mdpetrasek

careful of how you word things. when you say "just a staff nurse" i assume most "just staff nurses" will be highly offended and assume the negative things people say about phs are true. this is from someone who is an "hsa". when you say things like this it reinforces peoples negative attitudes about private companies who do not appreciate their "just staff nurses" I find it highly offensive and i know our hsa appreciates our lowly "staff nurses". after all, without your meaningless staff nurses you would be out of a job, or very overworked. give some credit to those who work so hard for you, phs, the inmates, and their families. i think you owe us an apology. i hope your attitude is not the norm in phs's management, as i am still new to phs and i enjoy the company and ALL my coworkers and the hard work and dedication they show. hope you can see the point of view i am talking about, since you claimed to have worked your way up from lowly staff nurse all the way up to hsa. dont mean to sound too negative, but come on!

Sounds like a good idea. Our HSA is a good guy who is always willing to listen, and at least attempt to make PHS more competitive. I appreciate all of your advice and passing of knowledge about PHS to others, obviously you have good infomation and I have learned from your posts! I do not completely agree with your sick RN scenario though, I first hand have come in and have had one RN and one LPN covering our 650 plus inmates because someone has called in. Does not happen a lot, though more often than it should. This is common everywhere though, especially with shortage of RNs in the workplace and tight budgets. Take care, be safe, Michael.

I appreciate your desire to clarify my benefits. I understand them fairly well and agree with most of what you say. As far as it being an ambulatory care clininc and having no bed pans and heavy lifting, that may be true but there are other factors. Such as being in a dangerous environment, some may say it is safer than a hospital and that may be true, though the concentration of folks who may wish to do you harm are far higher in jail than a hospital. And yes assaults do happen in jail against staff. Also you will not find a more litigious group of folks on the planet as well. This should factor out any comparison to ambulatory care clinic and pay should be increased as well. Not to mention the fact we are open 24/7,365. Yes there are differentials, but much lower than local hospitals (tend to be 5 plus dollars on nights and 1.75 plus for weekends vs 3 dollars for nights and no weekend diff for PHS) I have many RN friends, all who work at hospitals who are shocked at what I tell them about benefits and pay. It does not compare. If your friend accepted 23/hr with poor benefits, he/she should do a little shopping, those are not competitive at all. Again, I am a happy PHS employee, I could go anywhere I wanted to and choose to stay here. I do not mean to sound like I am bashing anyone, just presenting the facts so someone does not get mislead by others. I am looking forward to a long career with PHS and hope to move up the chain. I have only been there a few months and actually enjoy going to work. I guess the fit is more important the the pay and benefits, just wish they could improve them a little. Merry Christmas to everyone! Michael, RN. I have been on the other side, prefer the view from here thank you very much.

Not sure what industry standard fiestynurse is referring to. If you compare private run jails/prisons I suppose PHS is offering "standard" benefits. I believe when one talks of "industry" you are talking about situations where RNs are likely to be employed, and here PHS sadly lacks. If you compare them to hospitals in the PDX Oregon area, they are on the bottom end of things. Specifically, no vision, way overpriced health insurance that is average-look at your summary of benefits and you will see they are average or below average, but they do pay out without hassle, pay that is average or below average with no clear pay structure in place and only cost of living raises of 4 percent per year or so (you will find quickly that with no step stucture in place you will loose ground to hospital nurses) no 401k, no pension, the inability to carry vacation hours over 96 per year (hope you are not planning any long vacations!) they make it near impossible to use your sick hours unless you are having an appendage removed (sarcasm yes, but still difficult to use, plus they have no monetary value to you once you accumulate them). Your STD and LTD options are below average as well. These benefits not offered by PHS are industry standard at nearly all hospitals and is standard at ALL state and federal run jails/prisons. Nursing homes of course pay less and offer less benefits than either. Not to bad mouth PHS, I just wish they would bring themselves up to "industry standard" in the benefit department. I do like working for them, just offering some constructive criticism. Since I have detailed the negative about PHS its only fair to show some positive benefits- Jury pay, they pay the difference of regular pay and "pay" you receive for jury duty, stock options, decent tuition reimbursment, and at least in our jail, good management and providers. You have to like what you do, and I would never go back to the hospital, I just think when one talks of benefits, which is 20-40 percent of your salary, you need to look at the whole picture. If you can work in a hospital, you will find far superior pay and benefits, or work with state prison or county jail. Less pay here, but outstanding benefits. I choose to stay with PHS for various reasons, the least of which is pay and benefits.

Pattie,I work for PHS currently and have worked for them for several months. I agree, the benefits are costly, over 400 dollars monthly for just dental and medical for families. However, it is good insurance, I have used them several times and am happy with United Healthcare. Health Insurance is costly, my neighbor pays over 500 monthly for their family. My bigger gripe though is no vision and no contribution to 401k. Strange. Pharmacy benefits are just average as well. As far as time off goes, you get 10 holidays as well, bringing your total time off to 22 days a year to start, not to bad. You get overtime as well if you work them. The bad part is you have to "float" your holiday 45 days prior or after holiday or you loose them. I have compared them to working at a state prison that makes you a state employee and found the pay to be less, but benefits of course are far far superior in every respect. You do make more money though, per hour at least, with PHS. Tough decision. There is always the risk to work for the state and have a private contractor take over the contract, especially these days with tight budgets and a increasing prison population and of course increased medical budgets the state has to pay. This is true in Oregon at least. The other thing with PHS is you have to use your vacation every year, or you loose hours, you can not save your vacation, period, same with sick pay. You reach a limit and you start loosing hours. You can not of course cash out your sick time upon retirement either, as you can with the state. Overall though I enjoy PHS, where I work it is fun and management is responsive to your needs. I have no experience with upper management as you seem to have, reading your past posts. As far as the PHS management who said there is no nursing shortage must be living in a vacuum, or he/she is trying to sell you a bridge. I would have to think seriously about quitting if I heard that kind of comment. It implies you are disposable and replaceable. Not true. RN's are in huge demand and the demand will only increase in the coming years. RN's are in more demand than upper management positions. Just look in the paper or read any government job outlook report to see the truth. Oh, one last benefit, is the stock purchase plan. It is nice. you pay 85 percent of face value of the stock, you can sell the next day or keep. PHS stock has done well (partly I assume because they are keeping costs down by limiting benefits) and it is a good savings plan. Talk to your financial advisor about this program for details. It may sound like I am unhappy with PHS, but I am not. It seems a good company so far. Hope this helps, dont think of it as a sentence, just maximize what you can from them. Michael, RN. PS-I would love to hear from PHS on this board so they could explain things, their website is horrible and completely without information.

I am a new grad RN and have decided to work in corrections, specifically in Washington County Jail in Oregon. I have only been there a few weeks but am enjoying it a lot. I first accepted a job in a nursing home, but pay ($20/hr) and benefits was horrible, only lasted a few weeks and then I bagged it (Stay away from Marquis Care at all costs all you RN's!). Then I took a job at the hospital in intensive care, thought I would like it, but did not. Pay was ok (not quite $23/hr, but only worked 36hrs weekly), benefits were good, but I quickly grew tired of dealing with all the physicians and their attitudes. Not to mention feeling like a "cog in the machine". The complete lack of autonomy was bothersome as well. I was a paramedic prior, so this was my biggest gripe. Since I only worked three days a week at the hospital, I applied for the jail job for a prn position, thought it sounded interesting and the pay was better to boot! Well, I love it! I quit the hospital and have not looked back. Our providers are excellent, our automony is incredible, the pay is good (starting - $25 hr days, plus $2 for evening and $3 for night, which is $52-58+k/yr) and there is always something interesting going on. You trully deal with issues the outside community does not see, and you get to be a bigger part of it as well. I work for PHS, and all seems to be going well so far. Benefits are average, which is to say, not as good as they should be. Specifically, not a penny to your 401k do they contribute, pathetic! No vision either. Maybe next year though. If you are a new grad, you should consider. This jail is new, and very nice, not to say I would like to live there....but you get the idea. The medical areas are large and obviously were desgined to be a major focus of the jail. Some of the deputies think you are a nuisance, but most respect you and it is a lot of fun to work with them. Remember, security is first, health second. Do not get drawn in to inmates, treat with respect, but do NOT put up with poor attitudes. Sounds cruel, but treat them like children and you will do best I think. Most of all have fun, this is an area that is overlooked, feel fortunate to have found it, good luck all, Michael, RN.