Maxim Healthcare Company

Wow, so I sat here and read all of the posts about this company, which I had gone and applied with today. I am going to keep looking, thanks for all of the info you guys! How funny about the "office guys" that is exactly what was at the office I went to and one really pretty blonde! haha I don't know about the pay I have an aquaintance who works there and they are giving him two different pay rates, sounds kinda strange to me.... anyone know anything about this?

I do know that first they told me I would have a permanent shift 3p to 11p, part-time shift. Then it changed to per diem, but we have plenty of hours. Finally, we only have 11p.m. to 7a.m. shifts available per diem.

I don't think they can make up their mind what they have really. But, needless to say I didn't go. I have another job opportunity in the works.

About the two pay rates. Possibilities are that some offices will pay more for a vent dependent patient. OR and this is something I've wondered about myself, is that when they reduced wages due to the state medi-caid cuts, they only reduced the wages for nurses who cared for those patients. So there was an exodus of nurse's to the private insurance patients. That sounds shady, but I guess it's not illegal.

I wanted to give an update. I'd like to give all the details but don't want to say to much on a public board at this point. Like another poster, I used to have a neutral view of Maxim, now....I say AVOID them at all costs!!!!!! Due to my now personal experience, I will attest that Maxim offices are run by men who like to be in control of women. The female nurse supervisors are fine, but the men who run the show are NOT! If you speak up about problems, they do not like it. You will be mis-treated. They want women to be subservient and in their place, and you will not be taken seriously. The male directors and male staff coordinators are in it together. They have each others backs and they are all that matter. DO NOT BE DECEIVED by how they come across as polite and professional. It is an act!! They will turn on you in an instant. Perhaps I have said too much, but at this point I do not care.

It does not even make sense to me that Maxim offices are all run by men who are not nurses or don't have any health care degree, but this is how they operate. Their whole operational model is wrong! BEWARE!!!!!!!!

I had a supervisor at another agency who told me she was of the opinion that it made little to no sense to have business managers who had no nursing background. She said every nursing agency she had worked for had a business manager who also was an RN and that in most agencies the Director of Patient Care Services doubled as the business manager. Certainly makes for a different atomosphere in the office when that is the case.

Most of the recruiters I have dealt with are not nurses. I have only dealt with one, and this was my first job at a Nursing home. Even the hospitals have non-nurse recruiters as well. At least in my area they do. When I did travel even their recruiters in AZ and NM were not nurses. As for the Business Management I have come across some that were not.

I am glad I didn't' go to orientation. I just told them I wasn't ready to go back to work yet.

My experience with Maxim was they were run by very young men (20's), fresh out of college with business degrees. They had no medical background whatsoever. They looked at everything from a business standpoint and didn't care if their nurses were getting ripped off. Especially when doing the flu clinic, they don't guarantee your hours. During the flu clinic that I worked, one of the them sat on a chair , when the pace slowed he sent one of us home.

There's a LOT of factors that go into the pay rates. Private pay, where the family is paying the company to staff them will yield the highest pay. These cases are often rare but a goldmine to find. Many times, they would be offered to the "best" nurse before being made available to the whole office. An insurance case will always pay the next highest rate. Any medicare/medicaid cases will pay much lower rates as the office is given a much lower rate to provide for the patients care. They are always hiring because they are always taking on new cases... but unfortunately, the majority of their patients needing HHC are medicaid/medicare. After the funding source of the case, the next deciding factor is your skill level... and yes, vent cases or other special skills will pay more...

The company is national - you will all have different experiences in different offices. Maxim was actually my first job out of college... I was one of the "evil" recruiters. I thought it would be the perfect job for me. I had grown tired of my nursing classes and got a business degree instead. It would be the marriage of my 2 passions... nursing and marketing. It was the worst job I ever had and I actually lasted to be a senior recruiter. (I pretty much only stayed for my resume and title ;-) I was hired under the premise that my responsibility would be what turned out to be that of my boss. In our office, we were actually ALL female. Our medical director, HR, 3 recruiters, and MGR were female... so was the office in the next territory over. So again, it's going to vary by office.

Maxim is set up much like many other companies. Out of college you get hired for a cruddy job... (think devil wears prada healthcare style), work your butt off, sacrifice your life, get a promotion and transferred to another state and market you don't know and hopefully continue. The initial pay to a recruiter seems great for right out of school... but they don't mention that you're working 80-100+ hr weeks and getting woken up all hours of the night. To this day yrs later I still panic when my phone rings.

Honestly, the district mgr doesn't need a nursing degree. They are purely looking at numbers, marketing, staffing, etc... Every office should have a medical director who is actually the one in charge of the nurses and for all intents and purposes, your manager. If there is an issue in the field, with a patient, with you... the medical director is your go to.

Reasons I quit? I am a former nursing major, former EMT, and got a marketing degree. I know the struggle of the nurses. I know what the business' books look like and there is no way to keep a successful organization going on poorly funded Gov. run programs AND pay the nurses what they deserve. (I personally think our gov. should fix this FIRST before trying to overhaul the grandaddy entire health care system...) And, I know this is a "nursing board" however, another reason I quit was because many of the nurses made my life a living hell. From calling me at 4:30am to back out of a shift that had to be filled by 6 because their nephew shot someone... to telling me the lake was flooded and they couldn't be at their shift in 30 min. Luckily, I lived ON that lake and told the aide it wasn't.... ya... she wasn't happy. But neither was I. It's kind of a two a street and one I hated walking. I wish I could say otherwise but I have a zillion more ridiculous stories our aides and nurses tried to pull. Our RN's were always our favorites because they were the most responsible and "normal" people. LPNs were hit or miss and many of our HHA's were train wrecks. We had some amazing nurses and aides... we had some we should have taken their license away... and some... were just back to being allowed to practice medicine after having their license suspended....

I think if you're going to try and work for them, staffing is your best bet. Pay is better, you work in the hospital or clinic with other nurses... Home health depending on your skill set, HHA, CNA, LPN, RN can be easy and rewarding... or it can be a living hell. It's also going to depend on your recruiters, your market, and what positions are available...

Going to the office will never hurt. Fill out the application... get a feel for the recruiters, the mood of the nurses coming in to the office, how much work is posted... I know when we recruited or interviewed we would offer specific cases at that time and be up front with pay. We wouldn't tell you oh we have this case that will pay $18/hr but then put you on one making $12. At least, I wouldn't... nor would I allow anyone else too.

Does anyone have experience of flu clinics with them in the Philly area? They are so vague when you call with questions! I have orientation soon.

Per diem work is all you'll probably get there. They have no inclination to give nurses benefits and other perks of permanent staff. The salary for R.N.s have been going down the last few years, which is why I won't work for them. It's insulting to be offered less than LVNs/LPNs, with those nurses making just a dollar or two less per hour.

I started by working first with their flu immunization clinics in N. CA, in 2002, and got $28./hour for 2 years doing that. At first, nurses were drawing up vaccine in one big pile of syringes, for all nurses to use. I said I'd draw up my own, which brought some grumbles, but it is only correct. I got the same level of pay when I supervised the nursing care for the developmentally disabled children they had. Then I discovered a mom who had the nurse care for her other 2 healthy children while she cared for the severely disabled child. I reported that to the office (it's a real no-no with the regional center rules); and I was taken off all those cases.

The young men (mostly) and women who staff the offices are called "recruiters", and have undergraduate degrees from community colleges (mostly). It is obvious that their goal is financial; and not patient care oriented. The office managers are real go-getters (or they wouldn't be there). There's a high stress level with competing staff; and beyond the "hail fellow well met" attitude toward co-workers, there was little real team work.

The "Clinical Directors", nurses who were supposedly resources for other nurses, were usually unavailable in all 3 offices at which I worked in CA; and I never had a call returned by one of them. Their role was more in marketing and they have no real authority, experience, or supervisorial role. In each office where I worked for 5 years, the turnover of those Directors was so high that none of them lasted more than 6 months, and left the company disgruntled.

I wrote the administrative offices in Baltimore with ideas for better organization of the immunization clinics, and received no answer to that. There was poor coordination with head offices of the commercial companies where the clinics were held, so often the notices of the clinic dates and times didn't get the attention of customers until the clinics were well under way. At Costco, clinics were always held blocking an emergency exit, which continued despite my warning store managers and the Maxim office about the need to keep them clear.

'Nuff said? I'm sorry that I couldn't be positive about this company. I was offered $16./hour to work at immunization clinics this year, and I refused that, hoping that other R.N.s would do the same.