Brightstar home health care???

[jommit52]

so,

i am a new lpn and there are absolutely no jobs out where i live in illinois. so i was surfing the net and i found this brightstar company; a home health agency. seemed like an legit company. i decided to apply, but i was on my lunch break and only got through about half of the first page of the application. so, a few hours later some guy calls me and yaps and yaps about the company. the office is about an hour north of where i live and he was going on and on about how the company was wanting to expand to my area and that they were going to start looking for lpn's in the next couple weeks. this yapping in my ear went on for about 15 minutes. then he started to become a little creepy: asking me pretty personal questions about where i live and work and was asking me for all my teachers phone numbers so he could "network" with them so they could help him recruit new cnas, lpns, and rns. when then, he finally asked me if i was interested in an interview. i said "okay"...until he offered to drive an hour south of the office to meet me at a restaurant so we could "hook up". i'm sure when he said "hook up" he didn't mean anything wrong by it, but it sure was a tad creepy. he advised me to "finish the application online"...then he said he was going to print it out and bring it to our "meeting place" anyways, after that he kept going on and on about wanting to use my connections (because i work at the college out here) to recruit and sell products and such. i wasn't about to put my new license in jeopardy or the lives of patients working for this crazy dude....

after i got home from work, i came on here and researched the company and found some interesting threads. from what i understand, they don't provide too much "medical" care. i mean the nurses go in and do their assessment and thats about it.

i just thought that i would share my story to help steer any of you who are thinking about working for this company away!!!

anyone else have any odd experiences to share?

[cathrn64]

I don't know a whole lot about them. They gave a presentation recently to my company. They provide mostly private pay services. Aides, homemakers, etc. They also do lab and med services for pt's who are willing/able to pay for them. They were telling us about the services they could provide after our medicare services were completed.

[BabaLouRN]

It just so happens that I am in the job market. I too have seen the Brightstar name and brochure, thanks for the insight.. I will avoid that one

[olive11]

I recently saw an ad for available jobs at their San Antonio location on Craigslist. I went to the online application but the questions they are asking are WAY too personal. From your driving record to whether you've been on public assistance in the past 3 years, I felt they were too invasive. I've worked agency, LTC, dialysis and corporate positions and they've always been satisfied with running a criminal background check and using my SS# and nursing license number for information. Perhaps they are just trying to be thorough but it felt borderline illegal with asking such personal questions. I won't list them all but feel that unless something comes up on the criminal background check or license verification, personal questions should be left unasked. I stopped the application process after reading the questions and chose not to apply after all. There are plenty of agencies (reputable and with excellent standards) that have jobs available with the same or better rate of pay.

With Brightstar each location is independently owned but perhaps they should review their application to be sure it fits within federal guidelines on what is allowed to be asked and what isn't allowed.

[SpelaD]

I tried finishing an updating my application (I made a profile a while ago) but after putting in the user name and password it wont let me through. Anyone else has the same problem? I know they are not an ideal company to work at but I have to start somewhere. I am having no luck in other places.

[caliotter3]

When the first office opened in my area, they posted very good wages for LVNs. Now, a few years and several nursing directors later, they have lowered the wages for LVNs to match the wages of other employers in the area. Never get happy over a good thing. It will turn out to be someone's ill-timed mistake.

[Marshall1]

The Brightstar near where I live in Ga. just received some award for outstanding patient care from the survey people so at least in around here they are good. As far as the posts re: the questions they ask about public assistance, etc. that is because companies now can get a federal tax break depending on the answers to some of those questions.....There are also 2 other places PSA and Bayada that do a lot of hiring here because of growth.