Imagine you are in a burning building, but those in charge have no interest in putting out the fire. Welcome to Zoom, where the walls are brightly colored and there are flashy gadgets everywhere. You are tasked with the job of seeing patients every 15 minutes, in what will be described to you as the perfect visit. Now, every 15 minutes is not a foreign concept to many in medicine, but you are going to do this with only one other person in clinic with you. The clinic assistant may or may not have any medical experience, all that is asked is the equivalent of a college degree (but not required). They will run the front desk, lab, phlebotomy, answer phones, solve insurance problems, scheduling issues, janitorial work, and literally anything else that arises. They also have no protected breaks- this includes eating or the restroom. Now. Cue patient A who walks in without an appointment just moments before an open slot disappears. Protocol tells the clinic assistant they must be scheduled immediately, pushing the provider 2-3 minutes late, and yes, you must take a patient back who is up to 5 minutes late. No problem, right? 10 minutes to solve what literally just walked through the door. Patient B, C and D come in during patient A appointment. Some having appointments, another wanting a blood draw, others just wanting to ask your clinic assistant questions distracting them from checking out patient A and drawing their blood. Meanwhile no one ever collected patient C's urine sample so they go to the restroom ruining the chance to run a urinalysis. Patient D is irritated no one can see them the exact moment they walked in so they start a fire in your lobby in leave. Call HQ to ask for help- the answer will be to move up to the next floor- there is no fire there. Also everything has been rebranded to be amazing, creativer, sexy Zoom+ instead of ZoomCare!
So the part was left out where the Help Team (now renamed "Guru") can also schedule patients. This collection of people has an even less chance of having medical experience, and are explicitly told to not screen patients on their complaints. If the patients chest pain is an emergency, you are tasked with then getting them to the ER (after we take their $$$ in the regular clinic). Since every visit must be perfect, that means you must maintain a certain percentage of checking patients in on time, the computer will track you. After solving whatever patient A was worried about in 12 minutes flat, you now bring patient B back. Guru team scheduled them for "prescription refill " and ignored your request for clarification when you saw it scheduled. They are interested in controlled substances we don't prescribe. Cue anger directed at both provider and clinic assistant- "Why wasn't this told to me before? Why doesn't my insurance cover this? I was was told you were primary care." The way this crisis is solved? We will make the new floors **speciality** clinics and a step-down ER. They will be staffed with specialist MDs who can receive the inappropriate patients, after the patient has already ripped off your head and burned it of course. No matter, patients and all involved advance up in the building, there is no problem you are reassured.
Thinking you might be able to finally might be able to finish some work, you discover that the computer EMR is down, a very common occurrence. Leaving you with paper charts. No way to check any lab results or answer any number of calls that the patients have (that want a call back right away). At this point you are thinking of ways to amend the situation, maybe some benefits to round your life/ help with your severe burns. You will find, that despite Zoom being a new independent health insurance provider, you can pay thousands out of pocket for anything outside of Zoomcare. So you better pray your burns are minor. Oh and there is no such thing as sick days (makes sense being a medical facility, right?), so either use your low amount of PTO or take unpaid time.
At this point, it doesn't take long for most employees, you will break into a sprint and head for the roof. Looking for management themselves to help you. The building is literally on fire dammit. You will hear excuses like- "We are a startup company", "That's not in the budget", and "You should go to talk to ___, they can help you". The CEO himself only pauses to pat himself on the back: we will take over the world with our new healthcare system, progress measured entirely by expansion. New floors and buildings, more technology and self-congratulatory news coverage. Think of the positive way you can spin being on fire. At the exact same time, he and others belittle and publicly shame any who question him, many living in fear of the next time he will flippantly change his course and task others with fixing the next disaster. But what about the others who were abandoned in the fire? The blistering rate of turnover? An exact quote from the CEO explained simply; "out with the old, in with new".
This is not a fire that you can put out, so don't try. You will either stay just long enough to jump out, or see yourself become one of them. Don't believe the recent planted reviews here, they are in deep and desperate.
