registered nurse

nursing assistant

patient access representative

licensed practical nurse

medical assistant

PeaceHealth

If you’re gonna work for peacehealth, you’re definitely gonna earn every penny you get. A piece of advise? Watch your back, keep important emails, don’t share anything personal or incriminating, and don’t get too comfortable cause you’ll more than likely be forced to change jobs, move your work location, get laid off or just fired. Did I mention watch your back? Read below and you’ll know why.

Almost anybody who works at peacehealth does it for the pay and benefits. They pay good competitive wages and you get a good amount of PTO, but no yearly bonuses anymore. Any job where you get health insurance is great, but even that has gotten worst charging employees more monthly premiums, higher yearly deductibles/maximum out-of-pockets to reach, and less coverage. 

The worst part of peacehealth is the management, and they’re all the same. I’ve been there 13 years under different management because I was laid off and forced to take another position twice or because the management was laid off to bring in new cheap management. I’ve had management literally pass secret notes to each other and laugh while in a meeting where employees were sharing their frustrations about new changes. There will be critical staffing shortages about once a week if not more causing an extremely stressful and unsafe environment for you and patients. Instead of management helping or trying to find a solution, they just say deal with it and you better make it work. Then, even though you were set up for failure, if you mess up or something goes wrong or gets forgotten, you get written up for it. They work you to the ground till you go home crying almost once a week, and give you absolutely no recognition or gratitude for working your butt off and doing a good job. 

They are far worst than any other employee, talking trash about you to everyone else like it’s high school, and if you tell them anything personal they will share that private information with the other employees. The most common problem is how they have different standards for each employee (favoritism). One boss used to make sexual inappropriate comments about my attire and I told HR and nothing happened. My most recent supervisor loved to say many demeaning things about my weight, like telling me I’m not allowed to sit in half of the chairs in the office because I’m too fat and break them (which isn’t true). One time I told on my supervisor for how she was treating me and the next day she cursed at me for “ratting her out” and then proceeded to treat me so much worst for weeks. I could go on for days about the management there. 

I loved most of my fellow employees and the job itself.  But the management and the company itself are two-faced. Peacehealth use to always hire from within the company and I was always so proud of that and felt like I had job security. But now they’re always laying off large amounts of people to outsource the work. They force people who have worked there forever making the most pay and PTO to take a severance or get demoted just to bring in new people at the base pay. It’s all about the money to peacehealth now and it disgusts me. All the good management at Peacehealth have honestly either been laid off, forced to retire early, or got burnt out of all the negative changes.

Left an excellent health system to work for PeaceHealth in Bellingham due to a career advancement opportunity. Left after a short time when it became clear the hospital (and health system as a whole) was in major trouble and lacked meaningful leadership to see them through. 

Very static workplace. People have all been there for decades. No new blood, unable to acquire (or retain) talented individuals. Physicians practicing the same way they did in 1975. 

The loss of the Kaiser contract in Vancouver, WA put the health system in major trouble financially. 

Implementation of Epic was disjointed and mismanaged, as others have noted. The cost of Epic also set the health system back significantly. 

Massive turnover at the management/director/VP level created a very poor environment. 

No room for development of new programs or initiatives. Emphasis on quality and safety was non-existent. 

Stopped going to PeaceHealth for my own family health care after waiting on hold for >1hr in an attempt to make a well-check visit for my child. 

Major benefit cuts during my tenure. Solely a cost-cutting maneuver though leadership tried to spin it differently. 

Significant layoffs in several departments due to attempts at consolidation to Vancouver, WA and consulting groups coming in and slashing FTEs. This created a silo environment where everyone was only looking out for themselves. 

Front-line staff in my department were significantly overworked to the point that patient safety was a major concern of mine. 

As other people have mentioned here this seemed like it was a good place in the previous years. That has all evaporated at this time. 

Labor issues with a protracted and venomous nursing contract negotiation.  

Overall facilities at the hospital was very poor. 

Shockingly, salary was better than average (likely due to poor retention rate driving up salaries - a viscous cycle). I took a pay cut to leave (and I don't regret it for a second)

This is a “House poor” lab model. You’ll get all the latest analyzers and equipment to use but no investment in people or training. If you ask for extra training on anything they give you a week of DO’s vs actual one on one instruction. Training is not  tailored to experience so if you are right out of school or a year out of your first job post school, they still expect you to learn everything “in three weeks” vs the 30 to 60 days most places offer. Even if you have a year of micro training they tear you apart.  Instruction is undercut by not having designated staff to train, so new hires are a resented burden on others who have to balance their normal over the top workload. Even if you are new, you will be training others within weeks the turnover is so high! So Unsafe. Burnout is common due to lack of staffing and toxic employees abound because of lack of shift leads outside of dayshift. Almost all experienced techs are on dayshift and the only fully experienced evening techs are overworked and unsupported. Evening and night techs are overworked peers to new hires so have no reason to offer help. They have been burned by dayshift distain and no compensation for nonstop training of new hires so are tight fisted with their cards. Hard to get help when you need it. It’s every man/woman/other for themselves outside of dayshift. This creates unsafe patient care scenarios with people lacking experience, no lead to ask questions of, and new techs being forced to search SOPs with no time to do so. If you make a mistake you are blamed for not taking the time to ask every other employee in every other department for help. You end up with nonstop anxiety and feeling like you are one overworked mistake away from hurting someone. It was a terrifying place to work. The bullies act with impunity even with HR involved and there’s no recourse. Toxic place. 

I worked a variety of shifts during the eleven years I worked there. Starting each day with preparation for patient care, and insuring that my clinician was informed of any issues prior to appointments. Each day included being a liaison between clinician, patients and pharmacy, as well as insuring that all aspects of clinician's orders and patient care was completed and documented.
I learned about the importance of working as a team through the many situations that arose with patient needs which were more demanding on some days than others. 
The management went through several changes during my years with the organization, which gave me the opportunity to learn how to adjust to the different management styles. 
The work culture for the most part reflects their mission and values. There were of course times when I felt that that wasn't the case, especially when co-workers would voice their concerns or disagreement with certain policy changes that affected their work flow. One example of that was when there would be a change in procedure without a proper amount of time for thorough training to implement the change while maintaining optimum patient flow.
The hardest part of the job was working with a variety of clinicians without notice. Each clinician having their own "style" of patient care made it very challenging at times due to some of the clinician's lack of positive communication skills. 
The most enjoyable part of the job was being that positive care giver that brought smiles to patient's faces! Seeing those precious souls come in to the clinic looking ill and many times afraid, then seeing their countenance and their outlook become more positive by the time they left the clinic, always made my day!.

Don't be fooled by the friendliness when applying and interviewing.  This was the worst experience I ever had with a company!  Management continually throws employees under the bus whenever anything goes wrong and is never accountable for their own failures.  They will blame you for something without knowing all the facts or even looking into something to see it was simply a misunderstanding.  It's literally like a revolving door for most positions, which is unfortunate, since they are one of the larger employers in my area.  Every year they ask for employee input but when a complaint is brought up, that person is viewed as a "complainer."  Nothing ever gets resolved from these surveys and nothing changes so why give employees 'hope' something will change when they know they will never take the input to heart.  They pay decent, depending on your position, but when you consider all the time you have to put in to do your job correctly, the pay is awful!  I had no work life balance as my job duties were suited for 2 people and not 1 - while others in my area worked from home, came in when they wanted and left early.  They are not properly aligned and nobody will be successful until they balance out their workloads and stop giving all their money to the executive team and CEO (who which by the way are rarely in the office.)  It's a hostile work environment and when issues are addressed with HR, nothing is done as they seem to view management as "untouchable" for some odd reason.  People are allowed to harass other employees & speak to them in a demeaning manner since they know nothing will be done.  Unless you just need a filler while you find the perfect job, I would strongly suggest avoiding PeaceHealth as they are not worth it and your sanity is more important than a few dollars.

It's sad. I went into my career with PH with an "I want to help people, even if it is indirectly" attitude. Sure it was a position that offered nice pay and great benefits but I believed in their mission and it felt nice for about 6 months. Then they "restructured" and put in the SSC. I made the jump from IT to finance to go to Longview for a better environment only to be moved back to the SSC a year later. The SSC is awful. You take a lot of people and put them in a corporate setting, detached from what the hospital does and people they serve and you get the typical, mindless corporate employee. Upper management has high turnover and you get the feeling that the company is very lost and not nearly as viable as Legacy or other area hospitals. If you are so lucky to get a job at PH in December-February, don't get happy...you will likely be the one let go in September. Every year it is a cycle...hire on and fire within 6-8 months. If you are just out of college, you don't stand a chance if you are even able to get in at all. From my 4+ years there I saw what the mission and "patient care" really means to folks in facilities in our area. You have people that care a lot about patients in the hospitals and clinics and just as many that don't care to be there. Go to the SSC and the mission is lost. I get that a company needs to focus on $ and resources...but PH is getting it all wrong. I had to leave because I wanted something smaller and fosters a nicer environment.

My first 2 years were fabulous and I loved where I worked and with whom I worked. I had a repour with hundreds of employees and they would use me as their personal go to person.

I managed to keep that and I am still close to everyone I left behind. You see, after the restructure in March of last year we had new executives enter and some of the best ones "leave due to their job no longer being available." 

The middle management, doctors, nurses and many non-exempt employees are the best people you will ever meet. I will honor my relationships with those humans the rest of my life. Several have stood up to the lies that were being said behind my back by my supervisor. 

This professional man learned how much I really do take care of while I was on my first PTO in 3 years. Upon my return my happy loving world of where I wanted to retire became a negative world of betrayal that I did not want to be inside of. The mistrust and unprofessional mannerisms were beyond reproach. This is why I left the company. I have a reputation of caring dearly about how I treat others and how I present my work to people. Up until my time away I was told for 3 years that everything was perfect. Suddenly nothing was right no matter what I did. I was not worth the stress and migraines.

If you do take the chance I suggest you keep your pucker in the correct area so you will be taken care of in the professional manner you should be. Just keep your eyes open for any change of attitude around you. Everyone else will know if something is going to happen to you before you know it. This is how transparency works at PH.

I have been in the nursing profession for 38 years, unfortunately PeaceHealth was the worst place I had ever worked. They do not care about the employees or their so called mission statement. For them they are a 501C3 and just don't give a dam. If the patients actually knew what really goes on they would be appalled. Absolutely can't stress that enough. If you actually read ratings online from previous employees you would really get a head full. I honestly think these 501C3 companies should be rated and if they have bad reviews they should get that yanked from them. They are irresponsible with the donations they get, and do not spend it wisely where it really matters, they are to busy buying up and building new buildings and short changing staffing in nearly all of their facility's. It's a business you can bet on that. They have so many staff and providers leaving all the time, like I said they should be rated and their 501C3 status should be yanked. Unsafe safe working conditions are the norm. All talk the sisters who started this would be appalled at what it has become.  There is a lot of Vertical and Horizontal abuse that goes on, and even management knowing about turns their head and ignores it. It is an epidemic in the medical profession from one end of the USA to the other and PeaceHealth falls into the category turning a blind eye. There should be strong penalties just like when the state comes in or complaints are made to the state, these practices should have to come up with viable solutions to these ongoing problems, instead they turn their head and look the other way to busy making $.

Work-life balance
They don’t allow overtime and some days you can’t get your work done.

Pay & benefits
Benefits are terribly expensive here! Your “sick” days are taken out of your vacation days, calling it all PTO. So many have extremely high sick days and call it FMLA so they are golden but you still have to do their work for them.

Job security and advancement
Do your job and drink the Kool-aid.

Management
The higher ups and talking heads make a ton of money and enjoy many free perks that we minions must pay for. Yeah, upper mgmt makes a LOT!

Culture
They made so many cuts and fired so many people that those left behind can’t keep up very well or at all.  Everyone on staff is angry and it’s dog eat dog.

Overall
This is NOT a real Catholic hospital!! (Only in name for tax purposes.) They are an extremely liberal company that is insanely top heavy with management and suits getting the Royal treatment and big money. The on-boarding process is laborious and takes 2 weeks of cult training. It’s a joke. Every Chaplin that I met was a homosexual, affirmative action is more important than quality care. Insurance companies dictate the care so they can focus on the bottom line - which is always money. The home office is in WA and they sit on their throne of judgement without knowing facts but rather what feels good and has better optics. After 17 years I am sad to see the consistent downward spiral. As a faithful Catholic it’s an embarrassment. They are always hiring and firing, it’s laughable. Don’t bother making friends in any dept because they can be gone in a heartbeat. Find somewhere else to work!

My typical work day was from six am to two thirty pm. Opening up the lab for the work day, turn on all the computers, make sure all the draw chairs supplies were fully stocked, turn on the lights and open the doors. Accept lab orders from the incoming patient's input all of their demographic information, enter lab tests needed, copy insurance cards and print lab labels. Take the patient back into the lab draw station area and do which ever type of collection was needed for the patient's order. Label specimens and process them according to each test's need.

Client services is where I spent the last six of my nine years. This involved getting the computer programs opened for the day. This position was trouble shooting problems, answering questions for out lying Dr's offices staff, patients, tracking lab reports, gathering the correct information for clients on specimen requirements and processing. These duties also applied to the inpatient nursing staff at the hospital. This position answered any question that may arise in a laboratory and hospital setting. Finding missing lab reports that have not come back in the proper turnaround time and getting those reports to the ordering client.

Our management team and my co-workers were exceptional to work with and to work for. We all were a very cohesive unit and communicated very well.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Registered nurse 21 salaries reported	$52.29 per hour
Nursing assistant 12 salaries reported	$25.61 per hour
Patient access representative 13 salaries reported	$27.04 per hour
Licensed practical nurse 3 salaries reported	$32.90 per hour
Medical assistant 3 salaries reported	$29.75 per hour

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