registered nurse

patient care technician

medical assistant

patient services representative

patient access coordinator

Overlake Medical Center and Clinics

This was the worst environment I have ever worked in.  Manager was escorted off premises by security without anyone knowing it.  Then the Director quit.  Two males argued and almost came to physical altercation over who was 'Lead' since we had no management present.. It was a very scary time.  Director knew of this altercation that happened and his suggestion was for me to work weekends to avoid the 2 men.  I was already putting in 10 - 11 hour days. It was insane and a very uncomfortable environment.
My function was to support the professional billing application and reporting needs.  But instead I was assigned several large projects alone with tasks that were to be divided among all the report writers. Then the number of reports I created weekly were too low and it was also suggested that I come in and work weekends to bring those numbers up.  Problem is, professional billing was well established and no new reports were needed.  
The upper management must only care about the numbers and not the substance or proof that users are being supported in their respective applications.

Overlake is one the last independent healthcare companies in the state and is very profitable.  However, this profitability comes at a steep price as administrative staff often has to work excessive hours because the leadership often bites off more than they can chew.  

My group is really good but it's also very lean in staff.  Hence, there is way more work than time and bodies to execute the tasks.

Unbalanced work groups in some administrative areas.  For example, one group might work 9-5, while others work 10 hours + per day.  Management works excessively to get their bonuses.  There is alot of dead weight staff that really need to go.

Seriously lack of diversity in management ranks, especially director and above (aka nearly non-existent).  They recently improved their PTO/Sick/EIB policies but still have a ways to go to be competitive vs healthcare and non-healthcare companies.

Lets be honest, if your a lab assistant you wont be moving up in the medical field without an advance degree. That is anywhere you work so dont expect advancement. That being said Overlake will work you until you submit with frustration. Honestly, I would never be a patient here despite the semi free hospital stay given under benefits. Full time lab Assitants are trained in several different areas often times you are doing the job of 4 people for very low pay. At other places you can make 14 to 15 just doing phlebotomy alone. This place is cheap and they will get their money out of their employees. It is chaotic due to poor workflow and lack of process improvement. Some of the management/leads can not handle stress well, which makes the environment even worse than it actually should be.   Coworkers are cool but you cant pay the wage they do, be that unorganized, have constant call outs, be short staffed and expect to keep people around!

Overlake's CCU was a place of constant learning.  I saw many different patient populations and learned how to care for patients on cardiac medications, ventilators, and with various forms of lines and sheaths.  As I got hired there was a change in management, but the new manager did a good job rounding on staff and following up with any issues on the unit.  The workplace culture was alright, there were staff members who did a great job helping out their co-workers while making the unit very welcoming to new staff while other members went out of their way to ignore the unit around them.  This was one of the hardest part for me.  My previous hospital had a very strong team mentality and thats one of the big things I look for in a work environment. The only other issue I had was that it felt like the unit was constantly being micro-managed. The most enjoyable part of the job were the people who were willing to help each other out and also help me learn when I had questions about the new types of patients that I was seeing.

Onboard training felt rather backwards. Felt you should have been trained in your specific clinic first to learn the flow before being sent elsewhere to learn other clinic flow. It had not been communicated to me that I would train in other clinics as a means of one day being sent to those clinics as back-up if needed.
Everyone seems nice enough but is definitely very "clique-centric" making it difficult to make meaningful connections with coworkers. I also feel management do not handle issues right away when it is presented and simply hold onto it to use against you instead of approaching you in a way to resolve and work through the issue. They just "clip" the problem by immediate termination instead of getting the full story and working to improve and help create understanding and growth.
I'm also not keen about the MultiCare takeover, because what if that conflicts with future employment if you go from Overlake to a MultiCare affiliate?

An average day includes multiple phone lines, high volume of patient check in's, rapid pace patient/ doctor/ clinical and hospital wide coordination of admitting.
The teamwork is excellent and operates efficiently. We try to keep a positive and supportive work environment. I enjoy working with all of my co workers.
EPIC is a very detailed and difficult system to maneuver at first. Training a new person can take as long a 4-6 months before they are proficient with the work. We do 24 different kinds of registrations and each process is filled with a variety of steps in order to complete the registration.
The best part of this job is that I get to give each patient the best 4.5 minutes of their entire hospital stay.

The overall tone at this hospital was one of low morale and indifference to their jobs at best.  It was a difficult environment, but I stuck with it as I enjoyed the actual work I was doing.  

Ultimately I left because I was contacted by a head hunter out of the blue and asked if I was interested in applying for what is now my current job.  I was not actively seeking work at the time, it just came my way and was an opportunity I could not pass up.

The bright spot in this position was my manager in Radiation Oncology as well as the 2 Physicians I worked with there.  They were all fantastic folks and a pleasure to do a migration from paper to electronic with.  This can be a difficult transition for providers, and there no doubt were challenges, but the personalities of those 3 made it fun to work through and come up with alternatives to solve their needs.

Managers and coworkers (nurses, other techs, doctors) were incredibly kind, pleasant, and amazing! When I first started they really centered around creating the best atmosphere for their patients with good staffing numbers, comfort carts, and reasonable hours with options for overtime if needed. When MultiCare took over, the comfort carts went away, overtime was revoked, and more often than not we were under-staffed with less than 2 techs for the whole floor (4-5 is considered fully staffed). I do not recommend working here now, as I believe it will continue to get worse under MultiCare's guide - I miss the working environment that was created when I first started, and I hope they find their way back there soon.

I always arrived early, because I wanted to be ready to go when my patient arrived. I learned a long time ago, patient don't know what you do or don't know about your job, they just want to be taken care of in a thoughtful and compassionate manner and I tried to provide that to each and ever one I came in contact with.  The support was not always their with the physicians and I think the communication from them could have been more positive.  I spent over ten years in that environment so I bear some responsibility for some of the day to day events that happened. I feel the hardest part of the job was the long hours and feeling the responsibility to stay with your computer screens and not have one of your coworkers monitor them while you ate. The fun part of my job was on certain days I got to work with people I enjoyed because I appreciated their work ethic and attention to detail.

Typical day at work involved much phone follow up for getting oncology claims paid by the insurances.

I learned how to explain the process to the insurance reps themselves so they could assist me and understand much better the process for Oncology was not as easy as reading a script for basic coverage.

Hardest part of this job was trying to find insurance reps that could understand the details of Chemotherapy and Oncology specialty billing.

Most enjoyable part of the job was being successful in getting the claims paid for the patients' chemotherapy treatments, they didn't need to worry about their insurance, I told them to worry about getting better and I would take care of the insurance.  I was successful and this made them so happy,.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Registered nurse 59 salaries reported	$64.88 per hour
Patient care technician 79 salaries reported	$30.55 per hour
Medical assistant 71 salaries reported	$33.82 per hour
Patient services representative 47 salaries reported	$27.74 per hour
Patient access coordinator 50 salaries reported	$28.87 per hour

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