Tell us about Coast Medical Service! How did you come to be?
Coast is a Los Angeles-based family business (forty years strong!) focused on healthcare staffing. Entrepreneur Christine Gregory started Coast in 1979 with the goal of improving overall patient care by connecting like-minded nurses with first-class hospitals. Coast operated out of the family home until 2011, at which point Christine’s son, Kenny Kadar, took over the day-to-day operations. Having grown up with the business (after all, the headquarters was located in his childhood home), he continued with Coast’s mission to deliver the highest quality of service, making it possible for healthcare providers to really focus on their patients. Coast truly listens and treats nurses and clients like family because, well, they are. Further Coast has been Joint Commission-certified since 2012 and upholds the highest industry standards. As a result, Coast has grown 20x since 2011 and was honored on the Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America and Los Angeles Business Journal Fastest Growing Companies in LA for the last three years in a row!
Coast is guided by our core values: Quality, Opportunity, Integrity, Service, and Teamwork.
What should travelers know about Coast Medical Service?
At Coast, we genuinely care about your success. We offer personalized attention, time and care (24/7!) and pride ourselves on building mutually beneficial relationships with our nurses and clients. We listen to what you want and work together to find the right opportunities that match your needs, be it travel or per diem assignments, at a wide variety of hospitals and care facilities. Whenever you need us, we’re literally a phone call away, day or night. If travelers need help with transportation, lodging or just needs an ear to talk to, we are there.
Compensation is always top-notch and benefits include paid sick time, health benefits and other reimbursements to maximize allowable non-taxable stipends. For travelers, we will match any offer at the same facility, to give you peace of mind that you are receiving the best compensation available. Further, we have a generous bonus program to offer additional incentives to nurses.
Below is a breakdown of our current bonus offerings:
- Interview Bonus – $50
- Sign-on Bonus – $250
- Completion Bonus – $750
- Referral Bonus – $500
We believe in freedom of choice and transparency; when and where you work is completely up to you. We understand that choosing a travel nursing provider is a big decision, and nurses don’t always feel “in the know” when it comes to the details of their submission status, compliance documents, or first-day details. We ensure that our travelers never have any unanswered questions. And if they are curious about something we don’t have an answer to, we work to get them an answer right away. Often times the traveler is leaving their hometown or heading to a new place so we want them to feel confident in their plan and understand exactly what lies ahead. Our goal is to earn your trust and support in every interaction, every day.
What we don’t do? Make promises we can’t keep. We’ll never try to “hard sell” you or convince you to do something you don’t want to do. We also don’t work with just anyone. Each and every nurse and client is highly vetted so that your experience is first class.
What is the team culture like at Coast Medical Service?
Coast has a family environment where we work together as a team to improve healthcare. Everyone pitches in and is valued at Coast.
We are constantly evolving and looking to improve. In 2019, we upgraded our staffing software to improve our ability to efficiently and accurately confirm assignments. We also rolled out improvements to our compensation package including sick pay, improved health benefits, and more reimbursements.
We want to continue to improve; our nurses and clients feedback help drive future improvements. If you want us to do something better, let us know! We will listen and implement changes!
How does the leadership at Coast Medical Service define success for the employees as well as success for the travelers?
Success to us means there is collaboration and transparency between the traveler, healthcare facility and Coast to create relationships where we all win.
For example: The traveler gets an assignment with the desired location, unit, timing, and compensation. The facility is able to improve patient care with the addition of a quality clinician. The patients receive the high-level care that they deserve! And Coast corporate staff gets the satisfaction of knowing that we fulfilled our mission to enable healthcare providers to focus on patients.
What are the hopes for the Coast/Wanderly partnership in 2020/2021? How can we continue to best support each other?
We are very excited about partnering with Wanderly! We are all about mutually beneficial relationships and would want a partnership that improves Wanderly, Coast and the experience for the traveler.
We hope that Wanderly will facilitate connections with travelers so that we can help them achieve their goals. We would like for some of those travelers to love our service so much that they become ambassadors for Coast in the travel universe.
What myths about the travel healthcare industry would Coast Medical Service want to correct for someone considering taking an assignment?
Overall, there is much more transparency in the travel healthcare industry than ever before. Wanderly has certainly contributed positively towards that transparency. Still, it feels like there can be more collaboration and cohesion between facilities, travelers and agencies to better service patients.
Being a traveler is a challenging career choice and we are here to support the traveler, not add to their stress load. We hear stories of travelers being provided with misleading information, inaccurate payments and treated with a lack of empathy.
Coast is an agency that fosters mutually beneficial relationships. We value our travelers and facilities and genuinely strive to add value to both. We are honest, supportive and collaborative in our relationships which helps reduce the stress on the traveler and enables them to better focus on patients.
What gives the team at Coast Medical Service the feeling of purpose in the day-to-day?
Helping people. Everything we do is guided by our goal of helping our nurses and hospitals, who, in turn, can better help patients.
What are the plans for the future? What is planned for 2020?
We want to continue to improve to add more value for our travelers, facilities and corporate team in 2020. That starts with understanding our travelers to meet their needs, including:
- Increase the range of travel offerings, including additional units and geographies
- Refine and enhance compensation packages
- Improve processes to make for a more efficient and enjoyable experience for our travelers
- More company celebrations and get-togethers
We want to get even more feedback from our travelers as that feedback will inform the additional improvements we make in 2020 and beyond!
What else would you like to share? Handles, pages, groups, etc.
Website: https://coastmedicalservice.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coastmedicalservice/
Instagram: @coastmedicalservice
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