Pros
Daily Fooda stipend, free coffee/barista, unlimited (mostly unhealthy) snacks
Cons
As a JDA, we are constantly being hounded by management to abstract a certain number of cases every week and are threatened that we’ll receive a warning, which leads to a performance improvement plan (PIP), if we do not meet the goal. We are also expected to meet a QA goal of only 80%, and only 10% of cases are QA’d by your lead. Therefore, the rules of abstraction and QA are at your lead’s discretion, and many fields are coded inconsistently amongst leads and cancer subtypes. This data is being used to help cancer patients and only 10% of it has its quality checked by managers with subjective rules. JDAs are undervalued and given minimal incentive or aid to succeed. We’ve all graduated with at least a 4-year degree and were hired to be data ANALYSTS, but all they’re having us do is read through oncology documents and code things such as diagnosis, treatments, and outcomes. We’re expected to work overtime to meet goals but do not receive OT pay or any additional bonuses. If you go above and beyond and/or suck up to the leads, they’ll promote you to DA. As a DA, you’ll receive more work but the same pay, so there isn’t really an incentive to get promoted. On the other hand, if you don’t meet the quality and quantity goals every week, you’ll be put on a PIP where you won’t receive any additional training but are expected to improve in 4 weeks or be terminated. Additionally, management tracks your hours to ensure you’re working 40 hour weeks without taking into account meetings, bathroom breaks, etc. If you do happen to meet your goal before the week is over, you aren’t allowed to help teammates who have gotten more difficult cases meet their goal. The leads have no previous experience managing people, and it really shows. They’ve been caught complaining about JDAs by ear as well as over a public Slack channel, they show favoritism, and most of them look away when they see you walking down the hall rather than saying “hi”. They don’t know how to establish healthy, professional relationships with their employees or how to communicate properly. They also like to make up their own department rules that don’t apply to the rest of the company, such as no unlimited PTO and you have to wait one year before transferring departments. Overall, working as a JDA has been the worst job experience I’ve had, with the worst managers I’ve had. I would not recommend this job to anyone, especially if you’re looking to gain new skills. You will be disrespected by the entire company and have an unhealthy work life.