Advice needed on call center job dilemma-temp firm (employees, debt, extension)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Just wondering what other people would do in this situation. I got a temp to hire job through a staffing agency working in a call center. However, the first day on the job I find out I am supposed to call medical insurance companies and lie about my identity to get information. That's sounds like fraud, and I'm not even good at it. So I'm not going back to work in the morning - will be calling the temp agency and resigning from the position. Problem is, I can't tell them their client asks its employees to lie, can I? So I have to give some other reason, which I'm afraid will reflect poorly on me - that I accepted a position and bailed on the second day. Every day out there is a new experience. Any advice on how to get out of this gracefully is welcome, thanks!!
Thanks for your reply. I ended up calling the agency and telling them I was asked to do something that I'm not comfortable with, making sure to note that what I was asked to do as part of the job was not included in the job description, nor in my interview with the firm. And that had I been given the information, I would have let the agency know before accepting that it was not the right job for me. The agency rep sounded nice about accepting the resignation, but who knows if I'll hear from them again.
I would inform the temp agency of exactly what you were asked to do. If they are ethical at all they will stop doing business with that employer. This sounds like massive violation of HIPAA.
I would inform the temp agency of exactly what you were asked to do. If they are ethical at all they will stop doing business with that employer. This sounds like massive violation of HIPAA.
This isn't a case of HIPPA. HIPPA laws only apply to someone revealing your name and medical history. Plenty a study has been done using information garnered in this way.
Depending upon how large this company is you may have an anti-trust issue to deal with which involves a little visit from the Attorney General.
I'm pretty sure it is a HIPAA violation. To give a little more detail, it does involve patient's personally identifiable health information and physician information. The "identity" we're assuming is that of a doctor office, even though we're a different company and are never supposed to say the name of our company. Way worse than a call center guy from India posing as "Joe" from America! We say to the insurance person we're calling from a doctor's office and give the doctor's information to the insurance company, including their tax ID, and physician ID #, their address. But when the insurance rep asks for the dr office telephone number, we are told to give the wrong number. And we give our fax number to get the insurer to fax us an authorization form they think they're sending to the physician's office. Basically, we're tricking them to send the form to us instead of the doctor. When the insurer inquires about me working for the dr's office, I'm supposed to give my title as billing, or MA, medical assistant. When they say the phone and fax numbers don't match their records for the dr, I'm supposed to say that's my direct extension and that's a fax to the billing department. The dr's offices do send us a legitimate signed authorization to help facilitate a patient to get insurance reimbursement for a prescription. But I highly doubt the doctor knows what's really going on - that we're giving phony phone numbers for them and and the rest of the lies. It definitely sounds like an ethics violation, but maybe it's a gray area only a company's legal counsel would know precisely.
Just to describe how horrible the experience was, I was told by my supervisor to "try again" after my first call where the insurance rep said the phone and fax numbers I gave did not match their records, and could I hold while she got her supervisor. She said they have to call the doctor's office to verify that they were sending the form we requested to a secure fax number at the doctor's office. (That is HIPAA.) The insurer was clearly getting suspicious, asking, "Where are you physically located?" The people training me said, oh, just hang up and call them back. Thankfully, it was about time to leave for the day, and I quietly packed up anything of mine at my desk and got out of there.
Last edited by sottovoce; 03-21-2012 at 01:24 PM..
Just wondering what other people would do in this situation. I got a temp to hire job through a staffing agency working in a call center. However, the first day on the job I find out I am supposed to call medical insurance companies and lie about my identity to get information. That's sounds like fraud, and I'm not even good at it. So I'm not going back to work in the morning - will be calling the temp agency and resigning from the position. Problem is, I can't tell them their client asks its employees to lie, can I? So I have to give some other reason, which I'm afraid will reflect poorly on me - that I accepted a position and bailed on the second day. Every day out there is a new experience. Any advice on how to get out of this gracefully is welcome, thanks!!
You probably will just have to look for a new agency because after you tell them you no longer want the position they are not going to try and place you again.
BTW: I had a similar job right out of college and I scammed people everyday because i needed the money-lol
It sounds like you were working for a collection agency. I worked at one for years. You were doing a form of skiptracing. We used to do that with the debtors mortgages - it was called a "mortgage bust" - this was way back before all the new laws and stuff came into play. You try to do taht now and you could be sued big time.
It does beg the question - who's on the hook for illegal action, you or the company instructing you to do something illegal?
I know those days of skiptracing well! My mom was a skiptracer back in the day, where you call and say, "This is Shirley. You seen so-and-so this week? Oh, he's at his sister's. You got a number for her?" And that's so funny, because I told my mother last night what happened with the insurance call, and she said, you should have told her it's your first day on the job. Unbelievable, in her 80's, my mom still has that quick thinking on her feet!
But this is something a bit different where you're impersonating a doctor's office, and the laws have come a long way. It's not a shady company, either. This is an arm of a large corporation that works with pharmaceutical companies.
Last edited by sottovoce; 03-21-2012 at 01:21 PM..
Thanks for your reply. I ended up calling the agency and telling them I was asked to do something that I'm not comfortable with, making sure to note that what I was asked to do as part of the job was not included in the job description, nor in my interview with the firm. And that had I been given the information, I would have let the agency know before accepting that it was not the right job for me. The agency rep sounded nice about accepting the resignation, but who knows if I'll hear from them again.
I doubt you will hear from the agency again. Unless you have worked 3 or 4 assignments for them that you completed and you were the first temp that they sent to this call center job(which is doubtful).
You were put in a very awkward position. Many times these dolts that run the temp agencies have little to no information as to what kind of company they're sending the temp to.
It's up to you, but if you remember the name of the Dr's office you called, I would call them and inform them of what's going on. Let them look into it with and they can decide if they want to contact your SA office.
BTW, the temp agencies always tell people a temp job is "temp to hire", and many times people work for 6 months thinking any day they will make me full time, only to get a phone call at home one night from the agency saying "don't go in tomorrow, the assignment is over".
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
My mom was a skiptracer back in the day, where you call and say, "This is Shirley. You seen so-and-so this week? Oh, he's at his sister's. You got a number for her?" And that's so funny, because I told my mother last night what happened with the insurance call, and she said, you should have told her it's your first day on the job. Unbelievable, in her 80's, my mom still has that quick thinking on her feet! 
