donor center technician

emergency medical technician

phlebotomist

licensed practical nurse

plasma center technician

Freedom Plasma

I worked as a medical receptionist (a DCT) for Freedom Plasma in Toledo, Ohio in 2022. It was a good job, with good people and good management, and it was a positive experience for me. However, it isn't healthcare; it's pharmaceutical manufacturing; and I left because I missed taking care of patients. Following is my report about working there.

JOB DESCRIPTIONS

There are four basic jobs on the floor at a plasma donation center:

1. Medical Receptionist ("DCT").
You greet and screen donors. You check IDs and create records for new donors. You check vital signs, and you take small blood samples to perform blood tests, all to check if donors are healthy enough to donate that day. You calibrate equipment and restock supplies. You can also be floated to help in the lab, or (more often) to help the phlebotomists by setting up and disconnecting the plasma donation equipment. You practice the art of chatting with the donors.

2. Phlebotomist.
You administer the plasmapheresis process, including venipuncture at the antecubital area. You also calibrate and clean the plasmapheresis machines. You practice the art of chatting with the donors.

3. Processing.
You work in the lab, and in the freezer unit (where the temperature is -35 degrees!), all for the sampling, storing, freezing, and shipping of 1 liter units of plasma. 

4. Nursing. 
You perform medical assessments of new donors and annually afterwards. You assess return donors who have a possible health issue that was flagged during screening. You interface between donors and doctors when follow-up tests are required. You fill-in otherwise: floating, stocking, etc. You respond to the occasional adverse reaction or emergency. Pro-tip: keep a Narcan kit discreetly on hand.

(There are also management jobs and quality assurance jobs.) 

PROS 

At Freedom Plasma, when I worked there in Toledo, Ohio, in 2022...

The pay was competitive and the benefits were decent.

Schedules were given two weeks in advance.

We were closed on Sundays.

Working at a plasma donation center can be a good first job, or retirement job, in any of the four floor jobs. 

-- For example, the DCT position can be a good first job or retirement job for medical assistants. It's not bad, part-time, for nursing students too.

-- New phlebotomists will get lots and lots of practice palpating veins and performing sticks in the antecubital area.

-- Working in the lab can be a good way to learn the basics of computerized inventory and of materials-handling.

-- For nurses, a job in plasma can be a nice retirement job or a nice break from bedside nursing.  No one is injured. No one is seriously ill.  All the donors are adult, oriented, ambulatory, healthy, reasonably lucid, and reasonably sober. And if anyone misbehaves, you can throw them out. Bonus: you actually get a 30 minute lunch, and bathroom breaks, uninterrupted. 

You could also use tobacco, outside. I didn't use tobacco; but it was nice, for those who did, to feel welcome. 

At Freedom Plasma, the "SOP"s (standard operating procedures) are well written. SOPs at other plasma companies are badly written in jargon and highly technical language. SOPs at Freedom Plasma are easy to understand.

Good People. When I worked at Freedom Plasma (in Toledo, Ohio in 2022), I had good coworkers and good management. It was a good place to work.

Most of the Donors. The donors were usually the working poor or retirees who were selling their blood to help make ends meet. Most of them were enjoyable persons to serve and to get to know.

CONS

Restaurant hours. At any plasma donation center, the center opens early and closes late. Sometimes, you can be asked to close one night and open on the following morning. It's just the nature of the business.

Lack of opportunity for advancement. There is some, but not much, room for advancement in the floor jobs. The best job for advancement is the DCT (medical receptionist), because eventually you get cross-trained in all of the areas.  After that, however, the only real advancement is from the floor jobs into management or quality assurance. 

Hyperestrongenism. The workforce in plasma facilities is overwhelmingly female. And sometimes, females can become chatty... and catty... and so on. Thankfully, there was usually some extra work that needed to be done in the peace and quiet of the lab.

Some of the donors. While most of the donors were enjoyable to serve, others were not. Some were vulgar and rude. A few were confrontational. 

Lack of opportunity to provide for patient care. This is why I left. A plasma donation center is not a healthcare facility. The mission is not providing for people's healthcare needs. A plasma donation center is a pharmaceutical facility. The mission is to harvest and manufacture 1 liter units of plasma. It is basically a small factory. This is why I chose to leave Freedom Plasma: Even though it was a good job, with good people, I missed taking care of patients.

SUMMARY 

Working at a plasma donation center can be a good first job or a retirement job in medical assistance, phlebotomy, or inventory. It can be a nice part-time job for nursing students. For nurses, it can be a nice retirement job or a nice break from bedside care. But, it's not patient care.


a typical work day includes, coming in for your shift and just being completely over worked, nobody from the center to higher ups cares about you. 
I have worked almost every position within the center and the only thing I can say I’ve learned over the last year is, how to use my time management skills. Because one minute we’re not busy then the next we’re slammed.
Management within my center, some days they’re wonderful, some days they really make me second guess if I really need a job, don’t get me wrong we’re all human but being in stressful situations such as short staffing, having equipment down, having no organization, not having our staff show up, really just puts so much stress on to the management here, they’re over worked, and not valued by anyone, always disrespected & thrown under the bus for things that isn’t their fault & 100%  the company fault.  Everyone blames our management team for the turn over rate but in my honest opinion it isn’t them, it’s the company. 
Work place culture, many employees are wonderful to be around, the center has their fair share of amazing people and the fair share of drama loving people, as most places I’ve worked, we have really great donors & some not so great mean, nasty humans who only see this opportunity we give them to save lives just a quick way of making a few extra bucks. 
The hardest part of my job, would hands down be having to deal with the overwhelming amount of work one is supposed to do, from the time I clock in to the time I leave I am overwhelmed with work,  yet so many people are trained to be in my position as well I never have the help I need to make sure my job is done 100%, everyday I feel like I could of done better but there’s just no way possible I could ever do my job 100%. The lack of teamwork for my position is insane! Once that clock hits a certain time first shift is gone and I’m stuck! 
Most enjoyable part of my job… is getting to stay busy & on top of things, in my opinion nothing is really enjoyable at the center but being able to go to work everyday is enjoyable to me. 

I have throughly enjoyed most of my time working at Freedom Plasma in Williamsport. The local managers SH and GH are great and care for their employees, treating everyone to the best of their abilities as humans and not purely as replaceable numbers. The more professional employees particularly in medical are fun but respectful, and generally treat everyone well, the floor staff can however occasionally form cliques and have a bit of a negative effect of their work. Over all employees are all pretty easy to get along with, but with any environment, there are always going to be those individuals that can cause work place dramatics.

The really negative portion of this company is the corporate culture at some of the regional and higher levels. The donation centers are considered manufacturing and they expect specific turn over of plasma units, while understandable from a business aspect it leaves out the factor of human elements required for donations to happen. You literally can only expect so many people to come in and donate, and corporates question isn't "how can we hire more staff, can we entice donors through other means?" Instead asking the already strained staff what they can do to increase the number of donors coming through the door and decrease how long they are at the center. (Donor's can only donate so fast and the number of donors on the floor actively donating are limited by a limited ratio of phlebotomist).

The pay is fairly good for the area, but benefits are pretty much a miss, as they are using United Health Care for their insurance coverage.(UHC in the Healthcare industry is not known for covering procedures.) PTO is earned as you work, and the number of hours earned is based upon your area, training and expertise.



A typical day of work was jumping in screening donors if medical reception needed help. Maning the front desk and taking vitals, documenting each donor’s medical history if need be and doing physical exams. I learned a lot while over there including setting up machines and disconnecting them.
Management was amazing with handling unruly donors and backing up staff. They were good with handing personal co-worker issues as well and were good at encouraging staff.  There was one iffy assistant manager but that was about it. 
The hardest part of the job was multitasking with minimal mistakes or no mistakes. Sometimes it seemed like the rush would never stop. 
I loved how it was okay to make a tiny mistake and it wouldn’t feel like the end of the world. The most enjoyable part and sometimes the hardest part were the donors, they had quite the personality. The co-workers were so sweet and encouraging. The pay was great.
As for Cons, the only thing I can think of is being short staffed but everyone was willing to pull their weight.


What is the best part of working at the company?
The actual job itself, duties were engaging and enjoyable.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The management, favoritism in the workplace is disgusting already but when it looks like clear employee targeting to give everyone else the ability to do overtime and not you, it's upsetting.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Culture is toxic and work environment is just as venomous with management allowing certain employees to place their workload onto others with no reprimand, break company policy on attendance, dress code etc but you can get terminated for becoming ill. This company does not care about its employees. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
I clock in, I go to work, wait I can't work because I need to finish training, but wait all the trainers ignore you and managers ignore trainers and corporate ignores managers... its a cluster dumpster fire about to rage into an uncontrollable wildfire where no one knows what's going on or how to proceed.

I was a DCT II at the lancaster center. I was there for 2 1/2 Years and was the longest running employee they had. I seen almost everything with this company. One thing that stuck out to me, was that we couldn't keep people, not even managers. And I have a strong feeling it was because corporate would constantly extend our hours when we barely had people to begin with, then we lose more people because they extended the hours. The most current manager there really whipped the place into shape and was a good manager. He has left the company a little before I did. That was really the only downside because the manager really took care of workers who would start drama and donors who would really disrespect the workers. I had to leave because health reasons made me had to change to part time and because of staffing, they couldn't accommodate it. The pay could of been a tad better, especially when being promoted to a trainer.

The actual job itself is great, but the company/ leadership doesn’t care about employees. Makes them feel very replaceable, high turnover, most of the employees there haven’t even been there 1 year. And well leadership doesn’t care about how employees feel and force them to work in an unsafe environment sometimes forcing them to go out of ratio of how many donors to one phlebotomist when it should be 1:5.management  Typically forcing staff to bed load donors which overwhelms the processing aspect of the process. VERY UNDERSTAFFED AND UNORGANIZED. When trying to bring up serios matters to managers certain ones do not know  how To manage stress  and when fustrated choose to take it out on staff. Which makes the workplace feel unsafe and hostile most times. 

Also when you try to bring up situations to management about donors it doesn’t get handled and allow donor to continue impolite behaviors. 


I highly don’t recommend the place until they change something with management and corporate 

What is the best part of working at the company?
The other staff members are great to work with, and of course the phlebotomy part of the job was a favorite! You get used to some of your regulars who make your work day fun, and the girls that work there are friendly, and great with new hires, helping them to get comfortable in their new position, you don’t just get “ throw to the wolves” which tends to happen at a lot of jobs these days so that’s a big plus! 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Honestly just the busiest days of the week, not that it’s stressful, just be ready to work, and for your day to go by fast! 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Friendly, chill, & exciting depending on the day of the week 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Honestly, if it’s not a busy day, there’s a lot of waiting around, but the busy days make up for it, or, the busy days, make for looking forward to the chill days

Center level managers are great. My issue was with the higher ups in the corporate setting. Whenever I had questions it was more than one right answer. There was no guidance or if there was it was very little help to the point that it would be best to just figure it out on your own. This company is production driven (for obvious reasons) and they really do not care about the people as they keep saying they do. I love plasma but this company has been the worse plasma company I have ever worked for. Not to mention all the job cuts they made to save a penny and pocket and laid off so many great leaders and workers and kept all the bad and useless ones. Smh I would not recommend any hard working person to work for this company unless you want to feel under value and unappreciated. You’ll end up with a boss who will let you know how worthless you are.

Very high turnaround rate and I did not understand why until I got out of training. It is an extreme amount of work to put on someone in one day. If we do not have enough people then we do not get both 15 minute breaks they say we can get. I was hired in at a schedule that changed the day of my 1st day and I was just supposed to accept it.  You will be working 2 weeks on before you get 2 days off as well.   You will get points against you even if you have a doctor's note for real reasons of being sick after 7 points they will terminate you. On Saturdays and Mondays you work 6:30 in the morning till 5 PM and all other days you do not get to sit at all during your shifts. So be prepared for 8 to 11 hour work days without sitting down

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Donor center technician 14 salaries reported	$17.21 per hour
Emergency medical technician 10 salaries reported	$23.45 per hour
Phlebotomist 6 salaries reported	$17.58 per hour
Licensed practical nurse 5 salaries reported	$25.90 per hour
Plasma center technician 13 salaries reported	$19.64 per hour

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