I started our at Life Care Center as a medical records intern, when I was finishing up my bachelor's degree in HIM. I was briefly (can you work a computer?) interviewed for reception for nights and weekends. I was hired in with no orientation or training (would happen months later) because of needing someone now. Did have to pass background and drug screening.
As reception, I proved my computer skills and ability to adapt to whatever was needed of me along with knowledge of coding from my education, I was promoted within a year to Accounts Receivable. I was in that position for less than one year before they asked me to go to sister buildings to help and promoted me to ABOM and now BOM. I've been with Life Care for 3 years.
In all of those positions, things were stressful because decisions really aren't yours. Even as BOM, I still need approval from ED who needs approval from above him. This can be frustrating. Especially to a BOM who is suggesting an admission referral is a financial nightmare and we should deny but census is low. There is a mentality that a head in the bed is better than nothing even if we don't get paid, which ultimately falls on the BOM.
I enjoy my job. I get to help residents and their families with Medicaid. The worst part is learning how many people did things that make the ineligible or heavily restricted and not being able to actually help them as well as the families who depend on the income of the resident and make decisions about LTC pla
ProsDecent benefits, pay, flexibility
ConsStressful, corporate mentality, lack of actual power in management positions
1.0
State Tested Nursing Assistant | Westlake, OH | Jun 16, 2019
Get ready for a tell all!
DO NOT WORK HERE! DO NOT PUT YOUR LOVED ONES HERE! I've worked for this company for a few years, and when I started it was a great, welcoming, a family-like building that truly cared about its residents and other staff. But within the last few years I've seen 3 different Administrators/Executive Directors, 3 different DONs, many different titles to attempt to "balance" power throughout the building, such as condescending and rude unit managers and weekend managers. Not to mention the majority of the members in these superior positions don't help us with staffing, leave us to work short staffed, and don't know how to answer the phone when they're on call. Nurses who refuse to help but prefer to stay behind the desk, so much so that some even demand you not allow residents their rights to lay down when tired because they don't want to walk the hall to give meds but would rather you bring them to the nurses station then put them to bed on their demands. Aides who give their all to this facility are often treated poorly when advocating for their residents. Resident safety is often compromised due to managements fixation on the wrong issues. Instead of wondering why were working with 1 aide to 39 residents and trying to help/fix the situation, they write you up for not having time to take a break. And please don't even get me started on the way management allows nurses to treats STNAs. Nurses have forged witness statements to get people fired, Nurses have threatened to beat up STN
ProsSome of the staff is genuine and really cares...but mgmt pushes them out
Consjust about everything.
1.0
Licensed Practical Nurse | Pueblo, CO | Jan 27, 2020
Scary low staffing
I wouldn’t recommend this facility to my worst enemy. Staffing ratios are DANGEROUS! VERY DANGEROUS!Complaints from patients and family members are constant, and justified. Work load is unreasonable. Patients are put at risk, The atmosphere is so stressful you can feel it. Managements mentality is “I don’t work the floor, so not my problem”. Nursing management are all Busy with their own agenda and are buried in paperwork, and the turnover is as significant as it is for regular staff. The in most cases the management is requested to work the floor along with their regular jobs which makes them tired and overstressed and trickles down to everyone. very poor communication between management and staff as well as shift changes. No family work balance as they will work you to the ground I will say the staff nurses I worked with were superb, and it was like a family on the floor. Nothing like working dangerously short staffed to cause bonding! However, management is a cluster and are so busy, they don’t care about the employees. You can be drowning, and verbalize this, and yet they still sit in there offices joking and talking without a care in the world. They will put in orders for the new patients that come in and consider that enough help for the day.CNAs and nurses work dangerously short, sustaining injuries and verbal / physical abuse from patients as well as verbal abuse and threats from patient families management does not back their staff, and allow patients and their fam
Work-life balance
You can specify what days you are available and days you want off before being hired and even after if things in your schedule change.
You have the opportunity to work overtime most of the time if you choose.
Each schedule you have 1-3 days you are mandated to stay over for 2 hours for the next shift if someone calls in and they are short staffed.
Pay & benefits
You get a sick day every month you are there starting after your 90 day probationary time is over. You also get a personal day each month starting the same time as you sick days. You get 10 vacation days a year.
Job security and advancement
They pay for you to get your CNA or CMT certification. You have to sign up for the CMT course on a sign up sheet that they put up. Then they will interview you and drug test you. If all that's good, they put you in the classes.
They offer to pay for your schooling for nursing school.
When you are in school, your work schedule is very flexible.
Management
The management members are nice for the most part. They will work with you on your schedule if something comes up where you are unable to work during a certain day or time. Management is very helpful in solving conflicts between co-workers. They try not to assign you to a specific hall if you request not to work it. They try to keep the same CNAs on halls for the residents benefits.
Culture
The pace of the work depends on the shift you work. First shift you have to get residents up, dressed, toileted, h
This is a beautiful facility, inside and out. Very modern. The therapy department is fantastic, but most of them have moved on as of recent because most of their time is spent doing aide work which cuts into their productivity, or billable hours. Patients come from all over, all ages. These are regular people like you and I that come from their home and are usually there for a short therapy stay. They are promised the world, needless to say they don't get it on arrival. The non management staff are left there after hours to full fill these promised needs, when they don't and never had the resources to begin with. In tern,the patients leave, then the under staffed employers are to blame for POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE. The nurse to patient or nurses aide to patient ratio is high, considering this is a rehab center. Meaning, more 1:1 care is needed. People are injured, they move slower etc. Call lights are constantly ringing because patients are on water pills and they have to go now, but the staff may be assisting their neighbor who is slow, then management is yelling about the call lights and complaints but are not helping, and are licensed to do so. You have alert and oriented people soiling themselves, proud, educated, classy people because their lights are not answered fast enough. Not from a lack of trying. The nurses do more aide work trying to assist them with lights etc. This cause over time for the nurse because now she has to do her work.....the nurse is then literally sta
Prosloved the staff, beautiful, clean facility, workers try really hard, pays well.
Consno breaks, short staffed, poor management, constant change in management, patients are not getting what they need or deserve.
I believe in the postive and do my best to stay optimistic in spite of the negativity that dances around and does it best to drawn me to it. I will make this short as much as I possibly can. Lifecare does not care about the welfare of it employees. They are ALWAYS short. I worked the night shift. I took care of 22 total care residents. I also had to do rounds on other total care units or rehab and then come back to my hall to provide care for my residents. Most of the nurses will not answer your bells when you are doing this. The resident will report that they rang for 30 minutes plus. Or there are nurses who would answer and than state I went on break. Some of them wouldn't even attend to the resident's needs. I hated that. The nurses are qualified to do my job plus theirs. They only provide disposable wipes during the times DHEC are patrolling the facility. Most of the times we have washclothes or towels. The supplies of periwash and barrier cream are always out! The adminstrative staff, directors of nursing or facility never thank us for doing extra or going beyond. Almost everynght I worked, I worked short. There are NO incentives. No incentives to come in when you're not scheduled to work, no incentives for staying and picking up on a shift when it's short, no incentives for doing rounds on other halls when you have 22 people (that's the max for c.n.a. s) to take care of. It's illegal. Some of the beds do come up pass your knees. So you have to bend over, when you are
Prosno pros
Consshort (most of the time on every shift), management does not accomodate schedules for schools or anything else, schedules can change at any time without notice
I hope the facility I work in as a staff RN is not typical for LCCA. A typical day consists of arriving at a well groomed, attractive building. It is a facade designed to appeal to the public. The hardest part of my job is knowing that I can not deliver good care to everyone of my 27-30 residents. In a eight hour shift I'm required to have shift report and narcotic counts twice, followed by end of shift charting. Actual time spent with residents is lessened further by time loss looking for supplies,medications that are often not there. I never take breaks. Preventative care does not happen. There is simply not enough time with the current nurse to resident ratio to adequately assess patient conditions. Wound treatments and things like eye drops are frequently missed. It is demoralizing to me as a nurse with over twenty years experience hospital medical/surgical to know I am not given the tools or time to deliver quality care. I am simply doing the best I can in a profit driven institution that spends way more on marketing then staffing. I do two med passes, check diabetics and give insulin,answer call lights and hear myself saying, "speak to management" when residents or their family have concerns. This place is so poorly run. Corporate management encourages staff to wear buttons with the slogan,"Whatever it takes, And then some". We are coached to NEVER say the word, "understaffed" even though we ALWAYS are. I wear a pedometer and my average shift is three miles. I'm on my f
Management is not so great on the nursing and scheduling side but fellow staff are fantastic to work with.
After working at Lifecare for almost 3 years, I do not recommend it currently. When I first started it was a fantastic place to be. Everyone enjoyed their job, bar a few individuals. Management and scheduling worked with you on hours, and they rarely were short-staffed, in fact they often would over staff then let the aides decide who could be cut. Raises are rewarded based on performance reviews done yearly. After my first year I received a 1% raise on my hourly pay and had a perfect review. Second year I did not receive a raise, despite a good review, accepting a position on their covid unit, and eorking while short staffed. Now the average is 1 CNA per 23-28 residents and on the evening Nurse shift they have 50+. Despite our scheduler being a CNA with an active license, help is not provided. Our lead CNA is not on a floor and does office work instead. Constant budget cutbacks are being made and they are taking in patients who require 1 on 1 care, despite not having the staff for it. Bonuses are offered like candy for picking up an extra shift, but if you come in for a shift and you only have 2 aides for the building, or god forbid 1 like we've had before, there is no compensation. The facility's census is always being pushed as the main goal, and as such we receive patients who we cannot help in any capacity, and the patients we can do not receive adequate care due to the lack of staff available. There is favoritism as well, so some staff are very obviously treated better
Prosbenefits are good, stable job, great if you like to care for others, teamwork, close-knit employees
Conslow pay, minimal raises, no opportunity for growth, constant short staff, no free meals, favoritism
Athens really needs a complete overhaul. Management could use some training on how to lead and make their employees feel like they are an asset instead of putting them down and treating them as if they're disposable. DON actually stated that CNAs were "a dime a dozen" however she is seeing that comment isnt true at all. A couple of the aides could use a reality check and a few could use some retraining on basic skills such as proper pericare with or without the supplies that a nursing facility should always stay stocked up in to begin with however when that's not the case then alternatives should be used with each and every brief change. Changing patients soiled linens and clothing and doing AM and PM care should be common practice. Proper PPE should be implemented in cases of patients needing to be on contact isolation but most the time staff isnt even told about the isolation let alone proper PPE displayed where it should be easy to put on upon entering a room and the other patients are exposed with no knowledge. Some staff lack compassion and have little to no bed side manner. Some shifts are so understaffed which isnt uncommon for nursing but some more so than others. 2 nurses in the whole building for 8 hrs at night. One wing running one aide for over 35 patients and 1 nurse for 60 patients. The care that each patient needs becomes as brief as possible so you can get to each one as well as get their "restorative" list of patients up even though they've been told b
ProsThe patients, the handful of competent nursing staff that cares for them
ConsManagement, incompetent nursing staff, major understaffed nightshift, always being without proper supplies
The kitchen is basically ran by nobody, the one guy "culinary director" has no food skills at all and cannot make even the simplest food items. If staff calls out he is not willing to fill the part and will take his personal life precedence over any work related matters.
The kitchen management is a change by day by week attitude. one day its "do it this way" the next its" why are you doing it like that" as of july 2018 many long time employees have left because of this one useless kitchen managed that believes hes entitled to be called a culinary director. the rest of the kitchen is run by teenagers and staff that doesn't care if they get fired or not. They want everything done on an exact time scheduled such as leaving work at a certain time and having all tasks completed but does not realize real kitchens there are many variables that make this impossible sometimes. Staff leaves whenever they feel their shift is over and does not ask for permission or if other help is needed. The Kitchen director is extremely manipulative and will do whatever it takes to turn the problem around on you. Very little help or teamwork is offered here and unless you bring your own knowledge there is no kitchen skills t be learned or developed there. There is no room for advancement and the wages offered are very low. I cannot speak for the healthcare but as for the kitchen part you defiantly want to stay away. In just 6 short months i have seen 12 staff members come and go and i am soon to be o
Prosnone
Consway to many to list, just stay away. bring your elderly elsewhere please
Questions And Answers about Life Care Centers of America
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Life Care Centers of America a better place to work?
Asked Aug 5, 2018
Make sure there's open communication so everyone is on the same page. Pay all who do the same job the same pay. Nothing more frustrating than someone doing job same as yours making dollars more per hour.
Answered May 26, 2021
Pay is a big thing now days for some reason!! Make sure the budget is big enough to take care of the residents . They have worked all their lives!! So now it's time for them to have fun!! Activities needs a bigger budget! For fun days!!!
Answered Mar 21, 2021
What is the work environment and culture like at Life Care Centers of America?
Asked Jul 13, 2016
The work environment in the Sedro Woolley, Washington facility is toxic and harmful to your health. I honestly cannot comprehend how or why the very few “select” employees stay after a month or two. When you end up in worse physical health then the people you care for after one very long month, something is seriously wrong with your workplace. Prior to this horrendous life changing employment decision, I had worked happily in long term care for over ten years as an LPN. Even after resigning, I have no desire to ever work as a nurse again. Never before had I even heard the most exaggerated stories of “state” being in a building every week, but at LCC of Skagit Valley, it was reality. Nothing like hair loss, ulcers, stomach pain and vomiting caused by this stress to get your work week started.
Work environment in one sentence- I’d rather swim in a septic tank than work in this building again.
Answered Nov 7, 2019
Toxic, drama filled day. The workload is unmanagable. Management does not care about their staff or residents. 30 long term care residents to one nurse and two aides is not safe but they believe it is for a day shift
Answered Nov 5, 2019
How are the working hours at Life Care Centers of America?
Asked Jul 14, 2016
Realistically 10-12 hours depending upon your job but those 10-12 hours feel like years. Of course you can pass the time by joining the rest of the employees, including myself, dream of getting injured so you can leave early and with some sanity left. Schedule can say 4 or 6 hours-expect to be there for 8. Schedule says 8 hours, you are still getting stuck staying for 12. Schedule says 12 hours? You might as well stay the night so you can sleep before your next shift.
If you work in an office than be prepared for your hours to be cut for “low census”, then 2 weeks later is back to normal for a week, then cut again.
Even if you have a family emergency, you can’t go anywhere until the work is done or you find a replacement-don’t exist. Not a job for anyone that has kids, or wants any kind of outside life.
Answered Nov 7, 2019
Scheduled for 8 hour days, you are lucky if you get to leave after 10 hours. Management will even call you to come in for piddle stuff on your days off, and vacation. Many employees have to block the buildings number just to have their days off uninterrupted.
Answered Nov 5, 2019
What is the best part of working at Life Care Centers of America?
Asked Dec 22, 2019
Benefits, vacation time, PTO sick time both are very generous and working with you on your schedule. But disregarded even tho they're more experienced because they're not an RN
Answered Dec 22, 2020
My schedule was my best part but the fact I did this schedule and I was the only one doing it. This was the first to be picked up by outside people.
Answered Nov 24, 2020
How flexible are your working hours at Life Care Centers of America?
