Premera Blue Cross reviews

You are required to have your webcam turned on AT ALL TIMES except for breaks, during the 12 week training period. Once training is over, you don't have to have webcam on unless in a meeting. If you need to step away from your desk for any period of time outside of your 30 min. lunch break or two 15 minute breaks, you have to put yourself in "hall break" status. You are allowed to use 100 "hall break" minutes per month. They send you an email each month to let you know how many hall break minutes you used and coach you on being careful not to use too much hall break time. Some extremely silly policies that lack any logic, for example, not allowing to place a caller on hold ever, for any reason, for any amount of time, instead, we are to tell them 'it will be silent on my end while I look up this information for you", because who doesn't love awkward silence? The call "scripting" is a bit ridiculous, telling CSR's they have to use the exact same words as the ones in the scripting is unrealistic, as long as the same message gets portrayed, there is no reason to require every single word to be used in perfect order. Example: Required script: "Can I get a good phone number for you in case I need to reconnect with you?" How 99% of us would say it "Can I get a good phone number for you in case we get disconnected?" Oh and if you ask any of the "call flow" questions out of order, you'll get "coached" about it. Example: 1st step: "Thank you for calling cust. serv. may I get your first name and the name of the office you are calling from?" 2nd step: "Thank you, and what can I help you with today?" For me, I prefer to ask for a good call back number right away, after step 1, b/c i'd rather get that number asap in case we do get disconnected, but if I dare ask for that number before reading my step 2 call flow, I get docked on my metrics and get talked to about it by my lead/supervisor. I have never seen worse micromanagement in my entire career, and I'm not even out of training yet. After reading these reviews tonight, my concerns are all confirmed and I am looking for a new job in hopes I get our of here immediately, hopefully before I go on the "floor". Unemployment doesn't pay enough to live comfortably or even "get by" for that matter. The biggest disappointment was learning how Premera has greatly cut pay and benefits to their employees, especially during this day and age when the economy has gone down the drain and everything costs a fortune, gas, food, the basic. The starting pay for a CSR is now $18.14/hr. regardless of your experience, everyone starts at this rate. This changed in 2022. Prior to January 2022, the pay range for CSR's was between $16-$27/hr with a reported average hourly wage of $19-$21. Also prior to January 2022, each month every CSR would receive a monthly "internet stipend" to go towards helping pay for the internet they must have in order to do this job as we are all remote employees. The monthly stipend had always been $40/month, and of course it got taxed so you can do the math, it barely makes a difference but every little bit helps I suppose. Effective Jan 2022, the CEO changed that amount and everyone now receives $20/month internet stiped, again, taxed, so roughly $15 bucks per month. What a slap in the face, seriously. As a new employee, once you complete training, Premera gives a "furniture stipend" for home office equipment/furniture. This amount also changed effective Jan 2022. Prior to Jan 2022, employees received $1800.00, it was paid out in a way that it didn't have to be taxed. Welcome to 2022, the CEO has decreased the furniture stipend to $500 and it is now paid out differently and DOES get taxed at the rate of 22%, so after getting taxes taken out, each CSR gets roughly $390. In the corporate letter that was sent out regarding these changes, the CEO gives the reason as them comparing their data to similar businesses in the same area who also offer these types of stipends and their comparisons showed that Premera was paying above average, this was his reason for greatly reducing the stipend amounts, so that the company was paying closer to the average amount of other local businesses. Right after that statement, they boast about how this change is predicted to save Premera over $1 million in 2022. Is that supposed to make us feel good or something? As time goes on, prices go up, in every area of the economy, but not at Premera. Premera reduces benefits and salaries for their own personal gain. I really wanted to love this job and really wanted it to work but I am feeling the exact opposite of that now that I've gained more insight into this business. Very disappointing. As stated before, training is 12 weeks in which they require 100% attendance. Hours are from 8am-430pm M-F. That is a huge expectation to ask of people, that they cancel or put off already scheduled or urgently needed doctor appointments for 3 months. We all know 9/10 doctor offices are open 8-5. Kind of hard to see a doctor with the work hours we have. Shocked that whoever made this rule/requirement doesn't even consider this, as I dont know many people who don't have at least one appointment of some sort in a 3 month period. Every day when training starts your trainer will say "does everybody have their cameras on?" regardless of the fact they can literally see your faces in the teams channel, and as if that's not bad enough, we also get an email reminding us in yellow highlighted text about the requirement that we have our cameras on at all times. There's no worse feeling than being treated like you're an untrustworthy child who needs constant reminders to stay on task. QUIT MICROMANAGING. We're all adults. If we aren't paying attention to training, it's going to show in the skills tests we have to take each week. It's like being in school, we actually get our test graded and sent back to us, which is fine, however, with this method in place, there really is no need to have constant surveillance on us, that just screams "we don't trust any of you and must be able to see your faces at all times." I've had other remote jobs and this was never a requirement, we were trusted like the responsible adults that we were, and if we weren't responsible adults and we slacked off, it didn't take long before management caught on, it shows in the work performed. Spend more time teaching material, upgrading software, programs, policies, procedures, and methods and less time babysitting grown adults. Speaking of procedures, like another employee stated in a review, the procedures we are required to follow are a bit much. Every single move that can be made in the system(s) while assisting callers has a procedure that MUST be followed in perfect order. The format of the procedures and the steps and substeps and if this situation applies go to step 1.4, if it doesn't apply go to procedure XYZ and start at step 2. It would be extremely helpful and beneficial to have majority, if not all, of the resources in one area, on one page, instead of on several different platforms, many which are outdated, take several minutes to load, some error numerous times before you can actually get logged in, so much time wasted on navigation and this could be easily fixed by having a more up to date, organized database where ALL information is stored. Literally over 15 sites where different info is stored. I know there is software out there to mitigate this, for example EPIC that the hospitals in Spokane use. It's ONE site, with all the info you could possibly need. Premera would be a thousand times better, more efficient, quicker etc. if they would just put the money into buying software that is actually helpful, accurate, and secure. I could go on, but I'm sure you're tired of reading this, if anybody actually made it through until the end. Don't work here. Trust me.