I have worked in EMS for twenty years now and have worked for many different company's, and all have been professional and caring, til now. We moved here due to my wife's Nursing job, so I went to work for Americare. I was shocked on how the company was run. Americare took over for Goldstar Ambulance who the Feds came in and closed them for Medicare fraud, but most of the employee's and management of Goldstar, are now employee's of Americare. So not much has changed from what I'm able to read about when Goldstar was in business.
When I started, they did not drug test me. So I asked other employee's and they stated that they to have never been drug tested. This started me feeling very nervous, after all, we are driving an ambulance. Now most of the employee's are caring, and take care of the patients. Many don't. The attitude among most is "we are the only ambulance, the patients don't have a choice".
When it came to my patient charting, every report comes back to me with a note stating I need to change why the patient needed an ambulance. And with notes on what I should write. And with having a meeting with the management, they would proceed to coach me on what to write and in a circle talk way tell me what to write. All this is a violation of Medicare rules and regulations. This is part of what got Goldstar shutdown.
Enough is enough! The finial straw was me getting hurt on the job. I was hired as a full time employee. Most employee's don't pay attention to what they are doing, and knowing this, I still got hurt. When I received my first paycheck while off, I noticed is was less that half of what I was told it would be. When I questioned management about this, I was told I was hired as part time. So here goes the he said she said, and this will be a losing battle.
Texas being a right to work state, employee's do not have very many ways to combat this type of employer ethic's. The Medicare fraud can and will be reported to Medicare, but as for everything else, the only thing I can do is to tell and post this information about this company to every person and every website I can find. After all, we are talking about peoples lives.
0 comments