Well first off, they talk a good game when you get hired in but you quickly realize that everything isn't as it seems. I was hired as a float and was promised a home clinic within 3 months. They told me I'd be reimbursed for my mileage which never happened. I would send in the completed forms to the manager and they'd just disappear. They'd pull me all over the districts, sometimes I'd be driving 90 minutes to get to work. They also play favorites in terms of who gets better locations. If there was a sick call on my scheduled shift and there was an oncall person, they'd move me from a clinic close to my house to cover the sick call an hour away and let the oncall person stay at their home clinic. When I am oncall, I don't get a choice, I have to drive to whatever clinic that sick call came from.
As for the workload, sometimes it can be maddening. At some clinics, it's not unusual to see 50 patients in a shift. And people get mad. They'll knock on the door and interrupt the current visit. If you don't answer it, they'll call corporate and then you'll get reamed for not checking on the patient because "there might have been an emergency". You have to answer the phone while doing sick visits which can be hell. The managers never take care of calls, they just forward it to you to take care of it. Sometimes they call for really unimportant things that you have no control over, just to shame you "so you're aware of the situation and can avoid it next time". Sometimes patients will get verbally abusive when they realize that you are closed on heaven forbid, you need to take a lunch or use the bathroom.
Another issue is the scope of practice. I started off at this job as a new grad and the guidelines were comforting. However, as I've continued to work at Minute Clinic, I've felt so restricted by guidelines. You can't even write for steroids for a wheezy person with bronchitis without calling the physician on call. Now, we're also doing these complete health reviews and we're not allowed to document that a patient has diabetes or tell them that they have diabetes even though they fit the criteria to be diabetic (high HgA1c and fasting blood sugar). I find this morally wrong. CVS simply wants the money generated by doing the exam but doesn't want to shoulder any possible lawsuit regarding treatment.
The benefits, especially the health insurance, are a joke. For one person, the premiums are almost $2500 a year not including the $750 deductible. If you go to a lower tier plan, you're paying $1500 in premiums but your deductible is $5000. If you want insurance for yourself and a spouse, forget about it, the premiums are over $7000 a year.
Also, it can be really difficult to ever get vacation time. You accumulate it at a snail's pace but you basically have to find coverage for your shift or do some fancy switching with other providers in the district to make it happen. Only the manager seem to be able to take vacations.
