ChapCare administration threatens the future of the organization
Pros
I joined ChapCare because of its mission as a community clinic serving uninsured and underinsured patients. Now, over one year later, I can honestly say that I have never worked with such dedicated and competent clinical staff thus far in my career.
Cons
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the administrators who lead the organization. The following are 4 of the biggest areas of concern with ChapCare administration: 1. Certain administrators have created a hostile work environment that has led to extremely high turnover rates in their departments and the loss of numerous dedicated and competent employees (see other reviews on this website). 2. The lack of a formal HR department means that there is nowhere for employees to report their grievances. Furthermore, worker’s compensation cases and temporary disability cases have been mishandled by the informal HR department. 3. The disorganization and lack of communication in various administrative departments have led to serious compromises in patient care. This includes patient appointments being mistakenly canceled on 2 separate occasions for a provider whose first name is similar to another non-clinical staff who called out sick. This also includes the inability to provide patients flu shots because the finance department has not paid its bill. These are just 2 recent examples of regular, ongoing compromises to patient care due to the incompetence of these departments. 4. The leadership of ChapCare has allowed the above to happen for the last 6 years and has let 2 medical directors and numerous medical providers (doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants) leave due to the above problems without making any changes. A clear example of the leadership’s attitude towards their employees occurred at a recent all-staff training. A representative from a risk management firm was invited to speak to the staff regarding workplace safety. The representative included a slide that showed the different types of workers comp claims that were settled in the last several years. When an employee pointed out that the biggest claim was for undue workplace stress (point number 1) and asked the representative what can be done in response, the representative mentioned offering employee stress management classes. That should have been the end of the conversation. However, leadership proceeded to take the microphone and speak at length about how just because the claim was settled does not mean it was a legitimate claim. For the leadership of an organization to respond to employee concerns with such defensiveness and dismissal clearly shows a lack of responsibility for the organization. Five years ago, following the resignation of the first medical director under this current administration, the medical providers raised their concerns to the Board of Directors and nothing was done. Now, 6 months after the resignation of the second medical director under this administration, the current group of providers have again raised their concerns to the Board of Directors. Unfortunately, it appears that this time around there still will not be an adequate response. If so, ChapCare will continue to lose dedicated, competent staff, and unfortunately the patients will be the ones to suffer the most.