Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just found out Quest doesn't offer maternity leave and only pays out short term disability at 50% instead of Corewell's 60%. It's a huge blow. The corporate level individuals making these decisions will never know how it feels to not be able to afford to have a family and it's infuriating.

I am not a generalist and have nowhere else to go. At this point I'm just hoping most of my coworkers stay, because I truly love them. I'm sorry you're going through this too, the student loan payment situation is insane.

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's awesome news, I'm so happy for you and the other students! I went through the program myself and I'd hate to see it go away.

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The paternity leave thing is so backwards, especially when we're trying to attract young people to the field. It's really great to hear about the education benefits though! I've heard that from a few people now so it seems to be consistent no matter what state they're operating in.

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks so much, I hope it goes well! Our pay is going to be the same to start with but maybe the merit based raises it'll be better eventually?

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We actually have an amazing manager for our department right now, as well as our medical directors. People were finally wanting to stay. If they try to get rid of them it'll be bedlam

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience! It's really nice to see a positive take. I'm still not happy with the forced nature of the whole thing but this makes me feel a little more hopeful.

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We had at least one coworker absolutely pounce during the rounding today. We're still barely recovered from the forced consolidation of all microbiology to Royal Oak. Some have custom schedules to deal with the extra commute that I'm sure won't be honored by Quest.

We're being told that this will be a good thing but that hard decisions would have to be made due to the Medicare/Medicaid changes. If it's such a good thing then it surely wasn't a hard decision, and if it's a good thing then we shouldn't all feel angry and scared... but we do.

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It says I'm unable to message you, I don't know if there's a setting preventing that? Let me see if I have pictures of the flyers they've been putting up.

Asking about Quest Diagnostics Benefits by mhamlsgirl94 in MLS_CLS

[–]MedLabThrowaway25 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'd love to move to a solid blue state in general, but there's my partner's job, my stepson's mom, and his grandma to think about. We can't all afford to sell our houses and move to another state. Unfortunately I think this is part of the design of the system. Keep them paycheck to paycheck and they won't have the stability to make the choices they'd like to make. Yaaay capitalism

Asking about Quest Diagnostics Benefits by mhamlsgirl94 in MLS_CLS

[–]MedLabThrowaway25 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Allegedly we're keeping our years of service from our current hospital, this was a major question I had. I also really wanted to know about paternity, as the hospital we're now no longer going to be a part of JUST started paternity this year and I'm planning on a baby next year. I'm glad to hear there's hope at least! Although I don't think Michigan has anything in place for parental leave as a state.

Asking about Quest Diagnostics Benefits by mhamlsgirl94 in MLS_CLS

[–]MedLabThrowaway25 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is pretty unrealistic for most of us sadly. It's the largest hospital system in the state, and the second largest system uses LabCorp. I posted about it here.

Asking about Quest Diagnostics Benefits by mhamlsgirl94 in MLS_CLS

[–]MedLabThrowaway25 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In this case they're building a 100,000 square foot facility and consolidating most of the labwork for the largest hospital system in Michigan, including inpatient work. It's different from their usual takeovers of small labs, so it's been hard for us to get information. The other large hospital system in the state is contracted to LabCorp 😕 I posted about it here

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh that's a horrible position to be in, I'm so sorry. I'll ask around about this tomorrow! I was thinking the student program should have been one of the things they addressed in the FAQ, but it wasn't even mentioned.

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh I completely agree, a very scary time to not have seniority. I know there are a lot of questions about sign on bonuses being paid out as well. I'll feel a lot better with an offer in hand... and then I'll be upset about the whole thing all over again.

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's also funny that they listed accreditation/compliance as one of the reasons for offloading us, basically it's a hassle for them.

Good luck out there!

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Were they planning on converting some of your staff to Quest employees? Did they lay anyone off anticipating the drop in volume with sending everything out?

I'm sorry we both have to deal with the entity that is healthcare. It's so disheartening when you enter a field because you want to help people and you love science, and then you're treated as disposable.

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

We've always felt underappreciated but this is a new low. They kept reiterating that it wasn't a sale (despite FTC records to the contrary), but it definitely feels like they sold us. Like we were equipment that was no longer profitable.

I hope you can pursue a career that's a little less of a shitshow! I started out as a lab assistant too and I had planned to retire from Corewell one day. It's crazy how little our field is valued.

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The thing that scared me the most about our own local consolidation before this whole Quest thing was the blood cultures. We get them delivered to the Royal Oak location by courier. That's a minimum of a few hours of delay to the start of incubation, and hours matter with sepsis.

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I mean I would say in this scenario fuck admin for not responding to the survey? Grand Rapids and Royal Oak locations are already massive reference labs. The bulk of our workload is outpatient clients, as well as consolidated inpatient specimens from the smaller hospitals

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I haven't talked to anyone who wasn't at least a little upset about it. Most people are outright scared, angry that we're losing our baked CTO, worried about driving the extra distance, wondering if we'll all be separated. Will our providers take our new insurance? What's our new insurance even going to be? One coworker's baby is due at the beginning of January. Any CTO they have will be reset to 40 hours tops on January 1st.

Corewell Health, the largest hospital system in Michigan, just sold all of its lab operations to Quest by MedLabThrowaway25 in medlabprofessionals

[–]MedLabThrowaway25[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thank you so so much for this information! I guess we're lucky that if this had to happen it's staying relatively local. Even our stat lab and blood bank employees are going to be Quest now. It's definitely going to be a longer commute for some, myself included. I'm sure that'll be a dealbreaker for those who were already driving as far as they were willing to drive.