HCA Reviews

Current Employee – been working at HCA full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – work environment is positive, good compensation, great benefits, able to work up in the company with hard work. I have been with the company for several years now and have had a great experience. The company does it's best to compensate employees.

Cons – difficult for employees voice to be heard.

Advice to Senior Management – follow through with promises and seek to uplift staff.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at HCA full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – HCA is extremely community focused. They also treat their employees as family. Great work environment.

Cons – Some areas do not allow for flexible hours, it is dependent upon the department in which you work.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at HCA full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – • Volume of projects assigned is manageable.
• Given tools needed to succeed
• Many PDU and education opportunities

Cons – • Leadership is slowly shifting to ‘management by metric’ philosophy
• Less importance given to soft skills

Advice to Senior Management – Realize that standardized metrics are not always valuable in the project management world.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at HCA full-time for more than a year

Pros – Walks the talk of its mission statement. Involved in the community and encourages employees to be involved too. Very professional environment.

Cons – Somewhat like high school with cliches. And there is a definite protocol about communication. It is not to be violated. A sink or swim environment. Heavy workload.

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to promote the company mission statement and maintain the high ethics. Revamp IT middle management.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at HCA full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Fast moving company , always on the move

Cons – Staffing issues on the physician practice side are very strict. Employees working for 3-4 years getting none or partial insignificant raises. Conservative company. They have directors and senior management who seem to be very disconnected with the operations in the ground and in clinics.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to your staff .

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at HCA full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Managers/Sr Management resources helpful; good morale; good camaraderie. Management fosters an environment of teamwork.

Cons – Presence of union takes away from more productive and meaningful work. Not much opportunity for advancement in hospital even with advanced degree. Pay raises are very minimal. No differentiation in salary in regards to employee's combined experience and education.

Advice to Senior Management – Need to develop a succession plan or career development for current employees who are interested in moving up for better retention.

– I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at HCA

Pros – Is getting very tech savvy and work life balance outlooks is good.

Cons – Tends to pay Below market salaries in a number of classifications.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at HCA

Pros – i love hca it is the best

Cons – there are no cons about this job

Former Employee – worked at HCA full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – If you prefer a job in which you can "lay low" and be complacent, it is a great place to work; as long as you can "talk the talk."

Cons – Pharmacy within HCA is viewed as simply as this: 1. Drugs cost a lot of money. 2. Pharmacists are in the best position to enforce the formulary. 3. If we have just enough pharmacists in the hospital to make sure really expensive drugs are not being used, we have great pharmacy services.
Attempting to grow and expand services at the facility level is simply not allowed. Decisions in this regard are driven from the corporate office and are generally extremely short sighted. The onus placed on facility-level pharmacy is to do more with less. When the case is made that additional staff is needed, the answer is always "no." Small hospitals especially find themselves woefully under staffed; so much so that patient safety is compromised. The argument that deploying an adequate number of pharmacists to perform clinical work will improve patient outcomes thereby reducing total costs of care (which is well substantiated by evidence) is given no merit. The consistent theme that ideas originating from frontline staff are given no consideration is consistent throughout the company.
Formulary decisions are also made based on short-sighted decision making. The basis of nearly all decisions is reduction of direct drug expenditures. No consideration is given to patient outcomes or evaluation of costs from a broader perspective. Certain medications are essentially banned from use due to their cost, regardless of whether their use would result in the best outcome for the patient. Whether a pharmacy department is managing their supply expense well is evaluated based on drug expense per adjusted patient day; a metric that in no way reflects whether drug purchases are appropriate for the patients receiving the drug. The metric is used simply because it gives the best estimate of income for the company. Thus, if expenditures per unit of income are minimized, a favorable profit margin can be ensured.
In my time with the company, I have seen many decisions made that most would consider to be morally reprehensible. If you raise your concerns, you are considered to be a troublemaker. Individuals who simply keep their mouths shut and do what their told are held in high regard. This is especially true if you suck up to the right people.
Administrators and other leaders will preach about ideals such as accountability and integrity; yet fail to exhibit these characteristics themselves. One would dare not share this observation, however; lest you be considered a problem employee. This is a prominent concept within HCA in general: a lot of talk and very little (if any) action.
Finally, physician bullying is overlooked. Despite its detriment to patient safety, the fact that happy physicians make the company money is enough to convince administrators that there is no sense in addressing physician behavioral issues. The prospect of losing a physician's business is simply not worth the risk.
With so many health systems developing increasingly innovative ways to deploy pharmacists to ensure patients are making the best use of the medications they are receiving, I cannot fathom a reason one would want to work for this company. That is, unless you prefer to be a complacent "yes man" in an extremely bureacratic environment.

Advice to Senior Management – Educate yourself on contemporary pharmacy practice models. Listen to your front-line employees; they are smarter than you think. Find meaningful metrics to identify high performance; not all that is of importance can be measured in direct costs. If you truly want a culture of accountability, start by holding yourself accountable and make no exceptions to the rule (this includes executives and physicians).

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at HCA full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Many of the workers are great people, very committed to improving patient lives and helping make the company a better place.

Cons – The company offers limited opportunities for advancement and even more limited opportunities for industry standard compensation. Not competitive as far as compensation.

Advice to Senior Management – Value your people more than the bottom line.