physical therapist

radiologic technologist

personal trainer

center director

x-ray technician

Concentra

THE GOOD: The employees themselves are fantastic people to work with. I enjoyed working with every single Concentra colleague. The benefits seemed good for what little I used. We often were provided with a catered lunch, (sometimes even sushi!) thanks to the people pleasers of the Rx world. And of course, as always, I love my patients. This company has a really great philosophy and right away I was attracted because of that philosophy. However once you get past the fluff, you see the flaws.

THE BAD: First there is never enough staff. This trickles all the way from the bottom up-the patients get mad, the staff gets frustrated and overwhelmed and the doctors get really mad, then in reverse. It's a vicious cycle and a 3-ring circus. Get em in, get em out!

Most Concentra sites generally have 2 types of employees: doctors and MA's. If you happen to be in between, prepared to be abused. All that money you spent on your degree gets you demoted to the lowest rung on the ladder. It's not as much "teamwork" as it is saving a buck. This often leads to jobs being poorly done because there is not enough staff to cover the workload of front and back office, so they pull the other professionals in the building to do drug screens, blood draws, vitals, charting and rooming. This is fine from time to time, but it's 99% of the work. So forget honing any skills outside clerical and basic intake skills. This job actually put me behind in my field compared to other colleagues in my same field. And the amount of mistakes I saw due to this utilitarian concept from office staff was staggering. Not to mention I spent a fair amount of time correcting poorly written prescriptions with pharmacies or reconciling mistakes in charts.

If you are looking for advancement, forget it. Only the schmoozers, and slothful silver tongues make it to the top. And by then they've forgotten what it's like to be little people. But there certainly are management cliques if you are lucky enough to get into one. One of these prerequisites is simply being a certain gender. If you don't believe me, take a survey at each site for gender ratio and it will become very apparent what I am saying is true. I was very much an outsider in this regard in my office. I never let it bother me, but it was very obvious from the get go and my manager made no bones about it during conversations.

The other issue I had was daily overtime. I was told it would be here and there we'd get stuck working late, but somehow I was never home in time to see my infant son put down for his first 9 months because I was always working late. I really felt they take advantage to the point where you finally say something and you are suddenly blackballed.

THE UGLY: I also witnessed a lot of questionably shady behavior by almost all of the Practitioners save one or two. One patient would receive certain treatment while another would be treated in an entirely different manner. Patients were always being bad mouthed behind their backs and every adjective for "crazy" was used to describe them. Ethics, schmethics.

One last note- the majority of doctors I worked with were VERY nasty to the people they came in contact with, both staff and patients. The latter in my book is completely intolerable and any one of you in healthcare would agree with me on that.

In the end Concentra let me go because I was unable to keep up with the tireless and constant demands outside my field. Since then my former manager lied to the Department of Labor and Employment about why I was terminated, stating entirely different (and slanderous) reasons, rather than reporting what was documented in their office. Sadly, I am pursuing legal action as I type this.

If it weren't for the ridiculous workload, and if Concentra stood by their "Orange Book Values" this could actually be a very enjoyable place to work.

So, there's the good, bad and the ugly from the inside out.

As a new manager, you will be thrown in with no training. You will be expected to run daily operations as well as resolve client concerns and answer client questions with no help, especially from your area operations manager. You will be expected to learn the outdated system on your own with no help or support. I had to request to be trained multiple of times so I could do my job effectively. In fact a new manager was fired because she did not learn the position fast enough in 3 months. The company is incredibly unprofessional and provides a hostile/harassing work environment you will be constantly working in fear of termination. Micro managing from upper management who have no clue how to be effective much less productive managers. On a daily basis you will be putting out fires as the company constantly makes changes without notification or training of their new ways so you will be left to figure it out on your own, but make sure you make the right decision as you will be blamed for the wrong one. Staff members are constantly leaving and calling out, so you will be short staffed most of the time as the other center Managers in the area as well as upper management will not help or support you with coverage, so be prepared to be a center Manager, sales team, MA, patient registrar and PT coordinator all in one day with no lunch and working from 8am to 8pm majority of the time, and yes the work must be done as it is monitored. The staff are very unprofessional and disrespectful they are resistant to change so the hardest part of the job is getting collaboration from the entire team. The staff are against management and upper management all the time. Trying to get the staff to do their job is very difficult, when you try to discipline your staff due to performance your hands will be tired from an HR standpoint. Nor will upper management support you in the decision to discipline as they do not follow their own company policies and procedures, as it is constantly changing. Center Managers are not respected and are undermined all the time, upper management does not listen to their managers when it comes to how to take care of their centers, staff and or clients needs. You will not be able to fire anyone even if they are not the right fit for the company. My effort to make changes to do better was defeated not only by upper management, but also by Corporate HR. The Corporate and Regional Leadership wants to preach to the managers and staff at the centers level that we need to live, breathe and act the companies vision, mission and value out and be a part of the culture on a daily basis, however, they are not held to the same standard, they are not expected to follow them. Lastly, in order to succeed at this organization you must be part of the "In Crowd". Do not voice your opinion or challenge management even if it is the right thing to do. Submissive minds will succeed and true ambitious employees will fail. This is the most disappointing place I have ever worked for, the integrity, ethics and moral of this company are extremely poor. I would not recommend this job or this company to anyone, not even employers or patients.

Concentra has numerous issues, stemming from before I even started there, as per my more experienced former coworkers.

1. Work environment. To be fair, urgent cares by nature are typically sought out by EMS washouts. ER MDs/RNs, EMTs, etc. That being said, in my time at Concentra, I experienced a disproportionate amount of unprofessional and hostile behavior from my fellow staff. Worse, because of a massive staffing shortage (see below) stemming from even before the pandemic, HR was very slow to remove problem employees and/or to push site managers to get said employees under control. 

I also met numerous quality people who I keep in touch with to this day. They have some very good employees. The bad ones just bring down the atmosphere and make it difficult to work.

2. Staffing/Employee Retention- Concentra puts little to no effort into retaining experienced employees, and does not offer competitive wages compared to other local clinics. Toward the end of my time there, I was the only MSS, consistently working overtime with no lunch or breaks. Nobody actually "told" me I couldn't take them, but I would have had to work more overtime to make up for it. 

Pay raises are almost nonexistent, which is especially bad because toward the end, I was trained on doing essentially everything an MSS CAN do at the company. 

This, IMO, leads to the bad work environment (mentioned above) because they are not attracting good employees, and instead are scraping the bottom of the barrel as standard practice.

When I finally left, the company replaced me almost instantly with a temp who was paid nearly twice as much as I was. Meaning they CAN put effort into employee retention, and instead CHOOSE not to.

3. Lack of opportunities. Concentra does not have any sort of advancement opportunities on the MSS side. There is no "senior MSS," there is no "fully qualified MSS" for qualifying on all skills, etc.

For an MSS, your options are to either stay an MSS, become a manager or go back to school and become a provider.
Nonetheless, whether you're an MSS on day one, or have twenty years with the company, it makes no difference on paper. 

In summary, if you're like me and want to get urgent care experience in order to move into ER work, I feel for you. All I can say is please apply EVERYWHERE, and only take this if it's the last possible option. 

PS- I worked at at least four sites while with Concentra, and kept in touch with a few fellow employees who worked at others. My experience was NOT unique.

My time at Concentra was a such a rewarding one and I've learned so much. A typical day at work sometimes resembled the cast of The Office. We were able to professionally do our work with a sense of humor and empathy. Our patients came first so we worked as a team to ensure that the patient was always well taken care of. 

You can bet on two things working at a call center: 1.) you will get close to your co-workers. 2.) You will either hate them or like them. My co-workers at Concentra were great! They made me fat and gave me scrubs when my pants no longer fit. That's love! Seriously, I've rarely worked anywhere where the majority of the staff has positive energy to bring to the job. There's always the weird cat lady who brings casseroles that no one eats. Even she was friendly.

My supervisor is an awesome guy. I had a series of weirdness during one of the years I was employed there. I had family emergencies, I moved a lot, had appendicitis...I had a lot going on. My supervisor was aware enough to tune and actually help me out of a personal spiral. 

From observing management, I learned from them that it's okay for them to mingle with "little people." I was able to establish a relationship with each and every one of them. It wasn't a by the HR guideline walk on eggshells type of friendly. I got to see their personalities and we learned to respect each other professionally and as individual. In other words, my bosses were some characters. We made fun of each other alot. They also motivated me to be as productive as possible. And called me names.

The hardest part of my job at Concentra was non-stop in-coming phone calls for 8 hours straight. I can't tell you how exciting those days were with a straight face. We coped by laughing through it during an impromptu potluck the next day.

The most enjoyable part was the potlucks! You will gain weight here and then you will join a team to work it off. Speaking of teams, we had all kinds of teams going on. Be it how your department was set up on the floor or how you were gonna get rid of the potluck weight. We had a team for you! We had this recognition program in my department based on the series The Office were we got daily rewards for performance. It spread throughout the floor. Eventually, the company took notice and started handing out "Concenctra Bucks" for good work. I believe I made close to $40. Not bad.

It’s a great place if you can multitask and know when to facilitate your team to work together. We had Walkie Talkies and they were great for communicating to make your day smoother. There will be times you are expected to work quickly and I suggest establish your personal regimen to get things done. At an urgent care people come in for all types of procedures so you have to keep notes during training to retain information. Paperwork signing is done for each procedure you complete per patient so you need to be organized. I did work with a bunch of women who were at times catty and I’m a woman who just wants to work and go. My manager emphasized being friendly and smiling at work which is easier said than done. Some patients are rude because there will always be a long wait time. It helps to acknowledge their time is valuable too and check on them if they are waiting very long in a room to be seen by the doctors. Do not disrespect them back because you don’t know who your dealing with in a close proximity. The doctors are personable but not at first, you must prove yourself to each one. Most longer term staff have seen a lot of people come and go so if they don’t warm up to you in the break room don’t be offended. Being polite and courteous opens the door for them to know they can easily educated on how to do something simpler. Don’t let others walk over you though, sometimes of your swamped and you’re prompted to do another task SPEAK UP tell everyone you are swamped and they will help you especially as a trainee. But if you’re constantly quite then they think you can do more and handle everything. The way I was trained was to do one task and then build upon that by doing more and more new task. It was better than just having to perform every procedure starting out. I transition to the physical therapy area 
and it’s great because you get a chair but it’s no help or assistance from your team. Everything falls on you and everything is about getting people to come in. Concentra is a cash cow and monitor your success and mishaps. You are also a referral specialist for worker comp claims and will constantly have to follow up with patients approval to receive therapy. All eyes are on you to ensure they get full treatment and the therapist will no help when it comes to insurance questions. My best advice was call other Concentra therapy assistants for advice or tell your manager you need a zoom training.

Typical day at work? Busier than I could have ever thought while providers and management thinks otherwise. They expect you to have everything done at precise and convenient times for them, but don't take into account how much time you have had in order to sit and get those done. If they aren't done when THEY want? You can get yelled at, pushed around, cold shouldered, treated like cow manure getting pushed into dry ground. The amount of grudges I have seen...dear lord.

   I did learn a lot however. They did teach me quite a good bit about how to effectively take care of certain situations. I will give them that. They have given me expertise in most of the clinic whether it is front office or back office. Of course, it is because they "threw me to the wolves" per say. Had to learn on the go after 2 weeks of "My Learnings" that they even have pulled people away from to help out on the floor.

    The management is a serious hit or miss. You could have an amazing boss one moment and a horrible one the next. It's really interesting to see how some people crumble after realizing the amount of stress that goes into these centers.

    Co-workers have been fairly nice, no real issues, except for the grudges that I've seen held against others. I do my best to stay out of others' business and if I'm already in it then I like to apologize ... sometimes profusely, at the end of it all.
    
    Hardest part of the job is that you really have no idea if you're going to have a slow day or a fast one. You don't know if you will be able to get done all the paperwork, filing, scanning, tidying up, logging needs etc. The patients can often times be rude and unforgiving but there is always that one who actually does feel bad and tries their best to keep you cheerful the entire way through their visit. That shouldn't be what is needed, but it does indeed happen.

   Most enjoyable part of the job is finding the needle in a haystack days where you have the right providers, the right patients, and the best "steady" day you could dream of. It does happen, and it is really the best. There are multiple providers I could work with that will make any bad day the best one, there are regular customers who will be the friendliest, there are the days that are perfect in the sense it's not to fast nor too slow. Those days. Those days are what I live for. Peace. Bliss.

What is it like to work here?
IF you ever wished you could take a time machine to experience how business operated back in the past, then read on...

If you are fortunate enough to be selected to work here, then you will quickly find yourself back to the wild & groovy 1970's!!  (Think Elvis, pet rocks and neon rainbow tie die T-shirts).

What I learned from working here (The Good...the Bad...and the Ugly).

The most enjoyable part of the job (The Good).
Was working with amazingly talented and gifted medical professionals. USHW has the best medical professionals and clinical support staff anywhere. Go USHW Providers!

The hardest part of the job (The Bad): Working with and supporting outdated technology.

USHW uses an outdated hodgepodge of 30-year-old DOS-based computer technology for their practice management and revenue cycle. This legacy solution adds entire layers of unnecessary complexity and confusion to their business operations and clinical practice processes. Instead of improving operations, this outdated technology stifles and suppresses potential for change and increased efficiency.


What I learned working here (The Ugly):
USHW is not comfortable with adopting new technology. Leadership prefers to cling to the "old ways" of doing things.  This stale and outdated way of business thinking is greatly responsible for why this organization is unable to move forward and achieve full potential. USHW is suffering from poor leadership and the employees are essentially facing the same fate as the cast of the famous 1970's TV series "Lost in Space" (footnote 1).

USHW has the right resources (people and capital) and business potential but lacks visionary leadership to take them to the next level.  The Healthcare landscape is rapidly changing in this country. Change in business is inevitable.  My final thought on working here is best described as follows: "Where there is no vision, the people perish..." - Proverbs 29:18 King James Version (KJV)


Footnotes:

1. Lost in Space is an American science fiction 1960's television series created and produced by Irwin Allen. The series follows the adventures of a pioneering family of space colonists who struggle to survive in a strange and often hostile universe after their ship is sabotaged and thrown off course.

I was hired to be a Clinic Manager and was lied to from day 1! They offered all kinds of "support" to help me get the clinic up and running. I never saw any of that support. I would call to ask for direction or assistance in some matter and would be told to "Look it up in the policy manual" or my favorite...Google it.

The District Manager was "too busy" with other clinics to offer her full support. During Quarterly visits she did nothing but rip apart everything that was done by myself or the staff and berate me for my lack of skills. They were aware of from the get go, hence the support comments so they knew and accepted my professional limitations willingly.

I was hobbled by a CNP with performance issues, paranoia, an inferiority complex, and serious issues involving trusting of her fellow staff. She intentionally went out of her way to stir up malicious gossip about the entire staff, she did her best to undermine my managment skills and reported EVERY thing that went wrong in her eyes to the District Manager. I could go on but to what point?

The DM managed to take credit for my Year end Stweardship Report after I did all the leg work, which was the final straw that prompted my resignation. I was forbidden, her words, to contact the regional expert on this report for guidance due to "On going personal issues" between the DM and the Expert. I contacted her anyway and was written up for going behind the DM's back...I figured it was my reputation on the line during the stewardship presentation in front of the client so I had nothing to loose and everything to gain from her expertise! The best part was that after I resigned I was contacted by the client and was told that they knew WHO was responsible for the effort and all the hard work for the presentation was completed by and really appreciated all the time and energy that was put into it.

The people at Concentra are the main reason I have stayed for so long.  They are wonderful people and have small, tight groups, that can easily get the job at hand accomplished in a timely manner.  I work closely with all of the Infrastructure IT groups to include Wintel, Unix Apps, DBAs, Citrix, VMWare, Facilities, and Network on a daily basis.  My typical day would be to work on any projects at hand along with any maintenance or support issues that deal with SAN, NAS, Networker Backups, Linux and Solaris servers.  Lately the projects have been related to Data Center Migrations and infrastructure buildout.  The following are my qualifications;

•	Storage / NAS / SAN / System Administrator III and Unix Infrastructure Team Lead (currently transitioning into Unix Infrastructure manager) at Concentra Health Systems / Humana experienced in the design and architecture, implementation, and follow-through to production with storage and Unix infrastructure.  My current team is responsible for NAS / SAN storage, Backup and DR, and Unix OS / Infrastructure.
•	Strong knowledge in supporting, building, and implementing configurations for EMC Symmetrix and Clariion hardware in SAN and NAS environments.
•	Proven ability to plan, organize and lead technical projects in both small groups and corporate environments while keeping the customer at a very high level of satisfaction.
•	Solid management skills, demonstrated proficiency in leading and mentoring individuals to maximize levels of productivity, while forming cohesive team environments.
•	Analytical thinker that consistently resolves ongoing issues or defects, often called upon to consult on problems that have eluded resolution by others.

What is the best part of working at the company?
It was my first time being in a management role as an assistant operation manager, I love the staff and love being in that position although brief it was a great experience of wonderful learning experience. It taught me how to be firm concise detailed pay attention more and patient care was always my thing meaning making sure the patients were okay so that was easy so both roads transitioned and conjoined with each other and it was a wonderful experience.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The long hours I used to do 90 hours sometimes depending on which week which month and what kind of cases we had for that month.
But otherwise then that there was no part of that job that I didn't like it was a new experience for me it was a commute for me it was a long commute for me but I loved it I got to relax on that commute and learn how to get places that other than the city.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Fast-paced environment CDLs bats blood alcohol test 10 panels were done their drug testing and doctor's visits physical therapy all in one station beautiful to be able to move around and do different things within one day supervise as well as oversee the facility and to work with many different people from many different genres and backgrounds and cultures.


What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Overseeing the doctors and their pace of patients making sure the front desk that was mainly my job making sure the front desk the girls moved in the family fashion was polite and courteous to all patients and make sure the rules of the company mission statements of the company was applied within the everyday scope of practice is within the organization.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Physical therapist 257 salaries reported	$100,098 per year
Radiologic technologist 87 salaries reported	$35.27 per hour
Personal trainer 76 salaries reported	$38.79 per hour
Center director 51 salaries reported	$126,792 per year
X-ray technician 40 salaries reported	$30.35 per hour

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