Collective Health Reviews

2.9

37% would recommend to a friend

(336 total reviews)
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Ali Diab

65% approve of CEO

24% positive business outlook

Collective Health has an employee rating of 2.9 out of 5 stars, based on 336 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Collective Health employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Healthcare industry (3.4 stars).

Reviews by job title

336 reviews
2.0
2 Jan 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There was good growth in 2015 but is unlikely to go any further this year with escalating costs and the solution itself is not unique and can be easily replicated.

Cons

If you want to be a manager, Collective Health is the best place for you. More than half the employees are some sort of managers(product, program, operations, health, interaction and so on) or lawyers. There are very few who actually work. Collective Health does not need them anyway because they don't have any product worth mentioning besides fancy web sites. Nepotism is rampant too as top executives hire spouses and give themselves fancy titles.

2.0
18 Mar 2017

A stuffy bureaucracy, but without the stability or resources

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Salary is reasonable for the Bay Area. Free lunch four days a week, and it's not bad. Diverse company with few "tech bros". Pretty good insurance and benefits package. Office is an easy walk from the SF Caltrain. Ample vacation time.

Cons

All the usual downsides of working in health insurance. Stop me if you've heard this story before: - Endless meetings that run in circles, in place of doing real work - Computer programs from the 80s that crash all the time - Meaningless speeches about "values" and "culture" from busybody managers - Hours spent preparing "plans" and "estimates" that management then ignores, or rewrites to fit their wishful thinking - Basic requests go through layers of red tape and get held up for weeks - Promotions given to friends and talking heads (and the founder's wife), not hard workers - Noisy, overcrowded office with no quiet space or privacy - Leadership takes no responsibility, will never admit a mistake, or even that a problem exists However, unlike Kaiser, this company loses money hand-over-fist. If there's a slowdown in start-up mania any time in the next five years, Collective Health will go straight to bankruptcy court, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Positive reviews are mostly from the customer service reps. They're paid way more than reps elsewhere, which is great until you realize that you can't lose money on each customer and make it up on volume. Fortunately, they're all hired straight out of college so they won't think about details like that.

2.0
1 Mar 2018

Member Advocate

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The perks are really really great. I'm talking outstanding health, dental, and vision insurance. Free lunch M-Thurs is great. There's activities like yoga, soccer, volleyball. The culture is great and it's fun for those who like free stuff.

Cons

For the Member Advocate role specifically there is something important to know. It's customer service and it's a call center. It's a glorified call center with great perks but you are on the phone saying "Thank you for calling, how can I help you?" for 7 hours straight. When people call regarding their insurance they are not in a great mood so this role is emotionally exhausting and extremely mundane and repetitive. The idea is to hire students from top schools and then keep then in a stagnant role for 1-2 years.. That's just an unrealistic hiring model. There's no room for growth and learning plateaus quickly. Management is a few years out of school so there is no mentorship or guidance, just a Team Lead clique. Your career opportunities are subpar. Enjoy the perks but don't expect to be challenged or supported in this role.

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Collective Health Response
8y
I’m Roy Gilbert, and I am the COO of Collective Health. I read your review and I am sorry to hear that you had a poor experience as a Member Advocate. Our MA’s are core to our mission of providing an amazing member experience so people can understand and take control of their healthcare. We take exceptional care in hiring, training, and mentoring our team. We are happy that even though this is a challenging role, we hire less that 5% of the people who apply and over 90% of our candidates accept an offer to join our program. Your feedback is appreciated and helpful, and matches up with some of the things we are improving (for example, our new scheduling tool offers a lot more flexibility than the home-grown solution that you had to use). I would like to address a few things called out here: - As an MA, you get the opportunity to work with a manager who is passionate, caring and works hard to mentor you and their high-performing team. Manager roles on our team are reserved for people who excel in the core job -- we believe that the best leaders are those that have demonstrated the intricate knowledge needed to excel in a role. All of our new managers receive extensive training, and they work extremely hard to support their teams. - We structure our Ops team differently than the way a call center would, which is why you probably heard us say, “We aren’t a call center!” over and over. Our jobs require us to solve complex problems with our customers that directly impact their health and their finances, and there is often no script to follow. These problems require horsepower and empathy. That’s why we hire people with critical problem solving skills, enthusiasm for digging into systemic issues, and a tolerance for ambiguity. Our training program is demanding and our MA’s that succeed in the program learn the details of our complex healthcare system in a way that no graduate course can duplicate. - The MA role is in many ways the first step to an amazing career within a fast-growing startup. Our entire Ops team is growing fast, and if you are a strong performer then after your first year there are opportunities across the team in specialist functions, client and partner management, and team leadership. And other high-performing members of the Ops teams have moved on to other Collective roles like product design, sales, etc. Since the organization is dynamic, it’s not a sharply defined career ladder but instead our best people are forging their own path in an exceptionally fast growing company. Thanks again for your feedback, and I sincerely hope you have success in whatever you do next. Roy Gilbert Chief Operating Office
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Glassdoor has 343 Collective Health reviews submitted anonymously by Collective Health employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Collective Health is right for you.