LINCARE News and Happenings.

What do you think -- is this company going to survive and thrive? Are they looking to expand their staff, or do you think layoffs are inevitable?

How does LINCARE stack up against the competition?

My son has a Business and Marketing degree from the University of Alabama. He worked for Lincare from January to the end of June of this year. He was responsible for the Tuscaloosa, Alabama area, but was "managed" out of the Birmingham office. Because Tuscaloosa was a new territory, he had to start from scratch to develop a marketing plan for the area. He enjoyed what he did and was just becoming successful and developing contacts in the area. But he noticed that the office staff in Birmingham (CSR's) were constantly complaining about having to "service" the Tuscaloosa area, and that they were being extremely rude to his customers, when they called with questions about the forms. At one point, one of the CSR's told my son that all the "doctors and nurses in Tuscaloosa were just stupid, and couldn't figure out how to do a form correctly." My son was shocked. He then began getting feedback from some of the medical office staff in the area that they did not want to do business with Lincare because every time they sent a form in or called for help, the CSRs treated them very rudely and were very uncooperative. At one point my son told me that he was having to do "damage control" almost as much as he was having to work to "develop his area" and was constantly ‘apologizing’ for their rude behavior. CSR's also complained to the office manager that it "wasn't fair" that the sales people got off on Friday afternoon since all the Doctor's offices were closed, and they still had to work. To appease them, the office manager, Vanessa, told the sales people that they would have to come in every Friday afternoon and clean the office, empty the trash and do their filing. My son had to drive 120 miles round trip every Friday to do this. A month after he left the company, he was still chasing them down to get $1,000 worth of mileage and doctor/luncheon reimbursments going all the way back to January. He is now working for a much better company - thank God!