registered nurse

partner

medical assistant

nurse practitioner

patient care technician

Lehigh Valley Health Network

The overall culture at LVHN is wonderful, and the benefits are generous- employees even get a few hundred wellness dollars a year, and the network really takes care of its employees in regards to health insurance and job security. Coworkers are encouraged to work as teams, and there is good energy here. Lots of emphasis on education and synchronicity between different practice styles. The scheduling on particular units can vary, and so does management quality on a few units; typically the heavier patient load units are more difficult to work on, as the management is not as concerned with the trivial issues between employees as with patient satisfaction. Rapport can become strained between employees, as it becomes a "he said/ she said" battle when a patient is not satisfied with their care, and there is no clear infraction by any one employee. There is a lot of finger pointing, though I also have many professional coworkers that advocate for their team mates. This battle to throw one another under the bus creates a lot more stress than need be, when work is already quite stressful. It is the pressure placed on management to identify what went wrong when sometimes things cannot be explained, or the workload is just too much for the assigned staff. (Granted, as it should be in a hospital, a fair amount of accountability should be expected.. but maybe not when there isn't any risk to the patient, and their safety has not been compromised. E.g. "Jane Doe said there was an extra belongings sheet in the wallaroo, with no label on it, why was it there?". This can seem inappropriate to get caught up in, when patients need to be attended to. Sometimes it is incredulous management will pull you away from your duties to discuss something like this). As nursing is a 24 hour job, sometimes it is difficult to get out of work on time, where there are heavy patient workloads. The chief concern of mine is scheduling; although every employee must sign a document stating they understand they could be pulled for shift rotation, some units do this more than others, (usually once every few months... but particularly for me it is about four times a month I will get a random night shift or day shift)- it does not allow planned outside of work activities, assuming you will always be available to take care of family members or kids, planning trips. It is either comply, or lose your job. It is what it is. Work/life balance can be tricky, when you must plan your sleep schedule around your work schedule. Maintain professionalism, and be grateful you have a job, and it will be fine. The patients are great, and the hospital really does provide quality care. I just try to be part of the solution, and not add to the problem. Professional, hard-working, handle stress appropriately, do not get overwhelmed. Leave work at work.

A typical day at work consisted of working at the front desk in a very busy Chiropractic orthopedic office. Some days we had over 160 patients coming in and leaving. I would check them in check them out reschedule them answer telephone try and figure out their insurance and it was just craziness. When I believe that I learned was that the medical field has gotten worse since I started working in it over 20 years ago. As far as my immediate job went I did learn a little bit about insurance but it was a hit or miss or make a mistake and then you do it over make it right if you can. But because I was not trained properly with it I made more mistakes than anything and being criticized for that does not help and being told that someone was going to come in and assist me and never did didn't help either. The office was so busy every day plus we had other tasks that we had to do that other people in the office couldn't really sit and help me with what I needed to know. Our manager supervisor in our office was very nice she felt bad for me and what was happening in the office but her manager over top of her was not really a nice person and would not give her what she needed to make the office run efficiently. The workplace culture the doctors were fairly nice and very reputable the nurses were nice in general the office personnel was very good but it was also very stressed. The hardest part of my job was checking people in and out and trying to figure out the insurance. And learning the computer because it was a whole new system that I had to learn besides what I had already learned at the hospital that I worked for prior. The most enjoyable part of the day was that most people were nice and we would try and get a laughing here and there just to make it a little more enjoyable. But then people started leaving and it became too stressful.

First and foremost, LVHN claims to care about families and that they are "partners in caring." Don't buy it. I asked to go part-time after having my first baby, as the cost of daycare is outrageous and I don't want someone else raising my baby. It was declined so I asked about going per-diem, which was also declined. They said it wasn't in the budget. Not sure how significantly cutting someone's hours and not having to pay for their medical benefits would negatively impact the department's budget. Needless to say, I resigned. I was also told if I left they probably wouldn't be able to hire another full-time person. They hired someone new within about a month after I left.

I will say my manager let me work from home two weeks before my due date, if not more which I am so thankful for.

LVHN continues to build new locations and lay off staff at the same time. Many locations and departments are already understaffed. In the quarterly meetings, the VP of our department would robotically tell us that it was, "ESSENTIAL, TEAM" that we continue to grow, grow, grow, despite it "seeming" counterintuitive.

I worked in two different departments: 402 care and medical records. Leadership AKA the "team leads" only recognize when something wrong is done. They would never praise you for a job well done. My managers were  very fair, though, kind and approachable. 

No one could ever seem to come to a clear-cut decision and you'd be waiting for answers for weeks, if not months. Once a decision had been made, it would change again. I was HEAVILY micro-managed in both departments. Leadership (including managers in the access center) gossip about other employees and are incredibly unprofessional. The less work you do and the more you talk, the more likely you are to get a promotion.  HR's employee follow through with employee complaints  is laughable.

Maybe the drama and lack of professionalism is better in other departments such as patient care? Hope so!


I was hired for a role that I was told would be hybrid- half the time working on site and the other half working remotely from home, once I was brought on and made it through my training period (5 weeks that was hybrid), I was informed I would be working remotely for 2 weeks until launch onsite occurred, once onsite my remote position was taken away and I was told it was not approved any longer as the need changed, the management was lacking and never knew what was going on, Im not even quite sure they understood the department they decided to create, after a little over a year, the entire program was shut down with our entire department being let go, no warning, no notice, we were under the impression we were safe after 250 employees were let go, but that was not the case, they continued to add more work and then eliminate us all. I believe the entire failure of the department was due to poor management who would spend all day in meetings and never actually help anyone, they never had the answers that other departments started reaching out to help guide us, they never took the time to make a department that was really needed succeed and in so they have let down the patients, my job was to help patients with insurance needs, food needs, any needs upon discharge and now these patients are back at square one. Not to mention the entire department was initially underpaid by almost $3/hr, finally received an adjustment in pay after 9 months of working there but with no back pay even though they knew they were underpaying us all. Upon leaving, they kept half of my final pay, sent me a bill for PTO time I used, and never sent me my W2 the next year which is illegal. Very sketchy practices for a business in healthcare, they care about profit and nothing else. 

LVHN is a mixed bag. It's a huge company with many branches and depending where you go, you might have a great experience or a horrible one. I feel it's a great place to work if you love to help people and you enjoy the medical field. You can definitely make a difference in a patient's life. They have good opportunities, great benefits, and you can learn a lot. However, be ready to work more than you should. They always have staffing issues so staff are always over-worked. You would think for how much money they make, they would have better staffing for patient care. If you get an incompetenet manager (more than likely), they barely know what's going on and they only care about budgeting and keeping "the numbers" at a certain percentage. No matter how hard you work nothing is ever good enough. It's the harsh truth. And it doesn't matter if you're an excellent employee. Actually, it's worse if you are one. THEY WILL take advantage of you. The more you do, the more they'll take. There's also no accountability for the employees that don't do their job or are lazy. It creates a lot of anamosity. I've seen it for more than seven years. Managers act like they care, but they really don't. If you are part of a great team @ LVHN, consider yourself lucky. 
They're also constantly changing the rules. Or they implement something, and then change it months later after you already learned it. Or make you pick up the pieces if it's not working. It's mentally exhausting. Sometimes I think they care more about how great they look on the outside than about their employees. 

I remember going to orientation feeling like I was on top of the world, once assigned  an office, very quickly I was just a number to them to meet their quota. The pay is a sin, they don’t care how hard you work, it’s not recognised. You can’t do your job to the best of your ability because all they care about is seeing more and more patients, and not giving quality care, but quantity. They don’t protect or back up their employees and you’re degraded, and treated like a dog. I wanted a job to provide for my family, to be proud that I was a part of, to feel that I was making a positive impact on an individuals life and well being, but it’s like screaming without a voice. My “starting” pay which I was told would raise as I would have opportunity advancements was a complete lie. They don’t even offer maternity leave for their own employees! I’ve never felt more dooped in believing lies as I do each and everyday that I have to clock in with Lehigh Valley Physicians Group. The doctors just want to cram in as many patients in a day as humanly possible because they get kick backs. It’s so sad. I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to get my foot in the door, and everyday I leave in tears. I wanted to climb as high as I could and really make a name for myself with Lehigh Valley.  They won’t even buy office supplies as everyone’s on a “budget” and have to email each other’s offices to see who can spare paper, etc. Its embarrassing. There’s no such thing as patient care with Lehigh Valley. Order more tests=more money from insurance. Biggest mistake of my life.

Work-life balance
I started at LVHN about two years ago, and at first things were fine. But within the last 6 month, that has completely changed. Coworkers went from being very supportive of one another, to now people constantly talking badly about each other behind their backs. Management is also really unsupportive of staff. Needless to say, they're more concerned about patient satisfaction since that affects their paychecks. As far as staff satisfaction though, it's as if that's the least of their concern. It has become more difficult to deal with patients and heavy work loads when it feels like no one really has your back.

Pay & benefits
This company does not offer competitive pay in regards to other nearby hospitals and networks. The "bonuses" and pay increases they claim to give employees is nothing to rave about. Instead, the hospital would rather put money towards huge billboards and unnecessarily large plasma screen TVs in all patient rooms.

Management
Management here is lacking. Instead of being supportive and encouraging of staff, they're more concerned solely on patient satisfaction...even if that comes at a cost of employee satisfaction and safety.

Overall
For such a large network, I really had high hopes when starting here. Unfortunately between unsupportive management, and lousy pay this hospital isn't all that cut out as they claim to be. For the most part, coworkers are often helpful. But even then, it can also been witnessed how people talk badly about one another behind their backs. If I had known then what I know now about working here, I would have probably applied somewhere else to work

This is pertaining to the physician group in Scranton, not the new hospital. Out of many unsatisfactory factors, the attitude of and interaction with the clinical staff, particularly the urology dept, will drive any employee away from this company. This being a multi-specialty practice, a lot of the clinical staff, MA’s, LPNs, and RNs, are often rude and unwilling to work as a team with other employees in the practice, as well as be helpful to the many patients that receive care here. Not saying it is an excuse, but stress may play a role in this as the practice overbooks the physicians’ schedules everyday, leaving staff overwhelmed and wait times to be 2+ hours after appointment time most days, resulting in many patients taking out frustration towards front check in. In addition to this, there is not much room for job growth here, regardless of experience and/or education, at least in this location. Not all, but most clinical managers don’t seem to care about issues and creating solutions to properly fix them. Also, it’s unfortunate most do not know how to properly speak to people, which creates even more hostility and confusion. Lehigh Valley as a company may not be bad, especially in the actual Lehigh valley area, just the Steamtown location in Scranton seems to perform poorly. 

At Lehigh Valley Health Network, I was treated poorly due to a medical condition that I have. No one was willing to work with me and they were very rude. I was 2 years into my Bachelor's degree in Nursing and this job made me change my major. The environment was disgusting. Patient rooms and the floor itself were filthy and no one seemed to care about it. The other CNA's were very rough with the patients and yelled at me for being gentle because I wasn't going "Fast Enough". I was rushed while trying to do bloodwork one of the first times ever doing it. I learned that Nurses and CNA's like to make fun of patients and discriminate right outside of the patient room. I was pulled into my director's office on several occasions to be yelled at for pointless things like "talking". God forbid I talk while trying to learn what I am doing with my preceptor. The Doctors at Lehigh Valley are god awfully mean. I was pushed out of the way, ignored, glared at and one of them even took my computer while I was charting. I also witnessed a Dr walking down the hall on their phone while a patient transporter was pushing a patient to surgery and the Dr ran into them and viciously pushed the patient's bed into the wall because it was "in their way". I was very appalled by that. I was also forced to work a 12 hour night shift week my second week on the floor. I wish this would've been a better experience for me but it was the very opposite and I will be switching all of my doctors over to St. Lukes.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Building good relationships with your coworkers and learning new things

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Unsafe staffing. Almost always a full assignment as a charge RN. Throw you into charge one month into being a new grad. Nobody to cover for breaks. More tasks and strict policies added to your plate with zero extra help or staff to support said new to-do’s you must complete. No support from management, just nod their head and go “uh-huh” and “I understand” at your concerns, passive aggressive and nit-picky, refuse to acknowledge the simple fact that more staff = more tasks get done = better retention rate for your unit = higher patient safety and satisfaction. Always tell you what you do wrong but never what you do right. The hospital is always ran with bare minimum staff at all times. MULTIPLE RNs and LPNs have left my floor in the past six months and they just nit-pick the rest of us even harder. Weekends are even worse. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Started off good when I started but everyone is pressured, unappreciated, and miserable as time has gone on.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Running around like a chicken with my head cut off, half the time not able to take a break, short staffed. (Thankfully with the best coworkers imaginable!)

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Registered nurse 14 salaries reported	$40.50 per hour
Partner 8 salaries reported	$16.81 per hour
Medical assistant 7 salaries reported	$21.32 per hour
Nurse practitioner 1 salary reported	$175,000 per year
Patient care technician 5 salaries reported	$18.20 per hour

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