- Joined
- Oct 14, 2001
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Well i guess it's time to do my fudiciary duty and warn my colleagues, about, the real world jobs and what to look for. I hope that other people also contribute and give back so that collectively we can clean up and make this profession more honest and better for all of us. First a little about me, i have been out for a few yrs and have gotten to see many different practice situations, the good the bad and the evil, these are my tales. Most of us as we come out of residency are not taught how to look for a job, and thus, lack even the most basic knowledge of how things work in the real world and thus are ripe for being taken advantage of. My first piece of advice to everybody is that, wherever you choose to work, many things can make a job attractive, but do not undervalue how important it is to work with people who you like and trust. if you don't give the proper weight to this you will eventually burn out as you spend to much time every day, at work and will inevitably suffer, i have seen this happen one too many times not to mention this. Now for the meat of this particular posting i have not met anybody that likes or trusts Anesthtix And Anthem Associates. These two entities are owned by the same people, Anesthtix is the anesthesia management company, and Anthem Associates is their locum tenems company, i think they now are part of a Company called Team Health, but this division (anesthtix and anthem associates) is still run by the gentleman who found the company (two pain trained docs), both of whom are esentially businessmen, who make money of other anesthesiologists they hire. Their MO is to take over a contract from an incumbant group(esentially stealing jobs from the local anesthesiologists who are often times caught off guard), by making a slick sales pitch on how they can run the department so much better(laughable), andwill not need a hospital subsidy. Hospital administrators, most of whom i am convinced are not knowledgeable, run to them when they hear this slick sales pitch, without doing a background check and simply calling the other hospitals these clowns have ruined and asking them about their experience with them. Once they have the contract, they really screw the hospital, anesthesiologists they hire, and are eventually kicked out but since their are thousands of hospitals, they run their scam onto the next unsuspecting and unknowing hospital. My belief is that they find out which hospitals are vulnerable to their sales pitch through their locums agencies(Anthems Associates- Funny how no hospital administrator at the hospitals i have worked at has yet to figure out that Anthems is owned by these same clowns, and thus that the hospital is probably being charged double by these scoundrels i will explain this later), Because the locums agencies keep a tab on all the hospitals, and any time a hospital needs locums the chances are that department is poorly run, understaffed, or in expansion mode, so it presents the perfect opportunity, for anesthtix to come in and take over the contract (remember their top two dogs are slick mba salesmen, who are pain docs but DON"T do any anesthesia but are somehow experts at running an anesthesia departments across the country Out of Florida(where they're located) how laughable is that. Anyways once Anestix has the contract they' re next MO is to advertise the job on gasworks, offering their big carrots of 12 weeks of vacation(laughable, i have yet to see anybody that gets these 12 weeks, because their reputation is so bad that they never have their hospital fully staffed as no one wants to work for them outside of a locum basis) and offering either 350k or 400k. with quarterly bonuses, (which you never see, because they will always tell you that, nobody got a bonus because they had to pay for locums, because they couldn't staff the hospital, which i believe is also a lie, because my belief is that they charge the hospital the locums bill and than pocket that money to , thus why they have their own locums agency and thats the only agency which they use). Note anthems like any management company has to make money off you so if theyre paying you 350 k youre usually doing 500k worth of work. New grads alot of times miss out on this concept. Anestix makes you take q3 call for the 3 weeks your on and then ideally gives you 1 week of vacation(as mentioned you will often lose your vacation, because they are not fully staffed, or you have constant turnover of mda's and are constantly breaking them in only to see them leave, and before you know it you're taking call, because the new guy anthem has found won't be credentialed, for a few weeks or someother half ass excuse) but in those 3 weeks that your working you re basically doing 4 weeks worth of work(another slick way anesthtix pulls the wool over your eyes, especially over new grads). furthermore, at any job you have, you will have your runins with other people (crnas, surgeons, nurses, administration etc), this is the nature of every job and happens everywhere i have been, the difference here is the because people know that a management company, is the boss they will call them and make complaints about you( this happen to every anesthesiologist at the 2 hospitals in 2 different states that i
worked for anesthtix through anthems(their locums agency), Anesthtix, will never take your side as their only concern is to maintain their contract( which don't maintain anyways as they have been kicked out of both of the hospitals that i worked for them). They went though 6 chiefs many of whom were good at the two hospitals i had experience with them, furthermore, they have gone through whole sale turnover( 12 anesthesiologist in 18 months at one of their facilities, a facility which was staffed with 4 Mdas.) we were forced to work with incompetant crnas as anesthtix doesn't care remember it s your license that is on the line. This post has gotten really long but Please people before you work with either Anthems ASsociates, or Anesthtix (or what other name they use to deceive people and get a clean start on their reputation), do some research on these guys. talk to some people that worked for them they have ruined to many people and to many hospitals for this charade to go on any further. At the current hospital everybody wants to kick them out, surgeons, mdas, nurses, they have the worse reputation in Anesthesia.
worked for anesthtix through anthems(their locums agency), Anesthtix, will never take your side as their only concern is to maintain their contract( which don't maintain anyways as they have been kicked out of both of the hospitals that i worked for them). They went though 6 chiefs many of whom were good at the two hospitals i had experience with them, furthermore, they have gone through whole sale turnover( 12 anesthesiologist in 18 months at one of their facilities, a facility which was staffed with 4 Mdas.) we were forced to work with incompetant crnas as anesthtix doesn't care remember it s your license that is on the line. This post has gotten really long but Please people before you work with either Anthems ASsociates, or Anesthtix (or what other name they use to deceive people and get a clean start on their reputation), do some research on these guys. talk to some people that worked for them they have ruined to many people and to many hospitals for this charade to go on any further. At the current hospital everybody wants to kick them out, surgeons, mdas, nurses, they have the worse reputation in Anesthesia.