MA rant

Specialties NP

Published

This is just a work rant but I need to vent somewhere LOL

I'm just a full-time salaried provider in a private practice. All providers have their own MA/scribe but when my supervising MD's long-time MA resigned (due to a salary dispute), our office manager hired this MA who is slooooowwwwwww as molasses (she's in her 50s) and laaazzzzyyyyy! She has a great personality though!

She makes everyone smile and laugh at work. My supervising MD has already commented on how slow she is but the only thing he did is he hired another MA to help her out! WTH?!?! To me, had he just given that raise to his old MA, he would have saved some money at least. Her 90 day evaluation is up and it looks our office manager plans to make her permanent. OMG! Can she not do the math?

Specializes in Medical-Surgical/Float Pool/Stepdown.

Many employers are like this. They don't want to pay up front and they end up paying more in the long run. Sigh.

Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Hmmm...sorry you are going thru this.

Just because she is in her 50's doesn't mean all folks in their 50's are ssslllooowww! lol

Maybe there's more weight to a personality in his mind than productivity. I find you can mold and improve productivity than you can mold somebody's personality. Maybe there was something note than just a monetary dispute going on with the previous ma.

I worked at an organization that hired an administrative assistant to help out the receptionist, lol. Gutless office manager couldn't fire people. The place eventually went out of business, lol.

I'm not saying nurses are medical studs but a lot of MAs call themselves nurses. I've challenged a few of my patients who are MAs on that.

Them; "Oh, I know all about that. I'm a nurse."

Me; "No, you're not. It's a protected title and illegal to call yourself that in his state. You're a MA, and that's ok."

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

You can count on that I would comment via email to have it documented what a waste it seems "in hindsight" to have let an established, skilled, valuable staff member leave over money and now be forced to pay two MAs in the role one MA used to serve with ease.

Specializes in Case Manager/Administrator.

You never know what the reasoning is for hiring if you are not part of that process. Now the best thing you can do is this:

Learn to work with this person in a fair way. Age does not mean as a person grows older they are always slow. I am nearing age 60 and I continue to go rafting, hang-gliding, swimming, hiking and a lot of traveling all over the world. Additionally I am in a certification called Life Care Planning Case Manager.

Take this challenging situation and grow with it make it your mission to work with this person and start developing great skills in that some day you maybe the boss. Have great boundaries be firm, fair and consistent. I would know the job descriptions and expectations, offer to help when you can, offer to teach, offer to be a mentor and make sure you have a journal (HIPAA in mind) that you can go back to and show you have had discussions about XXX on this date/you showed (employee) how to XXX.

Working with all sorts of challenges will only push you more to be a great employee and future supervisor take the challenge and grow with it.

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
You never know what the reasoning is for hiring if you are not part of that process. Now the best thing you can do is this:

Learn to work with this person in a fair way. Age does not mean as a person grows older they are always slow. I am nearing age 60 and I continue to go rafting, hang-gliding, swimming, hiking and a lot of traveling all over the world. Additionally I am in a certification called Life Care Planning Case Manager.

Take this challenging situation and grow with it make it your mission to work with this person and start developing great skills in that some day you maybe the boss. Have great boundaries be firm, fair and consistent. I would know the job descriptions and expectations, offer to help when you can, offer to teach, offer to be a mentor and make sure you have a journal (HIPAA in mind) that you can go back to and show you have had discussions about XXX on this date/you showed (employee) how to XXX.

Working with all sorts of challenges will only push you more to be a great employee and future supervisor take the challenge and grow with it.

Excellent advice for sure however I would still express my concerns as above.

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