registered nurse

patient care technician

health screener

patient access specialist

screener

Northwestern Medicine

The pay is not competitive in comparison to other area facilities. It seems as though the company is hiding behind the facade of being a “top tier” organization, however the foundation is crumbling at the bits with high turnover rates, poor treatment of employees, and putting the corporate needs above the needs of patients and individual staff . The hospital system will not hesitate to replace you at the drop of a hat. 

Management is too busy worrying about productivity and monetary gains to take a step back and make a difference for patients. They have lost sight of employee well-being. If you are not a “favorite” amongst management, they will go out of their way to make each and every day miserable for you. Towards the end of my time with NM, there were very few days where I didn’t cry because of something my manager or coworkers said to me. If you want to feel like you have a clear purpose and you want to feel appreciated for your hard word, this is not the place to be. In a personal case of patient violence against myself as a staff member, my management asked me what I could have done to prevent the situation instead of supporting me. I have never been more disgusted regarding the treatment of employees, and that showed me how little management cares about us. Every single action is excused my management under the thin veil of “putting patient needs first” which is simply untrue - they are looking out for themselves and the reputation of the brand, not patients. 

Despite providing suggestions regarding improving day to day work quality, your needs will be somewhat heard, but will continue to be unmet, and in my case misconstrued. Your words and intentions will be twisted by management and you will be gaslit by them so heavily you will start to believe them. If you want to watch your passion for healthcare fade away daily until you become the villain, this is the place to do just that. If you do not blindly agree to every single thing your managers and coworkers wish for you to do, you will become the office heathen. Unless you are your manager’s “favorite”, your needs and suggestions will fall on deaf ears. I am not one to favor the word “toxic”, but this situation truly deserves that label. 

Communication between employees is also abysmal. It seems as though no staff members truly know what is going on with their patients. Communicating patients needs has a huge ways to grow. If you try to provide gentle redirection as to the patient’s care and needs, you will be met with scoffing and eye rolling from many staff members. There are a few amazing staff members which made patient care so much easier, but they were few and far between.  

Work load was never fairly split. I took on much more than my coworkers and if I asked for my coworkers to alleviate some of the load, I was met with significant attitude. In addition to this, managers seem to sit and stare at open excel spreadsheets all day and say 1 thing during hour long meetings and somehow get paid astronomical amounts for making decisions when they are so far removed from the reality of day to day struggles for patient care. 

PTO accrual is much less than what I have had at prior facilities (12 days per year for FT), whereas management gets substantially more. Taking days off is difficult if there is no one to cover. There are extremely limited days for “flexing” time off given consistent poor staffing. 

Overall, all I can say is if you have any self-respect and are not all about the corporation itself, this is not the place to be. 


NM is top notch in health care. There are physicians within this health system that I would trust to save my mother in an accident or perform a risky surgery. As a patient, I highly recommend NM. As an employee, this is an excellent system to gain experience, kick off your career, and there’s always an option to move up or into another department. The benefits are stellar, but for a cost- potentially your sanity. 

NM puts the patient first because that’s where the money comes from. They rarely, if ever, gain insight from the direct care providers. Instead, decisions are made by the higher up MBAs in suits. This company is extremely reactive rather than proactive; they have an “idea” that sounds great, talk about it for months among themselves keeping everyone in the dark, randomly implement the process, maybe hold a mini training if the change warrants it, & then hold more meetings to discuss why it’s not working out. Very frustrating for staff AND patients. Like with many large companies, they will see what they can get out of their staff, even when teams are severely short staffed. And for the “yes mans” out there, this is a fast track to burn out because they will take advantage of you. 

 For being the largest health care system in IL, their behavioral health care access is very limited- even to their sister hospitals WITHIN the system. They gave NO special recognition to any of the behavioral health care providers during COVID like they did other hospital staff. Just a simple thank you would have been nice considering the amount of trauma we have experienced and witnessed during 2020. While it is typical for behavioral health to get the short end of the stick, I expect more from an organization that is considered to be the best. They are not the best when it comes to mental health. 

 It’s unsettling to witness patients struggling to navigate a very complicated health system (call centers, frustrating process to request medical records, inconsistency between offices and documenting in EPIC system,etc) then staff becomes irate and burnt out or cuts corners to help the patient. But! this is happening everywhere in large health systems. Insurance companies tell doctors how to do their job, patients are given surveys to rate the office and staff like they would at a grocery store, and staff is expected to do the work of 3 people with a smile on their face and never make a mistake. NM keeps gobbling up all the little guys and is trying to expand all over IL. This has made HR a nightmare and you never get your issue solved right on the first try. You have to put in a “ticket” for everything, even questions. There’s also a very long chain of command, making it confusing who you report to for what for many department. 

All in all, working in health care is challenging no matter which way you spin it. And a lot of my personal grievances are partly due to the way health care is structured in our country, but this organization has significantly changed since I onboarded in 2016. 

I was a myHR rep. I had a two month honey moon period with the company.  I started to see very quickly management had no idea what they are doing. They would consume all thier time in meetings. But never delivered an action plan that would help employees succeed. They held high expectations about answering cases when case load was unreasonably high we had to do everything answer calls investigate inquires and communicate with other members of HR. Hr Business partners and senior leaders are obnoxiously conceited , and condescending... to fellow co-workers and the employees they are supposed to be helping! Of course those people made the most money 50.00 an hour! Just to throw more work on us!  The whole HR department is short staff. There was no official training I watched other people do the job for a week and then I was off... trying to explain and help employees with HR issues and hospitals policies that I was not trained on. I don’t know how they expected me to interrupt policy when I was given no training. They also stacked the department with temps and so once you finally master your job after 2 years working the manager sticks a temp next to you and tells them of X person will be happy to answer and help you with anything... you don’t want to be rude but I have my own work to do hire a full staff and not have a constant rotation of temps. The leaders of HR kept saying “we love MYHR reps” the only reason they kept saying that to our faces was that it was never felt; it was very obvious that the leaders of the company look at this department as the junior leagues; they offer the department very little: they were unwilling to hire a full staff , provide detailed training and then you have to deal with employees with bad attitudes and stuck up co-workers. The co workers should be Congress instead of HR they professional politicians smiling in your face all the while gossiping as tho they were in high school. I choose this place because Northwestern is supposed to be number 1. It may be a great (expensive) place to go get treated but as far as working here ... RUN TOWARDS THE NEAREST EXIT!

So, my typical day's work from 7A- 7P and 7P-7A was always chaotic to the max and short-staffed. The patient charting was absolutely ridiculous and most of us spent more time charting than patient care! This place was not a hospital but, a glorified nursing home! I would have 12 - 25 plus patients who were bedridden and the patients were full care. The patients who could help themselves were great because they wanted to get better and go home!
Learning:  I did not learn a thing except how nursing has changed for the worst and there are only a few who actually care about people/patients and not just a paycheck!
Management: Seasoned management was fine but the young inexperienced managers are awful.
The hardest part of this job: Was going to work and preparing to walk into a "WARZONE" because of the short staffing issues and employees walking out because of the constant changes and cut in pay, or refusing to pay OT to certain nurses! 
The most enjoyable part of the job: was working with great nurses and as soon as they walked out and quit! I was doomed for failure! So, yes I did get discharged because I was still on probation and told the backstabber nurses who I was working with that day that they were lazy and incompetent for delivering real patient care! So, now, I advised my family, relatives, friends, and people at my church to NEVER go to this hospital if it's the last thing they do! Most will listen and get new doctors or their family members will be sorry for not taking friendly advice! So, when someone has actually worked here and heard the horrid things that happen to patients and how management covers certain things up for certain staff this hospital is a double-standard environment that I refuse to be part of! Nope, if hospitals are operating like this today. I'll go back to a nursing home any day of the week!! Plus the pay is just as good and the benefits are what you need today if, you get into a decent place! 

I am currently a Technical Coordinator for the Diagnostic Molecular Biology laboratory at Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) managing eight people for 10 years. By obtaining my MBA from Loyola (Healthcare Management program) has helped me incorporate my skills and knowledge that I have gained in the program into the work place.
My first experience of supervisory duties happened when I was working at Illinois Masonic. My supervisor at that time gave me an opportunity on some supervisory duties such as ordering supplies, Quality Control, and writing standard operation of procedures (SOPs) while working on the benches full time. I then went to NMH where they have several levels of management (senior technologist, resource coordinator, technical coordinator, and manager.) My position at NMH was a medical technologist with no supervisory duties until a Senior Technologist position opened. I then became a senior technologist with the responsibilities of ordering supplies, charge edit reports (making sure the insurance companies are being charged correctly), and working full time on a bench. Two years later, I applied and became Resource Coordinator. My responsibilities involved the same as the senior technologist along with time cards, vacation and sick coverage, new test developments, LIS (laboratory Information System) computer upgrades for the pathology labs, SOPs, CAP (College of American Pathologist) inspection, weekly Quality Management and Quality Control, CODE MAP, and turn around times monitoring of lab tests. Few years later, I applied and became Technical Coordinator which is my current position. My duties as a Technical Coordinator involves the same as the resource coordinator with, in addition of working with the laboratories finance such as cost analysis with vendors, maintaining a budget for the laboratory each year by not exceeding the budget, performing yearly performance review with employees, and delegating tasks to staff.

If you want to work for this company go anywhere but the call center. I worked in the call center for almost 2 years and I can say my experience was horrible. From not being on the same page about all the expectations and answers to management changing things minute to minute. 
Very stressful since you only had 5 minutes from answering the call to finishing your note on average. Management never stood by their employees and always took the side of the patient. Almost everyday I was stressed and exhausted due to the call volume, outrageous expectations, and management never being there. 
Management was only worried about their numbers and not how the employee was treated or felt. If you needed to contact management for any issue or a question that could take time which in turn would make the person calling mad and then they would complain.
If there was a complaint about a call, the amount of time to get someone in an actual office a triage nurse or management, there was someone who had to be blamed and it was always the person who took the call. 
Northwestern is big on internally moving around but in the call center if you are not liked or they need the people, you would get written up or a verbal warning, which meant you could not transfer for a year, and you were stuck in the same position.
If there were many issues in one day and you felt like you could not handle it, management would tell you to put it aside and move on. 
There is no work, personal life balance, as management always expected the most out of you. If you worked from home it was worse and you had more expectations. If you have small children forget it as they will not work with you so you can be at events for your children. 
Again avoid the call center. 

This is by far the worst place I have ever worked. I am serious when I say that. Their motto is "Patients first" and it should be money first. All management cares about is how many patients can be squeezed in a day. Forget about the quality of patient care or that the techs are physically and mentally drained. Management does not care or want to hear from their staff. If you are 1 minute late, because your kids arm fell off, they don't care you will still get an occurrence. It is a really horrible place to work if you have children. They could care less if your child was throwing up all night and you'll be a half hour late, you still get that occurrence. If your child is graduating pre-school or college, it means nothing to them. They have no problem denying your request off. You have to request time off 6 months in advance and it will most likely be denied. For holidays many techs literally stay up till 12:01 A.M. six months in advance, so they can be the first in line to request.  If you request a day off for example one month in advance and by some miracle it's not denied, then you will get an occurrence because it was less than 6 months. Management is completely inflexible.Moral at this hospital is terrible to say the least. At every job there are people who complain, but I can say with confidence that everybody in this department hates it. The turnover rate is unbelievable. With every person that quit all of us would think that our manager would have to answer as to why there was such a high turnover rate , but no one seemed to care. All I can say is do not be lured by the money or the name, "Northwestern". It is a toxic work environment. I don't want people to think I'm just some disgruntled employee, because I'm not. Grant it I didn't think it was a healthy environment, but I just moved on and found a new job.

I worked for this company for 16 years and while I did not enjoy every single day of it, I thought it was a great place to work.There has been a lot of changes lately  but I saw  the big picture and understood what the end results are suppose to be so I have absolutely nothing negative to say....though my co-workers can write a book about how awful management is....But isn't that in every office?

I did not leave Northwestern with bad feelings.  I left because my family relocated.  However, there have been many medical assistants who quit over the last several years.  It seems that the turnaround times is quick and the staff who stayed continue to say it was because of management.  A medical assistant who replace me only stayed 3 weeks. 

A typical day as a medical assistant is to be in charge of how smooth the day went for multiple physicians/midwives.Medical assistants triage calls, did call backs, some scheduling, correspondence, assist the provider and cover each other for lunch.  

Lunch time was inconsistent. 30hr somedays, 45 minutes others and 1hr sometimes though rarely.

Most of the time the atmosphere is pleasant--though busy and sometimes stressful.  The hardest part of working in the section that I worked was the poor communication and the distrust between the upper staff and lower staff.

The most enjoyable part of the job was working with the patients and the providers. The staff, in my opinion, made work easy,  They were like my family. If I had to go back and work for Northwestern again, I would not hesitate!

The company definitely has a good reputation. Not every single employee has the same work ethic. Hours in a medical office especially family medicine are horrible as well as the pay. Doctors, nurses and medical assistants are very over worked. Sometimes would go the whole shift without taking a lunch break. However, Supervisors in medical offices are most likely nurses so they have a preference for other nurses plus they are rarely in office. Nurses are on the phone taking care of Patient calls while medical assistants help the provider assist with the Patient. Don't understand why some providers prefer nurses when the medical assistant is doing all the work for the provider. Patient service representatives can be quite bossy towards the clinical staff. Always was stressed out to the maximum level. There is no work and life balance. Supervisors did not care if one worker was burn out by taking someone else's duties. Always talked about staying within budget so sometimes office would be understaff. However, they expected their staff not to complain about being understaff and to just work extra hours. Sometimes the providers would take out their anger on their medical assistants. Definitely a lot of passive aggressive comments/attitudes here and there. Did not take care of their employees during the Pandemic. Company uses your PTO to pay your 2 week time out related to COVID. Also they refuse to accept the fact that you can get COVID at work; they try to convince you that you got COVID somewhere else and NEVER at work. Benefits are okay like any other healthcare company. It was a pleasure to take care of patients but that's about it. 

I am one of 7 managers in Radiology
Although we manage our own modality of radiology, managers and staff interact across different levels in MRI, CT, X-Ray, Gastroenterology, Ultrasound, Nuclear Medicine, Interventional Radiology. 
A large part of the day is interacting with staff to seek out improvements in the areas. For example, a staff memeber might not have full access to a patient's electronic health record that's necessary for providing the correct type of imaging. Making sure staff all the tools necessary to perform their function ensures that operations run smoothly and efficiently. 
The managers in our radiology group are supportive and always help one another to provide seamless care when a patient might have multiple appointments. For example, an itinerary for a patient might be Nuclear Medicine then to CT and MRI and back up to Nuclear Medicine. This requires careful coordination from operations and scheduling. 
One of the biggest challenges of the job is managing with other non-clinical areas. Organizations that have 800 or more beds have to rely on each area such as pre-authorization and billing to work with scheduling and front desk management as well as the clinical areas. Every patient should consistently flow through these areas to minimize wait time.
I enjoy the impact that we make on patients! It is rewarding to secure a patient's care without having the patient wait for long periods of time. I enjoy making sure patients get the optimal (right exam) care.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Registered nurse 12 salaries reported	$37.92 per hour
Patient care technician 6 salaries reported	$21.67 per hour
Health screener 52 salaries reported	$41.93 per hour
Patient access specialist 7 salaries reported	$21.72 per hour
Screener 10 salaries reported	$39.06 per hour

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