registered nurse

patient care technician

registered nurse - medical / surgical

medical assistant

registered nurse - emergency room

UMass Memorial Health

Through my experience in the administrative setting at UMass Memorial Health Care, I have learned a wide variety of administrative duties. These duties include working in various systems such as Meditech, Allscripts, IDX and SharePoint, which assist in various aspects of patient care. I also have comprehensive experience with Microsoft Office, which aids a variety of organizational purposes. I have learned to efficiently work with insurance companies to ensure that the proper approvals and guidelines are in place for the patient’s evaluation, while ensuring that our social workers, financial
coordinators and clinical providers and support are briefed on all aspects of the patients status and care. I am responsible for developing intakes and a variety of other encounter forms that relate to the different aspects of multidisciplinary evaluations and transplant care. In addition, I work in the clinic directly with the patients and their families to facilitate their appointments and care through our department, while coordinating with a variety of other departments and diagnostic services to ensure that they receive organized healthcare.

In my previous position, I worked for over two years as the Coordinator for Neuropsychology. During this experience I worked as the main point of contact for adult patients with Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and various other cognitive disorders, while working with the parents and families of pediatric patients with educational and developmental disorders. I obtained prior authorizations, followed up with insurance companies in regard to changing policies and prior authorization denials and maintained and actively worked our database for any outstanding referrals and cases. I did intakes, developed clinical patient packets and scheduled patient
appointments. In addition, I managed the provider’s schedules, while performing various other administrative duties to ensure coordinated
care from start to finish. In this position I also assigned work and oversaw the production of a part-time staff assistant and volunteer.

Having worked effectively in various departments of healthcare, I have gained a sense of pride in being able to assist professionals from a wide variety of fields, as well as provide support and coordinated care for patients. I have fine-tuned my ability to multitask, while maintaining professionalism and a positive attitude.

I worked at CHL for a time in one of their substance abuse programs. The position was very strenuous and disorganized. Managers are frequently hired then leave which results in weeks to months of no management and "check-ins" from higher-ups who are acting as managers for multiple floors. You know it's a mess when higher up's are managing three floors and sound defeated themselves. Clients always make the day interesting and are the real reason to stay, I actually felt awful leaving because I was one of the few non-burnt-out employees that cared. The one thing I always heard from clients is that I was one of two-three people on my floor that "cared". All floors differ greatly in how they're managed and some are far better than others. Also, they're so understaffed that it's not uncommon that you will work or be MANDATED to work on another floor you know nothing about. Also, don't be shocked if you hear co-workers acting surprised if you make it past the first month as most do not. You know it's bad when your floor may or may not have a full-time nurse resulting in clients going off vital medication for days because it has to be "written in" by a nurse who is only in three times a week. 

My biggest problem with community Healthlink, however, is how untrained their staff is. I frequently saw case managers and residential counselors shutting doors in client's faces, switching clients case managers because a client was "rude" and refusing basic phone calls to a client's kid or parent. I can chock most of this up to the crazy workload and inefficient staffing resulting in extreme burnout (they have no system in place for dealing with this) but some of this stuff is basic and should be no no's in a professional health setting. Also, don't be shocked if you find yourself giving out meds (they found a loophole so you don't need to be certified) which is incredibly dangerous if you're not trained on how to watch clients properly. I was given a two-day bare-bones training (it was literally just team-building exercises and videos about chemicals and how to drive safely) and an "orientation" period which involved me doing everything and getting some of the worst training I've ever received because they expect their overworked counselors to train you with bare-bones oversight.

This all cumulates into a massively unsafe environment that I had to depart from due to the constant worry someone would be hurt or worse while I was working due to poor staffing and burn out.

Here, I worked as a PCA in an extremely busy outpatient clinic with twenty five doctors on rotating schedules, four nurses, and two PCAs. My job entailed to arriving patients, checking their health information, requesting copies of insurance cards, obtaining consent for HIPPA purposes, and verifying proper preregistration was completed. I would bring patients into a private room where we would review their current, past, social, and family medical history, medications, obtain accurate vital signs, and answer any questions they mat have. After, I would seat them in a treatment room and notify the doctor that they were ready to be seen. If the doctor was busy, I would ask them to return to the waiting room until their turn to be seen. Maintaining a stable schedule increased the patient flow and allowed for the day to run smoothly. If the patient needed a chaperon, I would accompany and console them while assisting the physician during the procedure. Once the patient was evaluated, the doctor would come to me and inform me of various orders like MRIs and other procedures. I would then educate the patient on preparations for accurate testing. I would record and share information with different scheduling departments so I could see the job was completed. During all of this, I was required to complete other tasks, such as printing and dispersing the next days schedule. I would fax various orders and medical information using HIPPA guidelines. I would gather information for physicians by requesting information from the proper facilities. Patients would call with various questions and it would be my responsibility to answer them to the best of my knowledge or forward the information to the proper party. I enjoyed assisting physicians in patient care. I enjoyed seeing patients have a comfortable visit when they are not feeling well and giving them the care they truly deserve. The hardest part of my job would be to hear of someone experiencing a terminal illness.

When you apply for a position at UMass, you have to go through about 5-6 people during the hiring process. No one returns your emails or your phone calls if you have any questions or a response for them. You are one of 13,000 employees and it CERTAINLY feels that way. This was the first red flag. Also, the badge office closes for an hour during lunch. No one tells you this - but I did get there prior to their posted lunch hour. They decided to close their office early for lunch that day. I had to wait an hour stranded in Worcester for this office to reopen. During "on boarding" for a PAC position, the very loud manager speaks of "those that make it." This was the second red flag. I should've run then. Unfortunately, the people in charge of this dept are spread very thin. Logistics and rules are being made up along the way because they have nothing worked out. They are basically just looking to get bodies on the phone. Patients calling up looking for directions crying lost in Worcester. Patients looking for covid tests calling the general surgery line. Lots of calls they don't train you for. Their reference guides are ridiculous and lack a lot of necessary information. Lots of people left immediately after the short training. I then understood the managers comment during on boarding. Also, you have no access to YOUR OWN SCHEDULE. They don't post it on anything for your own viewing. The number of errors with your work schedule day to day was ridiculous during training and when you first start. They contradict themselves. Also, my scheduled "lunch" was supposed to be 2pm (my work day was 9:30am-6pm). Good benefits and they make sure you know that.

* A typical work day is working with clients with dual diagnosis of substance abuse and mental health. Do assessments, treatment plans, do individual counseling, group therapy, interventions, documentation of charts, insurance reviews, interviews for admission, outplacement preparation for aftercare, aftercare planning.

* I have learned so much in the last 3.5 years. I am so much bettter clinician with providing therapy to the clients with Motivational Interviewing, Reality Psychotherapy along with being PTSD sensitive with the clients. I am a lot better with documentation with the charts.

* Management: Clinical Director and the Clinical Supervisor have provided support, encouragement and guidance for me to be a better clinician.

* Co-workers: Overall, we are an incredible team, building off of our individual strengths to be a better team in providing outstanding services to the clients with excellent results.

* Hardest part of the job: When clients are highly resistant to the therapy or counseling that we are providing for promoting change for sobriety and especially when they elope or leave the program to go out and use again. It's can be crushing when they leave and die in a short-time after an overdose.

* The most enjoyable part of the job: When I know that I am making a difference in the lives of those that I serve. When their life changes and they get themselves and their family back.

Favorite staff make errors but administration covers it up but when a person who does their job and is tagged makes an error they will be reprimanded.  There were times that staff would make medical decisions with out a medical person opinion.  Staff plays on cell phones, rude to clients and gives the impression that they are bothering staff.  Supervision is a learning tool but at CHL it’s used to tell everything you do poorly or negative reports from other staff.  Nothing positive is said.  Some of the favorite staff have almost no supervisions but the tagged staff may have them every week.  The senior administrative staff  and the compliance staff make up their own versions of an issue under evaluation. Communication is horrible too.  I will say there are a few staff that treat the clients with professional manor.  The clients know what staff care or which are putting on a good show. No upper management or administration should be trusted since they “forget” important information such as when staff becomes full time from part time that a 90 day probation period is in effect.  This is after staff had worked a 1 1/2 years only change was part time to full time.  So they can fire a person because of the probation period yet staff isn’t told this can happen.  CHL compliance staff twist words and repeat that since A staff  may not have followed protocol that they must not care about the issue.  Investigations into a situation should have a union rep yet at CHL its forgotten.

I was a  pier diem coordinator and was informed that when I was hired if a full-time/part-time position opens up I would be able to move up. Not the case at all. They require a bachelor's degree for those positions and to be honest if I had a bachelors degree I could easily find the same position at another company for $3-$4 more per hour even without any experience.

Working there my supervisor wanted me to move into a permanent full time or part time position but the agency based in Worcestor did not even give me an interview and I was already doing the job filling in for many weeks as the position was vacated by a former employee.

I was a previous full-time coordinator with my former employer but I relocated and could not remain with my employer. So I figured this seemed like a good organization in my field to work for. All other organizations WANT to keep their employers and have them advance up into full-time or part-time positions because it is a sound investment. 

Never I have ever heard of a company hiring from outside when they have qualified candidates all ready working in-house.

So don't fall for their interview tactics where they will inform of all the possible opportunities that you will have if you accept the position at $15 per hr. with a bachelor's degree. Go to a recovery rehab center (hint) and apply there and start at $18-$20 per hr. and being in a well organized professional setting with your own office and making your own schedule. None of which is given to you here.

Hired as per-diem clubhouse coordinator. Lots of promises that someday I will be able to go full time. I was getting 8 hours a week working every Wednesday day shift. Nothing more. I filled in doing the full-time and part-time positions for a few weeks as they were posted and vacant. I applied for both positions. Never got an interview. My manager wanted me to go full time and at least fill the part-time position. The agency/organization did not listen to him and hired outside candidates to fill the positions. 

They did move up a lazy employee from part-time to full-time and the staff was against it but the agency based in Worcestor moved him up anyways. The higher management does not listen to the local branch management. Lots of collusion there.

Was a big waste of my time there for a year waiting for those positions to open up so I could move up from per-diem hours. So don't believe them if you apply for the per-diem position. They make it sound great and you will advance but they want to keep you at per diem because they cannot find anyone willing to do that.

They know they have a revolving door and high turn over of employees but not willing to do anything about it. They require a bachelors degree for a $13 an hour job but they say they will take  experience in lieu of the degree but they don't. 

If you have a degree don't waste your time here. You can start out at the local Recovery Center in the next town over at $20 or more an hour full-time without experience and doing alot less.

Being a second shift technologist, a typical day at work begins with connecting with fellow co-workers for a report on the day's events.  We, the evening shift work together to cover all the required areas including outpatient clinical, portables, OR, spine center, joint center imaging.  Because we have a smaller staff than the day shift we all cooperate by smoothly flowing from one task to another.  For example, first you may have a few portable xrays in the NICU and next you're doing a multiple trauma study in the ER.  The ability to change hats is one of the most useful and effective skills I have acquired.  Because we work second shift we are mostly self managing which is another valuable skill.  Me and my co-workers take turns when simple management skills are required.  Of course we properly report any significant events for our managers to keep them in the loop.  The hardest part of the job for me has been dealing with security issues and patients with bad intentions (i.e., drug seekers).  There are many best parts for me.  I find working the c-arm on orthopaedic cases in the OR fascinating.  Caring for elderly patients is also very satisfying.  Often I find myself in awe of their strength and knowledge despite the fact that they may be terminally ill.  I chose to change my career path almost ten years ago to become a rad tech.  The only regret I have is that I didn't do it sooner.

this is the most corrupt establishment that I have ever worked for. The management is honestly the root to this chaos. It's pretty pathetic when the monthly schedule is posted with more mandatory shifts that are left empty than there are shifts that are covered. How does that work? Although you will never see management around after 4:00 on "a late day". A typical day at work at CHL is walking into a short staffed shift followed by a short staffed next shift which often results in mandatory overtime. The staff burnout is easily overlooked by program directors and upper management. The inconsistency makes the work environment unbareable. While management sits around with an ego that is "untouchable" the programs are just falling apart. The staff turnover rate is so high that you often are being trained as a new employee by someone who is also in training. They will hire anyone to just have a body available to look good for DPH visits and to prevent mandates but they hire under qualified staff because anyone with any compassion and knowledge about addiction won't settle for this place. You know your program is a wreck when your offering one position to multiple staff just to keep them for a little longer because you're so desperate for employees. This place is a joke. Honestly, not that a pay cut would be likely elsewhere, but if you're offered a job will even less pay, take it before you get sucked into this place.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Registered nurse 257 salaries reported	$56.18 per hour
Patient care technician 320 salaries reported	$21.71 per hour
Registered nurse - medical / surgical 206 salaries reported	$49.83 per hour
Medical assistant 194 salaries reported	$25.84 per hour
Registered nurse - emergency room 181 salaries reported	$56.16 per hour

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