care manager

behavioral health manager

behavioral health counselor

registered nurse

mental health technician

Mental Health Cooperative

MHC was a wonderful place to begin my career as a nurse. I work for the Emergency Psychiatric Service (EPS) which is a the inpatient portion of MHC (they also have robust outpatient clinics across the state of TN). I learned so much from being exposed to underserved individuals with high-acuity mental health struggles and from my collaborative, helpful teammates. Just about everyone I work with is kind, accepting, and easy to get along with. Furthermore, the team-based, care-management approach is evidence-based and helps to serve consumers. I think it can be frustrating to become comfortable with the sometimes glacial pace of change that is required to move from a place of mental distress towards mental wellness, especially in those lacking often social support and housing resources. However, this is the case with virtually all psychiatric growth, and I strongly believe MHC does everything they can to rise up and meet needs not only in the Nashville community, but also to provide necessary access to underserved individuals who are in desperate need of kind, scientifically-backed, streamlined care. 

Sure, this company isn't able to meet all the needs of all these consumers--no community health center (or private practice) is to my knowledge. What MHC can offer is respite from psychic distress, food and shelter, stabilization with medication management. Additionally, we offer brief psychotherapeutic interventions, group therapy, caring care managers and discharge planners who work to connect patients to care after MHC, a wonderful crisis and triage team, competent nurses, approachable, well-trained and effective PMHNPs, excellent, approachable, helpful nursing management and strong upper management invested in growing to continue to meet unmet community needs, and a safe place for consumers to find respite when life gets overwhelming or life's path is too difficult to navigate without support.

I look forward to my work shifts here, as it feels intrinsically rewarding to make a small difference for patients who are often dismissed, ignored societally, or blamed for their struggles. At MHC, these deserving patients receive kindness, resources via psychiatric stabilization and medication management, regular nursing assessments and interactions throughout the day assessing and tracking various aspects of their mental health experience, group therapy,  connecting to housing or other placement, offering individuals the social support they often lack, and helping build a tool kit for coping by setting and evaluating goals and focusing on helping identify protective factors throughout the day during nursing interventions. While it is impossible to spend all the time one would like with all of the patients, the nurse:staff ratio feels appropriate, and with a teamwork approach we are typically able to complete all necessary tasks without issue. I often remember my interactions with patients and learn a lot about varied mental health experiences from them.

If mental health isn't an interest of yours or those who experience mental health struggles, addiction and homelessness push your buttons, this job might not be the best fit. If you have a mind and heart for mental health struggles and disadvantaged individuals, and you want exposure to these multifaceted struggles, this job could be a great fit for you. If you are psychiatrically inclined and want to help patients heal and find stabilization so that the may might find happiness and purpose, this job is rewarding, has reasonable expectations, offers market compensation + weekend/night differentials, and offers effective, accessible support via other team members and always helpful management. 

On some shifts I remain busy and other days I have quite a bit of downtime. The beginning and end of the shifts are busiest, when medications are passed and assessments are done to check in on the mental health status/progress patients. Then there is typically a couple of hours of charting to do, and admissions to approve and assess when they come in. Some shifts do not have many admissions and some have several. There are typically five nurses staffed across two units (three on Crisis Treatment Center and two on Crisis Stabilization Unit). Staffing is pretty decent, and there do not seem to be a lot of gaps in the schedule. If the schedule is sparse one day, they incentivize nurses to come in with bonuses. 

I feel lucky I stumbled into this job as a new nurse on a path to become a PMHNP. I would do it all over again, and if I were an RN I would likely continue working here. 

MHC is a good, solid company with years of experience in what they do. The company overall is a great service to the community and I wouldn't hesitate to refer clients to their services. If you are a manager/leadership or you are a support/business staff member there are a lot of great perks and benefits. However, if you are a direct care staff, such as a case manager or therapist, your time and energy will be taken advantage of. 

Caseloads are very high and the monthly productivity demands are completely unrealistic. You will be quickly written up or passed over for advancement for not meeting certain benchmarks, many of which may be out of your control, and most of the expectations change every couple months so it's almost impossible to get into a good routine. In order to meet those expectations and still do a good job in giving quality care you will have to work a lot more than 37.5 hours a week (I routinely worked 50), and you will often have to give up your own time such as doing paperwork on your lunch break or doing 5-6 sessions back-to-back without a break or time to review cases in between. I eventually left because some of the practices they were asking me to comply with were too close to unethical for my comfort. 

Take the job for what it is. It's a great place to get experience, and some of the benefits are good. They will help you get your license if you are right out of school. But don't expect to make a career here, or to last more than 2-3 years before getting burned out and having to move on.

I worked with MHC for over five years. This was my first job coming out of college with my bachelors. When I first started my job I was super excited and enjoyed coming into work. However, after COVID and management changed I started to hate going to work and ended up quitting. The amount of work that upper management puts on the case manager is not realistic. Caseloads stayed high (over 80) and there was no accommodation. Case managers were told that we had to also take on our "more intense clients" as well as maintain our high caseload. We had to do this without an increase in pay. The  Bonuses were often taken due to case managers not being able to put notes within the time frame with 80  people on their caseload plus the "more intense clients" you had as well.   You were still expected to have notes in at a certain time and often work past your scheduled hours. I would not be able to take lunch to keep up with requirements. Case workers would express concerns to upper management and they would simply ignore them. We had a meeting with management and we spoke about bonuses and being overworked.  Upper management straight up told us "if bonuses are what you are wanting we will not be doing  that".  The head management told us that "if all we were going to do was complain and not have a solution to not even come to her". This company wants to burn you out. It's all about hitting numbers rather than helping individuals. I believe this company takes advantage of the newly grads. 

As a Case Manager I am responsible for coordinating the care and monitoring the progress of my caseload, anywhere from 45-65 children with a mental health diagnosis from 4-18 years of age. A typical day involves some time at the office in the morning for team meeting, documentation, checking e-mail etc. I then conduct my "visits" which last an average of 20 minutes and occur at school, home, clinic appts, therapy appts and sometimes out in the community. Visits must occur for each client a minimum of twice a month. I have learned a tremendous amount about time management and the importance of organization. I have also gained valuable experience in crisis management and have become skilled at builing rapport in a therapeutic relationship. Management and my co-workers are all wonderful. There is a friendly, welcoming, teamwork atmosphere at the office and an overall feeling of positivity. The hardest parts of the job are meeting demanding monthly productivity goals of both the agency and insurance companies as well as spending the majority of my day driving (roughly 200 miles a week). The most enjoyable part of this job is being out in the community and developing relationships with chilren and their families. I truly enjoy seeing their progress as well as guiding and supporting them through difficult times. I also love the flexibility this job provides in being able to make my own schedule and work very indepenently while still having the support of a team.

Company makes it impossible to provide good quality services to all “consumers”. Intake of new people never stops despite not having enough staff. Staff overworked to point of burn out and quitting or committing fraud due to pressure of meet “benchmarks, statistics” and getting terminated. This company definitely is profit driven. The problems starts from upper administration. A typical day entails team meetings that take up an hour to an hour and a half of your day. Then driving from consumer to consumer while correctly documenting the encounters. There is not enough time in the work week to meet all expectations. Expect a verbal warning. Expect write ups.  Expect employers editing your time sheets to reflect a 37.5 hour work week despite working over 37.5 hours. If you’re looking to try case management, please take this review seriously. Speaking with and helping consumers is the best and most enjoyable  part of the job but you will be drown in other responsibilities that make providing services difficult and impacts the overall quality. There is no way someone can provide CONSISTENT quality services with caseloads of 100-300+. If you don’t meet benchmarks, expect to be told you will need to stay in the office rather than be out with your consumers. PTO is generous but you will not feel like you can take it as all of your work half’s when you leave but emails continue to flood your inbox with new consumers added to your caseload. 

I would caution anyone considering a position at this agency to carefully evaluate its organizational culture and treatment of employees. I started with Mental Health Cooperative in 2016 as a care manager and eventually moved into a leadership role. Unfortunately, at the end of 2024, I was informed my position would be eliminated due to census changes, and my employment would end in January.  While the CEO held office hours to encourage open communication and support, my attempts to reach out went unanswered. This lack of response raised concerns about the agency’s commitment to its staff.  Since the leadership change, the organization has experienced noticeable shifts. While care managers appear to have a degree of job security, leadership roles carry significant risks, with minimal room for error or growth. Additionally, there has been notable dissatisfaction among employees, including the loss of a full team at the Cleveland office.  Ultimately, I would recommend that prospective employees carefully consider their career goals and values before committing to this agency.

Caseloads are constantly high due to high turnover rate. The case managers are treated as lesser human beings, will be written up for the smallest infraction, and managment NEVER sides with the case manager. The case manager is ALWAYS wrong. This job is completely STATS DRIVEN, the company puts on the facade of caring about consumers, but how can they care about consumers when they don't even value their employees? HIgh turnover is due to such unrealistic and high quotas. When constructive feedback is given to management you are then targeted as a problem and will be fired soon enough. They want you to see as many people as you can with little services provided, but then they say out of the other side of their mouth to make it medically justifiable. Terrible terrible place to work. They don't even give you the tools to do your job as the netbooks rarely work and then you are waiting in line to use a computer in the office! I worked there for a year and it has been by far the worst job I have ever had! Avoid at all costs!

Direct leadership tends to be spectacular. My supervisor went above and beyond to support me every chance they had. However senior leadership is disconnected from the issues facing frontline workers and often puts both employees and consumers in real danger because of their disregard for logical policies, while instituting other policies that made no sense from any front. The work is incredibly rewarding but also incredibly difficult, although in this field that's par for the course. The best part of MHC is the sense of family you get. I truly made some lifelong friends in several of my coworkers. That is partially caused by low staffing (when there are very few people you have to learn to support each other) but you inevitably bond very closely with your coworkers and direct supervisor. Overall, it was difficult, often far more than it needed to be given the work and environment, but it made me a better person and I'm very grateful that I had the chance to work there. 

You will be expected to manage a case load of over 50 people, caseloads are ALWAYS high because the turnover rate is so high.  The turnover rate is so high because this employer puts entire focus of job performance on monthly stats.  You must make certain number of visits as it is a "fee for service" company and the more visits you make the more money they get.  Vacation time is a joke you are still required to meet visits.  It doesn't matter if your consumer needs the visits you must get the visits because they need money.  If you try to say the consumer doesn't need visits and don't meet your stats because of it, you will be written up. No other social service agency has such high turnover rate.  MHC is the worst of them all.  I worked there for 3 years and it was awful.  Many of the other case managers worked after hours and on weekends just to meet the stats. They also do not reimburse you for all of your mileage.  I've been so happy since I left this company.  Hardly anyone lasts over 6 months here.

I worked at the company for over many years & held a multiple of positions including management. It’s a great job right out of college to learn the profession & to see if you want to make it a career. There are good opportunities for growth & advancement. Additionally it’s a very flexible time management job & has a competitive starting wage with benefits & paid time off. The negatives are expect massive workloads & very unrealistic expectations from management. For example a normal care manager caseload is supposed to be 70 consumers. When I left 130 was the average & management still expected you to do the same thing as with a normal caseload or risk being written up. Some care managers had caseloads over 200. Add onto that dozens of other monthly job requirements & people were leaving the company left & right when I left. With this came zero work life balance. As my supervisor at the company said: either you do the job at these new expectations or we will fire you and replace you. I would note that I found it to be often a toxic & aggressive work environment. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Care manager 63 salaries reported	$43,897 per year
Behavioral health manager 2 salaries reported	$42,750 per year
Behavioral health counselor 15 salaries reported	$58,333 per year
Registered nurse 17 salaries reported	$34.47 per hour
Mental health technician 8 salaries reported	$19.79 per hour

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