This job is what I would describe as a "necessary evil" towards a more rewarding career for nurses that want to leave the bedside. First con is the most obvious, the pay is less than what I made a new grad nurse. The pay is bad, no way around it. Second con, micromanaging you wouldn't believe. I'm talking about they keep track of your bathroom breaks to make sure its not going over 5 minutes, twice a day. Your lunch time is pre-scheduled by workforce management, who doesn't know you. You get one other ten minute break that is also pre-scheduled. They notice if you spend too long after each call typing up your nursing documentation. Your call time and documentation time are all tracked, by the way, and if you spend too much time on either one, another supervisor you've never met or spoken to will tell you to speed it up.
Third con, depending on the season, the calls are NON-STOP. I'm talking about you've lost your voice at the end of the day because you've literally never stopped talking, except during your pre-determined break times (dont go over that break time, you'll be reprimanded!)
Forth con, disrespectful callers are the norm, not the exception. This is because the Medcor process is incredibly tedious and long, most callers lose patience before you even get to triaging them. Medcor emphasizes "getting to triage as soon as possible" but has nurses taking social security numbers before you even begin to document the time of injury (with exceptions for emergencies, of course).
The final con, you are audited frequently which is understandable, having someone check your work, but they will tear apart every single word you said, the order and which you said it and how quickly you got your script done. Every single word you mutter is recorded, sometimes even after the call ended. If you get cussed out, berated or disrespected by a caller, management WILL take the callers side, excusing the behavior on "oh they just got injured" or "its a stressful process", there is no excuse good enough for ending a call even if you know the patient is safe and they are just yelling at you with no end in sight. I have asked multiple times for a manager to speak to a caller who was very upset (always justifiably so), and they will just flat out refuse to take over the call. They aren't doing anything else, they will respond to your messages asking for help with "have you tried this" but a manager will NOT pick up the phone and talk to the caller for you to help mitigate the situation.
