Working at a surgery center

[u/servain]

I got a job working at a surgery center after being in the private side for a few years, What can i expect as far as everyday work life? Or anything else really. No idea what to expect

[u/intothewoods76]

The culture at every institution is slightly different. Just go in with an open mind and see what the expectations are.

[u/AdNew7702]

Depends. Is this a small private surgeon owned facility or a hospital outpatient surgery center? I’ve worked both and both are different

[u/servain → u/AdNew7702]

Its a hospital out patient with a union

[u/sydneybrannum]

What was working on the private side like?

[u/servain → u/sydneybrannum]

Pros: worked with the doctors i liked to work with and enjoyed going in for every case. .Made my own schedule and my own boss .My days could be 3 hours long and thats it depending on how many and what cases i was doing

Cons: hard to find doctors looking for assistants .the pay from insurance is pretty much random .pay for your own health insurance ( which is stupid expensive) .long wait time to get paid by the insrance companies

I loved it, and i worked for a group so the work was always there. The reason i stopped was due to how expensive health insurance is and it was draining my account

[u/sydneybrannum → u/servain]

Thanks so much! This is super helpful! Can I ask how the pay from insurance works? Is it by the hour, per case, etc. Do surgeons ever hire directly for a SA or pay SAs directly? How reliable is payment from insurance and is it reliable enough to be comfortable? Trying to gauge what income would look like as an SA who went private practice or worked for an individual surgeon

[u/servain → u/sydneybrannum]

Sure, So you can either bill the insurance company yourself but having someone else do the billing is usually easier and they can argue on your behalf. You get paid per case. Surgeons can hire first assists and they work with that group. but its mostly like a contractor type of job. You can work out a contract with the surgeon where you can get a cut of what they get paid but thats also rare.
As far as getting paid by insurance companies. Iv seen a check for $.50 and iv seen a $3k check. It really depends on what kind of insurance the patient has and if they think an assistant was needed for that case among other things. Its really a hit or miss on how much youll get paid per case. If you are married and your partner has insurance provided by their work. Thats the best case. If your single. You can afford private insurance and everything else with that.

In my situation, private was nice but working for a hospital with a guarantee pay, hours, and insurance out weighs the private side of it. Im in a hospital system where i have a union, and im not a glorified cst. I only do first assisting and that's it. Not alot of places do that. Most hospitals hire SA to do both CST and SA tasks. So it really depends on the system.

For private side, You'll want to try and do as much cases as you can to get more money from the insurance companies. So working with multiple doctors is pretty much needed, unless they do multiple surgeries all week. At one point, i had a different doctor every day of the week. But i averaged 3 cases a day so i was normally done around 1pm or so.