honest detailed review senior coder 7-year vet at Ensemble
Pros
flexible work-from-home, very rare OT, great managers and teammates, 7 paid holidays in addition to PTO, fun town hall meetings, gifts in the mail, nice Christmas prizes if they draw your name 7-year senior coder 2017-2024. When Ensemble first took over my facility's revenue cycle as a 3-year startup, I had a manager who was obviously there for a paycheck only. She never answered the phone, email, or company chats and would only contact you when she needed something (she jumped all over us when we went over her head about it), and she still works there, but all the other managers I had were great. I did go through 5 managers and 5 supervisors over 7 years. They normally give out 2% raises per year, and after 7 years of that, I fell way behind on the pay scale, so I left for a similar job paying 40% more. You have to be in good standing (95% qual, 100% prod; prod jumped to 126% for the 2024 gig goal, which is INSANE, have all of your education and credentials up-to-date), and complete 3 gig goals (2 company goals and 1 personal goal) before you can get the full 2% for the year. Managers can only give you a max of 4/5 on annual evaluations. They said they'd get in trouble for rating anyone higher than that. They give out surveys periodically for employees to rate the company. I would give them a max of 4/5 on those since that's what they gave me. You get moved around a lot to different facilities. They kept me current with about 12 facilities at a time, and they shuffled me around a LOT depending on need (usually shuffled between 3 different facilities each day). I was their guinea pig for a lot of the new onboarding facilities since I was such a high performer. They'd give me training documents from the facility, a username and temp password, and tell me to have at it. No other training; I just had to figure things out. If I had any questions, I had to contact the facility's coding manager or IT department. 2024 benefits for non-exempt: They kicked working spouses off insurance in 2024 (they said in a meeting that spouses were using too much ins). 2% raise/year if you meet all prod/qual and gig goals. PTO: 15-25 days per year, depending on how long you've been there (15 years for the full 25 days); 6 paid holidays, one paid floating holiday. Holidays don't count against PTO. You can sell up to 80 hours of PTO twice per year; and carry over up to 160 PTO at the end of the year. 401K no company match, but if they exceed their budget, they put in a few dollars; for 2024, I got about $890 added (~1%). They send small gifts in the mail every once in awhile. They give you monthly ed to maintain your creds and pay for your coding dues each year. They pay for one new credential if you stay with the company for 1-2 years afterward. You have to complete an annual screening exam with your Dr. and be a nonsmoker, or your ins premium increases. Sharecare $25 per quarter if you watch and participate in health programs and webinars. Ebitda incentive plan, you get a max of $1 per hour worked if they greatly exceed their budget, and less if they moderately exceed their budget. The most incentive per year would be less than $2k when you account for pto and holidays off. Salary is based on your geographical location. Other companies pay based on experience, knowledge, and education.
Cons
Very low pay, loss of some benefits, increased the coding productivity goal to 126% in 2024, no part-time positions, salary based on geography, have to track each minute you're not heads-down coding Benefits lost: $20/month for internet. $2/hr shift diff bonus for working weekends. No more ICD-10-CM codebooks. $2k per year ($1k for you and $1k for your spouse) for medical payments if participating in a wellness screening. Working spouse coverage. Incentive plan was lowered during the pandemic since it was difficult to obtain to something more obtainable (Ebitda), but paid a lot less. Sick time was cut, but PTO was raised to compensate. I had >5,000 hours of sick time lost due to this change; have to use PTO for illness now. Overall: If you're paid a decent salary in line with other companies and like the benefits, this is a great coding job. I ended up with a great manager, and the company tries to make meetings fun. But when all other companies offered 40% more for a senior coding position, I knew it was time to leave. Despite all this, I planned on staying a little longer to learn the last coding role I hadn't tried, coding auditor. They were going to cut my pay for this role and wouldn't budge on the salary by even $1/hr, so I left (coding auditor position was a transfer to salary status same $/hr x 2,080 hrs, but you lose overtime pay, pto selling, pto carry-over, and can't sell pto at the end of employment). I'm a workaholic, never called in sick once, and sold most of my pto for cash, so for me this was a paycut. Surprisingly, HR changed their mind and offered me a 15% raise for the auditor job only after I put in my notice (would've taken 7 more years to get to that), but by then I found something way better.
