Pros
Corporate seems to want to do their employees or “owners” as they like to call us shareholders right. They clearly have been trained in all the catchy terminology. The benefits are good not great, the out of pocket expense is basically what is standard in the market and profession no great savings with them. The 401k match is nice.
Cons
My group was one of the original founders to join and start USACS. I gave them 3 years to even start to come through on all their promises. It was clear they had no intention of owning up to their end of the bargain. I felt like I was constantly being exploited and pushed around. Local management would literally change hours and shift loads in the middle of a month with a day or two notice. It does not matter what your contract says especially when it comes to minimum hours. They will cut your hours well below agreed minimum to save a couple of bucks no matter what it does to morale. Their excuse is to appease corporate, budgets, and shareholders (bankers not you the physician shareholder). Meanwhile corporate will tell you how important your work and personal life balance is and how this is so important to them. Their is absolutely no communication from the people that make these decisions. When they send out the semiannual surveys (NPS) and all the employees call them out for the constant poor decisions they issue a mea culpa and go right back to their poor decision making never seeming to learn from their mistakes. My area in the southeast has had an exodus not seen since Moses left Egypt for the last time. Many of us have left to go work for their two main competitors. I am one of those and I can’t say enough how much happier I am. I received a 50% increase in pay per hour. Yes you read that right 50%. Everyone else in the state pays significantly higher, they know this and do not care. In the 3 years we were USACS my pay was cut every single year. They took away night differentials, holiday pay, scribes, etc, they brought some of these small benefits back but of course at a reduced rate. They will not appreciate you and don’t be fooled by all the hype of being an “owner”, in reality it means nothing to your day to day responsibilities. They pay substantially less than the market but use the shareholder incentive to string you along justifying the low wage. What used to be a great and awesome place to work with a wonderful culture was completely destroyed after we joined USACS. We turned into everything USACS claims they are not. It was clear corporate was completely deaf to all the issues and problems they are having. The worst is they will outright lie to you. What physician wants to be told how to practice medicine by a guy sitting in his business office with an MBA... this is the same guy who promised a raise for over 3 years only to be switched to a 100% RVU structure that had to be revoked and changed several different times. It was a complete disaster and the end result was even worse. Their was no transparency and was entirely secretive. A word of warning to anyone seriously considering them... have them give you specific details and show you actual figures and calculations how you will be paid based on others data. If they actually give you any data don’t believe them! Look at both winter and summer figures. They will tell you how great the pay will be and it might be during sick season in the winter and mislead you to believe it will be like that all year. What does it say about a company that constantly tells you all the great things about being “physician owned” and is not run by a physician?
