medical assistant

dental assistant

office specialist

nurse practitioner

support worker

Primary Health Care, Inc.

Working at Primary Health Care has been, without exaggeration, one of the hardest and most disappointing experiences of my professional life. When I first started as an interpreter, I truly loved my job. I felt valued, supported, and part of a team that cared about both patients and staff. Management was fair, the environment felt welcoming, and I genuinely believed I would grow there. I never imagined how quickly everything would fall apart. Everything changed the day PHC laid off around 45 employees. Overnight, they eliminated RNs, LPNs, interpreters and medical assistants. People who had dedicated years of their lives to this organization. My own position was eliminated without warning. I was told I had two choices: become a Medical Assistant under a provider’s license or lose my job. No discussion, no support, no transition plan just an ultimatum.
I tried. I pushed myself to adapt because I needed the job. But the “training” I received to become an MA lasted barely a week. One week to learn a job that normally takes a year. It was dangerous, unfair, and emotionally overwhelming. The pressure on us was unbearable. Mistakes happened, the system was so rushed, so chaotic, and so poorly handled. It felt unsafe for us and especially for the patients, and yet leadership acted like everything was fine. On top of the chaos, the environment became incredibly toxic. At PHC, whether you survive or suffer depends on whether you’re on certain managers’ “good side.” If you aren’t, be ready for disrespect, attitude, and constant nitpicking. The front desk lead shows fake friendliness but will throw you under the bus in a heartbeat if it benefits her. The level of favoritism is unbelievable  it affects everything from write ups to the way you’re spoken to.
Front desk staff in particular are treated horribly. MAs and providers feel comfortable yelling at you in front of patients. You can be doing your job correctly and still be disrespected. And if you try to stand up for yourself in a calm and professional way? You get written up for “attitude.” Meanwhile, management ignores the real problem an overwhelmed, burnt out staff trying to survive under an impossible system.

With the new schedules and systems, everyone is exhausted. When multiple employees from different departments are all burnt out and unhappy, that should tell leadership something but they don’t listen. They don’t address the root issues. They don’t support the employees who keep the clinic running every day.

I went into healthcare because I care about patients. I care about doing things right. But PHC made me feel small, disrespected, and disposable. We were underpaid, overworked, and constantly stressed  and leadership acted like we were the problem instead of the broken system they created. If you’re looking for a workplace that values you, trains you properly, respects your boundaries, or treats you like a human being, PHC is not the place. But if you’re okay with being stepped on, yelled at, ignored, and thrown into roles without proper training  then this environment might not bother you.
For me, this place broke my spirit. And I would never recommend anyone go through what I went through at PHC.


You get wrote up for being sick, even with a doctors excuse. And only get 7 write ups before you get fired. No sick time. Can’t use earned pto, not enough employees to cover. Everyone works against each other and turns each other in. Patient treat you horrible and you have to take it. Horrible negative work environment. Every one is out for themselves. You always get In trouble for trying to help or do things right. Constantly are in trouble, zero praise. There is not care for your personal life and family life. Other locations are not a safe environment, and other sites employees treat you horrible. But your expected to go and work with them. No one cares to help or show you where anything is, you just get thrown in face first, sink or swim. I’d never recommend even to an enemy. Health and dental benefits don’t cover anything if you even can get time off to use them. Management can never be found for help or fixing anything, equipment and it is so slow and out of date. But your expected to perform and get things done at a fast pace. 

I used to enjoy working here but the past year has been horrible. It seems like the turn around rate is ridiculously high lately. People are hired that have no clue what they're doing and then are left to train more new people a week later which is not fair to either party. New people are left to figure things out on their own and even if they do their job really well, PHC will fire them for an error that could have been corrected with a conversation. They do not believe in giving people second chances and do not care what you are going through in your life. They do not care if you are a workaholic completely dedicated to your work, because one slip up and you'll get fired with no cause or reason. Recently my favorite coworker got fired for making one mistake and she was the hardest worker I have ever seen. Always stayed late and super dedicated to her work even though she was thrown to the wolves by herself trying to learn with no help. I wish she'd come back and even her provider misses her and advocated for her to stay. But due to that, I'll probably be leaving soon as well. Theres no reason to fire a good and dedicated employee over following someone else's errors. But of course the original person who made the error wasn't punished, only the one following in her footsteps trying to learn everything on her own.

When I first started this job was great. Once they hired a new manager it started to go downhill pretty quickly for me. When I was hired I was told that this job was very flexible, that the team was very easygoing, and that " we don't get paid enough for management to be too strict with us." The new manager micromanaged me to the point that almost quit. I brought this to the attention of the mangers supervisor with promises that they would fix the issue. I stuck around with hopes that things would get better. Nothing changed, things got worse, and people started to leave. I felt like I was always being watched and anytime we would mess up instead of compassion it felt as if the manager was waiting to call us out for making even the smallest of mistakes. Our caseloads became very high (80-90 clients vs the 50ish we should have had), flexibility was gone, and no matter how many case managers reached out to supervisors, HR, Managers, etc nobody seemed to care about the issues we were facing. I am truly disappointed that this company showed time and time again that they would rather keep bad management and lose workers than fix the mistakes they made. 
I will say that my direct team and the nurse care managers were an amazing group of people to work with and I was sad to leave them. 

Most days were very busy, but that makes the day go by fast. 
      You can learn a lot from tour co-workers that have worked there before you. This is my first year as a CMA so I learned a lot from them.
      The office management was good to work with. The nurse manager would help the clinic area out if we were getting swamped. 
      But the upper corporate management, not so good. They were cutting back on employees starting with RNs, LPNs, and new hires in all PHC offices. They had no plan on how everything was going to work before they let people go.  I was there one day, gave my opinion the next day on how leaving the office in Ames with just one CMA to cover their provider, the other two aides (CNAs) immunizations/ injections, and Nurse only visits.  They brought one of the CMA they let go back in and fired me.
    Work culture: There was a variety of culture here. It made work here unique which I liked.
    The hardest part of my job was having to give the kiddos their immunizations. Did not like to make them cry.
       The most enjoyable part of my job was being able to help the patients with their health needs to get healthy and stay healthy. Also, I was able to work with a pretty great group of co-workers for a team.

What is the best part of working at the company?
This is a poorly run and managed clinic. Multiple small groups of mean girls and power struggles within the clinic. People who follow the OSHA guidelines are mocked and told "we always do it this way, don't do it the way the trainer teaches you" management didn't listen nor care that it was done half assed. Worst experience ever

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Lack of good management to control the kaos within 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Toxic and hostile. Hard to fit in and treated like an outsider 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
12 hr days. Being tossed between providers with not enough time to get charting and documenting done. Some did plenty while others not at all.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Training of volunteers, referrals, epidemic and pandemic responses. Proposal development, implementation and monitoring etc

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Inadequate response of ministry of health and political instability 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Very professional, timely initiation of the project with the human resource, logistics, planning and monitoring mechanism in place.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Morning meeting, coordinate with stakeholders, review reports and provide feedback to the supervisors and response immediately to any epidemics and security concerns…..,

* A typical day at work is helping patients get insured and knowing that they will come in withing 45 days to think you for the help you have given to them.  
* What I have Learned: I have learned how to build up my communication skills, how to work in a fast paste environment, and how to build a teamwork environment full of accomplishments.
*Management: I have managed to lead along with one of our 
Administration workers a training issue that was causing billing problems to Primary Health Care Clinics.
*The hardest part of the job: I think the hardest part of my job is getting adjusted to Change and Public Speaking. 
*The most enjoyable part of the job is waking up in the morning and knowing that you will arrive to a great teamwork environment at you job.

PHC is a Federally Qualified Health Center and the mission is to care for uninsured, insured and marginalized patients.  PHC holds the Federal Health Care for Homeless and consequently has satellite clinics (3) for care of Homeless in the City of Des Moines. There is also a clinic Van that treats school children at two High Schools/Middle Schools. 
Elderly patients particularly are assessed for alcohol use, isolation and mental health conditions.  If needed the patient can be handed off to a Behavioral Health Counselor or a Social Worker. .

If you consider being harassed by top management a fun place to work. This was the worst company to work for, they don't keep their word. example employee incentive to see more patients. Only seen incentive for a short period of time. Then we got nothing. But agreement by seeing we had to up keep our end of the more and more patients, with not enough staff or time. I feel it was like we herding in cattle. I don't feel patients were given adequate time to see provider. Its all about getting that next federal grant. And hiring more administrators. When what they need to hire clinical staff to care for the patients.
They have favoritism for employees. 
They make the rules up as the go.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Medical assistant 38 salaries reported	$22.96 per hour
Dental assistant 26 salaries reported	$22.33 per hour
Office specialist 32 salaries reported	$17.74 per hour
Nurse practitioner 24 salaries reported	$116,163 per year
Support worker 3 salaries reported	$21.94 per hour

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