I had a recent post about my experience working in telemedicine again. I am still working with that company. But when I had applied for that position I had applied for several others. One of the other companies paid a guaranteed $70/hour instead of per visit, which I liked. Because sometimes telemedicine can be slow so at least you have guaranteed paid and do not waste your time.
This other telemedicine company reached out to me to start 2 months after I had applied. They had a requirement that you have to work a minimum of 20 hours per week. At that point I had decided to take the FL assignment and wasn’t going to be off for several months like I had thought. And I did not want to work an additional 20 hours per week on top of my full-time job. So, I asked them if I could defer my start date to March, since I planned on being off for 3 months at that time. They said yes!
Fast forward to March, and the company reached out asking if I was still interested. I said yes, but it turns out that they changed their pay structure. They were no longer paying hourly, but were paying per visit. -_- They said they were busy so I shouldn’t be worried about not having enough work.
I decided to move forward with them to try them out and to possibly have some additional work on top of my regular telemedicine job. Prior to my training, I had to provide 6 weeks worth of availability to schedule patients. I was forced to give 15-20 hours of availability per week. This was a bigger constraint than I had expected. I hated being tied down like that especially during my “off time”. I liked my current telemedicine position where I can work as little or as much as I want.
Then I completed the two half days of training. The program was for weight loss treatment. It was interesting to learn more about the GLP-1 medications and management. However, the training was extremely fast and didn’t cover everything thoroughly enough. Not to mention that this telemedicine company uses 10 different websites/applications in order to work there. Example: one website to communicate with other staff; one website for appointments; one website to see patients on video; one website to document SOAP note; one website to look at guidelines; one website to get quick text etc.
It was crazy enough that all of my google chrome bookmarks were taken over by this telemedicine company. The following day, I was scheduled a few hours to do async visits only (messaging ones). I reviewed all of my notes from the day prior. I managed to log into multiple websites. I found the patient visits. However, I couldn’t figure out how to open the chart and start my SOAP note and review the patient intake etc. I am definitely computer savvy and I searched around through the multiple websites but just couldn’t figure it out. I thought to myself, if I couldn’t figure it out, I can only imagine the elderly providers in my training that barely knew how to login to their email.
Of course, I could have just asked for help at that point but I took it as a sign that it’s not meant to be. I was already starting to feel overwhelmed on my “sabbatical”. I didn’t have the free time I was expecting to do things like try acupuncture, go to the beach, and other fun stuff because I had to commit so much of my time to this new telemedicine job. Plus, I was balancing my other telemedicine job, and my other side hustles such as writing articles for nursing websites and financial coaching.
So, I decided to just resign! I originally applied for the job because I wanted a telemedicine company that offers guaranteed hourly pay. This job no longer does that so what was the point? I already had another telemedicine job. Now I appreciate my original telemedicine job so much more.
There is only one main website we need to navigate. The training was very organized and thorough. The snippets are easy to use.
After I resigned (of course they tried to offer me more training so I would be comfortable but I declined), I felt so relieved! I realized that I was juggling too much and something had to give. I sometimes have FOMO when it comes to work opportunities because I am always interested in trying something new. But I have to remind myself that I should only do what brings me joy. Just a reminder that not all telemedicine companies are equal!
P.S. The following month one of my recruiters reached out about a telemedicine position for CA for 3 months. It ended up being the same telemedicine company I resigned from! I guess they are that desperate. I am glad I didn’t waste my time with the training, they ended up paying me for that which was a nice bonus.
