerns about workload, safety, and burnout. There was little support, limited resources, and no meaningful follow up. When issues were raised workplace culture felt reactive rather than protective and employees were often left to absorb the consequences of systemic problems without guidance or relief.

What I learned most from this role is how quickly burnout can occur in an environment that prioritize productivity over employee well-being. Compensation did not match the workload or level of responsibility which further contributed to exhaustion and high stress.

The hardest part of the job was being responsible for front desk operations while providing direct patient care at the same time. While, the most enjoyable part of working with the patients is building trust, offering reassurance, and knowing that I made a positive impact during difficult moments, unfortunately that meaningful work was overshadowed by the lack of support and unsustainable expectations.

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