I work for a healthcare company that owns a bunch of mental health, substance use, and eating disorder treatment centers. It was recently acquired by a private equity firm. I started there in October and 8 people have left already. I'll be the 9th, with another leaving next week.
The director was a PO before this job and has no clinical experience, no background in medicine, therapy, social work… also, no masters degree so she can't even legally do any of the stuff we as clinicians do, yet she makes insane policies and then if we say anything, like “this is too much to fit in,” or “I'm overwhelmed” she's like “well this is the expectation.” No support, no dialogue. The goal is to cram as many clients into the room as possible, nevermind the quality of care. How can I give every client the attention they need? I don't think this company is at all concerned about client needs. It's just money to them.
I calculated all of the tasks that have to be done in 1 week (this is based on 5 clients). I run group therapy, individual therapy, family and school meetings, intake assessments, treatment plan meetings, discharge plan meetings, drug testing, insurance reviews, supervision, staff meetings, and documentation like group notes… it came to 50.5 hours per week. And that didn't include phone calls, checking email, and any crisis a kid could have . There's no way to get it done unless you work more than your 40 hours. Since I started work I have stopped all my hobbies and I don't even have time to eat and I've lost 25 pounds in 4 months. When I brought up that I felt overwhelmed and struggling to get it all done, my boss told me everyone else does it, that i just didnt know the expectations because i wasn't trained properly, that it I never asked for support or that I didn't ask the way they wanted me too… the list goes on.
They also pressure us to constantly take clients, telling us we're losing revenue and we're going to have no clients soon, but when we say we were pressured to take clients that weren't clinically right for the program ' my boss was literally like “show me an email where I pressured you.” Our program is also meant to have 2 therapists anìd a support staff. For months I was the only person running the program and operating it. I expressed from early on that we need care coordinators and my boss told me to get that, I had to write up a job description to justify it. Basically a way to guarantee we never get it.
Last rant then I'll stop – our support staff got diagnosed with some eye problrm and texted that he needed an eye transplant. Not only did my boss ask him how he could be useful, but she also keeps trying to guilt trip me like “you don't see what I'm]6 doing behind the scenes for you, trying to support you, trying to hire staff.” When I resigned I said, the program is suppose to have support staff and part of your job is to hire and staff the programs…. you're not doing me some sort of favor.
Anyway I wanted to let you all know, I told them enough is enough. I'm hoping I can do a work exchange at an intentional community/eco village, see if I can do it. Been wanting to do that forever.
I wish everyone had the luxury I have, to walk away when you're not being treated right. Till then, I hope this post helps someone out there.