nurse practitioner

acute care nurse practitioner

emergency medicine physician

physician assistant

physician

Sound Physicians

PHYSICIANS! BEWARE!!! I worked for Sound Physicians as a locums in a few of their hospitals through Echo for more than two years and have seen concerning trends in all hospitals where I worked which you should carefully consider before pursuing a job with them.  They may say wonderful things about their vision and the services they provide etc. But bottom line is they care about money and not patient care (now of course there are people and physicians within the organization who do care about patients but remember there's a huge corporation behind any facade of 'high-value good patient care' and this corporation cares most about the bottom line and in the end you will feel these pressures driving 'production' ). 

One 'red flag' I suggest you consider with these 'provider' management groups is the type of physicians they hire--Sound tends to recruit and hire two groups of physicians- those newly graduated who haven't been taught in medical school that it shouldn't be considered normal to have someone else micromanage not just your medical decisions but more importantly (to Sound) how much money you're costing the hospital (they will eventually show you your 'data' and how poorly you compare to whatever is expected)/how long your patients are staying in the hospital/how high you're billing for the services you provide (the higher the better since Sound is making money off of you--and do know they have been sued by government agencies for overbilling as this is what they encourage you to do--obviously they don't tell you to outright overbill, but they make it abundantly clear that they think you should billing for the highest level of care on the vast, vast majority of patients). [As a side note, I don't think you should keep patients in hospital longer than necessary both for their benefit and the hospital's bottom line, nor do I think you should order unnecessary tests, but there's a true push from Sound to get patients out the door as quickly as humanly feasible, which is stressful for the physician and often bad for patients]. Another group of physicians they tend to hire is those with visa issues--nothing wrong with these physicians but this group is often 'stuck' and so will take almost any job.  If you choose to go forward and interview with them for a position, be sure to ask to talk with any senior physicians (if there are any) and those who might have visa problems--and get the real story, without admin staff around, perhaps by phone or e-mail.  

If you're still interested in working for them, I say go through Echo (Sound's locums agency) and become a locums first. That way you can see how things work first hand, and if you're still interested you can sign on (and they will ask you to sign on unless you just do a horrific job).

A typical day consisted of balancing the overall management and development of an inside sales sourcing team that implemented many different techniques in sourcing active and passive physician candidates for the recruiting needs of our hospital partners, in addition to personal production. Roughly 50% of my team was remote and were spread out all over the country.

One the of hardest aspects of the job was dealing with many moving parts in a high demand environment with a newly formed team, where 50% of the team required intense hands on basic training due to low tenure and industry experience. My team supported their senior counter-parts in all regions and all service lines. This comes out to be about 200+ provider partners nationwide with many of them classified as high need red sites that need a lot of attention. The workloads were high, the needs were immediate, and the competition and demand for physicians was and continues to be fierce. Sourcing physicians for hard to recruit, very remote areas across the country, requires critical out of the box thinking, resilience, and top notch talent. Combine this with an acquisition and all of it's ripple effects combining two vastly different cultures, made this a very challenging position. 

I moved up in the company fairly quickly, which, one on hand was rewarding, and on the other, it stretched me to the max with the responsibility to form, lead and develop a new team with my limited tenure doing the job itself for only 8 months before taking on another position in the company. This was very challenging and exhausting at times, but it kept me on my toes and developed me in many ways; it was a great development experience. 

The most enjoyable part of the job was impacting the lives both professionally and personally of individuals on my team. Seeing them get through tough uncertain times and flourishing thereafter was hard work but very fulfilling. I also had the satisfaction of seeing something come out of nothing in forming the culture of the team and the standardization required to run in sync.

When I joined the company, I was paired with a nurse in the same position with experience for about two weeks. Even after my initial orientation with her, she really went out of her way over the months to make sure I understood the job and was progressing. Because the regional managers have multiple sites in different states, it makes it difficult for them to really give new nurses/employees the time they need to master the job. So if you did not have a good work buddy in another site with some good experience, you are pretty much set up for failure. 
Yes we did attend Foundations as new hires, but the concepts were so abstract and not much coaching occurred there. I think I even came out more confused from that training than i originally was. Then I was paired with a mentor who was also awesome, and she could be reached for guidance at anytime.... She also tried her best to make sure I understood the process but alas, she was also out of town in another state. 

The main challenge for me though in this company was that employees were not held accountable for their actions and even when issues were brought up with management, nothing was ever done about it to improve the process. As the Clinical Performance Nurse, I also ended up working as the only resource person for the company at my hospital site, the office manager, front desk person, IT person (fixing printers, phones, changing toners), pulling trash, keeping track of physicians who did not make it to work and finding replacements...the list goes on. I ended up being the Jack of all the trades, with my main focus working as a CPN lacking. 

Every company has its shortcomings and I would have stayed if I did not have to do all those other extra work (which I did not even get paid for). Even after bringing it up with management several times, and also from other nurses and nothing was ever done to rectify the problems, I knew I just had to find myself work elsewhere where i would get that job satisfaction, and not end up being burned out as I was at SOUND.

The company itself seems to have good core value and vision. But with multi level leaders, management on site becomes very poor. Not sure, upper level leaders do not know or just ignore to find out the actual situations onsite. They should not just listen from onsite leadership team only. They should ask feedback from actual working physicians in team,coordinator etc. And we did not see that even though there has been obvious situations due to lack of leadership reliability, unethical status, being unprofessional, dishonesty and not even good as colleague. Can you imagine that kind of leader onsite is grading you while upper level leadership did not even ask actual working team to see what is going on? Well, if there is no hope for improvement, good physicians who were dedicated when they joined the company , have to move on. In the beginning,I was hopeful that upper level leadership will try their best to find out. However, even after they know that, they do nothing. Unfortunately, because of onsite immediate leadership lack of skills and other factors, Company lose good providers. However, by seeing the situation that upper level leadership doing nothing, it seems like the company is ok to lose good physicians rather than investigating for the facts. Interesting thing is there is no way actual working physicians team can give feedback to the onsite leadership? Just hopeless to continue enjoying for what you do..... Working environment becomes toxic environment.    
Nonetheless, to point out positive from job, i met a lot of good people too as a team. While enjoying my work in contact with patients and other multidisciplinary team, I also learnt that one bad leader who is non reliable ,dishonest and non competent as leader, can drive good team away.... If upper level sound team can truly look into this, the core value of the company will be intact and be trusted by working team again.

I am a newer member of the hospitalist medicine team for Sound Physicians at Aiken Regional.  I had the pleasure of going through their new provider training program for 3 months. I loved the structure of the training program which included online lectures and modules for further learning as well as time learning on-site with both teams of providers. It was a great catalyst into the hospitalist medicine field as a new graduate, and you can truly tell that each member of the Sound Physicians team wants you to succeed. The providers who trained me went above and beyond to explain disease processes and the reasons why behind their medical decision making rather than just going through the motions. It was such a blessing to be provided 3 months of training prior to starting as an independent provider, because then I felt more confident that I was making the right decisions for my patients. My favorite thing about this job is how involved I get to be in my patient 's care and how much time I can spend educating them and their family members. I am given a wide variety of patient cases each day which encourages learning in all fields of medicine and thinking outside the box. The 7 days on/7 days off schedule that most of our hospitalist work also allows for good work/life balance to spend time with family, friends, and catch up on your life outside of the hospital on your full weeks off. There is also plenty of room for advancement up into the company, bonuses, and one day even becoming a Sound Partner.

First, all companies are corporate, but they prioritize this beyond what is considered acceptable in healthcare. They underpay and underdeliver. They expect the physicians to make it work for the company while overcharging clients and underpaying the physician. Pay per shift is lower than average. I'm not sure where they get the $409k average on this site as all of my physicians make sub $300k. The regionals make about $325k. They also structure it so that you work for bonuses essentially but set up so that many are unattainable. They tied the Sepsis metric to the ED department which is also run by TeamHealth!!! Needless to say none of my docs got that portion of the bonus. Also if you leave before they give you your bonus, you can't have it. Nice because it takes them on average a year to pay out the bonuses. We are still waiting on Q3 2019!!! They just keep your bonus. It isn't even spread out among whoever stays. You know the team that made the money and business!! Medical is paid by yourself and is not even a good plan, but you can decline and get your own elsewhere. Overall they are extremely thirsty to grab hospitals and everything is corporate garbage. I had to give the same corporate presentations over the course of a week to the same C-Suite and corporate officials of the hospital system. I was told to just present it and put a spin on it. They want to keep the sites guessing so they can pocket from the contract, billing and non-paid out bonuses. Time for them to go the way of the dodo. Thankfully 1 system has already kicked them out and another huge system is looking to do the same.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Initial it was the autonomy and their organic professional development for role and career with the facility and Sound Physicians

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Not having the support of direct leadership and medical provider.  Compounded by not having day one access to necessary onsite electronic systems.  Medical provider did not understand we were intended to work in a symbiotic partnership. Information should flow both ways and we both as stakeholders needed to be on the same sheet of music.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Looks and sounds awesome, but for me it was not a supportive environment and direct supervisor would make contradictory statements. Senior to Executive leadership at the site were not transparent in dealings or very open to acknowledging and working to resolve issues. For me was a negative experience.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Monday to Friday either 0700-1500 or 0800-1700.  Review admissions& expected discharges from prior day. Great incoming provider ask if any issues & anticipated DC for the day.  The rest of day is am huddle, safety chat the care conference with onsite care dept. role is to identify issue either organic to facility/health system, staffing/provider or to insurance, patient or rehab needs.  Collaboration with medical providers and care management and speciality groups.

I can honestly say this is one of the best places I've worked.  Does it have it's challenges, absolutely but what company doesn't.  It's tough to see some of the reviews here because a one off experience, or one bad manager can hinder the view of an entire company.

I have the pleasure of interacting and working with various leaders within the organization and most seem really invested in their people and building their groups/regions.  I feel like leadership across all services are diverse. Sound is also diligently asking for feedback and coming up with new ways to improve how they support, develop, and train their people.  

I personally receive a lot of support in my role, and professional/personal development is in encouraged. I'm able to utilize and participate in programs that have been developed for other roles or management level.

I personally have a flexible work schedule and know many others that do who are not physicians of course.  I also can work from home which is great!

Some cons are benefits, they aren't the worst but could be much better in regards to medical cost, 401k match, and maybe adding sick pay, right now we only have general PTO but at least 3 weeks so not that bad.  Sometimes policy and procedure isn't always 100% clear and our resources page isn't the easiest to navigate if you need to find information on benefits or policy.  HR department could use some life pumped into it, I experienced better.

Overall a great place to work, more pro's than cons for me and that's even with the many frustrating days but it's all about perspective.

●	Serve as the point of contact between Sound, the hospital, and the physicians as it relates to administrative functions (data collection, meetings, paperwork, calendar, schedule change requests etc).
●	Support Chief Hospitalist in data collection and analysis for core measures and other process improvement efforts, team scheduling, and distribution activities. Detailed spreadsheet work and some data analysis needed.
●	Schedule meetings and ensure attendance for hospital events. This includes team meetings, hospital committee meetings, and community outreach meetings. Room reservation and food service should be provided as appropriate. Also, keep meeting minutes at team functions.
●	Assure on-boarding logistics are in place for new physicians (coordinate with Sound and Hospital).
●	Assist in scheduling physician interviews and related logistics.
●	Understand and be ready to assist doctors with the use of SoundConnect™ for entering charges on patients in the hospital.
●	Forward billing queries, deficient records notices, death certificates requiring signature, and other medical records information to the appropriate physician to facilitate their completion.
●	Forward patient care, staff, and other concerns and issues from outside the program to the Regional Chief Medical Officer and Vice President to be handled appropriately by them.
●	Assist hospitalists with making sure they have access to network and Sound computer systems

Do not apply here. RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN!

Unless you're ready to bend over backwards for a manager that couldn't care less about you, find somewhere else to work. It's not worth your mental health.

If you're not 1 of the favorites, your manager will do nothing about any concerns you have - ESPECIALLY IF IT INVOLVES HER FAVORITES. You explain your working needs & those are less important to others wants. If you don't have capacity for a spare meeting that could've been an e-mail, guess what - SHE DOESN'T CARE!

But you better not fall behind in your work due to the unnecessary meetings, because even though you told her you didn't have time - You should've somehow prioritized better....make sense? -_-

Oh, and be careful of snakes in the office. Almost everyone up there uses very vulgar language, but it's only allowed if  you're in good with the management if you're in the provider services dept. Plus, the amount of gossip here is ridiculous!

If you're a POC, don't expect to get the same recognition as your fellow co-workers that aren't.

Don't expect leadership to EVER be honest with you about their intentions.

Don't expect to be supported when dealing with extremely rude nurses & doctors. If you love being insulted, screamed at, etc. this is the perfect fit for you.

Don't expect any appreciation of your hard work.

This place seems great at first, but honestly, it's a garbage show & I'm so happy I left for something better. If Rob Bessler truly saw how things were at this location, he'd have a fit.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Nurse practitioner 15 salaries reported	$156,080 per year
Acute care nurse practitioner 25 salaries reported	$163,200 per year
Emergency medicine physician 10 salaries reported	$203 per hour
Physician assistant 7 salaries reported	$168,714 per year
Physician 16 salaries reported	$328,672 per year

Working at Sound Physicians: Company Overview and Reviews

Sound Physicians

Sound Physicians Ratings

Popular jobs at Sound Physicians

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected