Examination Management Services, Inc.


Country United States
State American Samoa
City Scottsdale
Address 15333 North Pima Road, Suite 330
Phone 888-932-7364
Website www.emsinet.com

Examination Management Services, Inc. Reviews

  • Jan 19, 2015

These people are extremely unprofessional! From the investigators’ all the way to the top. The inappropriate language makes me cringe and surprised no one has filed a harassment claim against this company. Male or female this language should not be used.

They expect you to be on-call, 24-7 to handle cases but they don't pay you to be on-call. If you refuse to answer your phone, they will just keep calling until you answer. If you still don't answer you will be denied work. Definitely a violation according of the department of labor.

Hiring process. They hire on the hopes that they will get busy. If anyone hires into this company during the months of October to March, don't count on working 40 hours a week, it won't happen. The recruiters lie. They will tell you they are busy but they are not. Instead of keeping 3-4 people busy with 40 hours, they will have 7-8 investigators in one area and all will be begging for work.

Gas card. This is a good benefit.....when you work. The $50 bonus, however, is a joke (which is taxed) if you are above average miles per gallon. At least make it worth a persons’ effort if you want us to save money.

Benefits. Terrible. Very expensive and still have to pay out of pocket for your health care.

Vehicle allowance- based on the hours you work. Work is slow during October through March; good luck trying to get your allowance. A lot investigators use this allowance for car payments, because you are getting new vehicles every few years because of the wear and tear. If you have an older vehicle that needs repairs, this $325 is consider pennies for what the cost of repairs are. Again good luck!

Paid time off. You get vacation time but you better put it in months in advance or you will not be able to take it. The no time off in March because they do a mad rush to close out the books and get every possible penny in there. Really?? Slowest time of the year.

The constant emails of doing updates, uploading video, doing reports, etc, get rid of the employees that obviously can't handle this. Maybe you would have a better core of investigators that actually cared and gave you a good work product.

Being acknowledged for a job well done. Forget it. Does mean anything, you won’t get more work then say the person that screws up an investigation every day.

Advancement. They advance who they want. If they don't know you or like you, even though you have the credentials, you won't even get passed the application process.

You are asked to do a sales persons job and call clients to get cases. ICS maybe you need to look internal with your sales department that is horrendous. The clients that you are not allowed to contact and you contact the "SAM" don't count on them to get cases for you. Bunch of useless managers in this company.

Holidays - You do not get paid for holidays unless you work. Most you don't work so they hit you in your pocket!

Raises- You get evaulated yearly but expect a 2-3 percent raise....which is something but you can get up to 5 percent. Don't count on 5 unless you want ICS to be your life and not spend anytime with your family.

Every year employees are asked to fill out a survey on how the company is doing, what they can improve on. Year after year the complaints are the same…..so Dave Merrill when are you going to address these issues?? Bottom line, you don’t care about your employees and this is why you have such a big turnaround rate with investigators. When are you going to realize the investigators control the profit you make…..you don’t take care of them, they won’t take care of you. I’m sure someone will respond and say ICS has an open door policy and you can talk to anyone at anytime. More like open the door and as soon as you’re done they will shut and lock the door because you won’t have a job anymore.

  • Sep 6, 2014

I fully agree with what was said in the posting at: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/ICS-MERRILL/internet/ICS-MERRILL-Liears-and-Rip-off-Artist-Internet-877198 and want to add to it.

1. I am working for ICS and can not stand to watch how ICS is swindling its clients (insurance companies) by charging them billable hours for work that is not being done. What I mean by it is, ICS wants to pay its investigators as little money as possible and to accomplish that ICS designed a web based The Smart Partner Compass Case Management System https://www.tmgecase.com. In order to avoid paying investigators for writing required case updates and case reports, ICS trains investigators to do those tasks while working surveillance at locations. Basically an investigator sitting in a car on a surveillance case is required to write his/her reports and updates instead of doing the surveillance. There are several issues with that:

(a) the client is paying for those surveillance hours at a full rate; instead the ICS Merrill uses that time for report and update writing.

(b) At the same time an investigator can not look into a computer screen typing, and at a claimant who is the subject of the surveillance.

(c) Clients are not aware that investigators instead of doing surveillance spend a significant time and efforts typing updates and reports, because if they don't ICS Merrill would only pay them half (1/2) of their hourly rate for the time spent doing reports and updates after the surveillance efforts are completed. Basically ICS Merrill gets a free ride at their customer's expense.

2. ICS Merrill takes advantage of its investigators in many ways:

(a) In the Smart Partner Compass Case Management System cases are scheduled seven days a week without any time to rest. It is common for ICS employees to work 14 or 21 days in a row without a single day off. Investigators are extremely tiered, not accurate or focused, and they burn out quickly.

(b) The cases are scheduled back-to-back in blocks of 4, 6 or 8 hours without a single break. No lunch break for you the ICS investigator. When two 4-hour cases are scheduled back-to-back only a minimum time to commute from one case to another is allowed. Regardless if it is 4, 6, 8, or 12 hours work day no meal periods are given. Employees are not allowed to even go to a bathroom. Employees work out of their cars and they are told to urinate into “pee-bottles” that they carry in their vehicles.

(c) ICS employs full time hourly employees are paid a variable hourly pay rate based on different tasks performed:

i. Full Hourly Rate for fieldwork.

ii. Half (1/2) Hourly Rate for drafting updates.

iii. FREE. Zero, no compensation for writing reports.

iv. When traveling to and from cases, employees are only paid half of the regular hourly rate after one hour of free travel. In another words, because that work is not billable to ICS clients, when traveling to and from cases ICS does not pay any compensation to it’s employees ($0.00) for the first hour of travel, and every following hour (after the 1st HR) is paid at half of employee’s hourly rate.

v. The ICS system is cleverly designed to take advantage of every little thing. For example, investigators are required to submit time traveled so they could get compensated for the time after the 1st FREE HR and to do that ICS uses a decimal point calculation system instead of Hours/Minutes/Seconds. Employees often do not spend time calculating the decimal equivalent. If an investigator traveled 1 hour and 15 minutes, he/she often enters into ICS system 1.15 but that is less, because 1 hr and 15 min is 1.25 (15 min is a quarter of an hour). This is is not explained to investigators and most of them do not even know what they are doing. But there are approximately 400 investigators at ICS Merrill and if ICS gets a little time off each investigator 24/7/365 it adds to big money to ICS.

3. ICS Merrill cheats the unsuspected insurance claimants out of benefits they receive or should be awarded by spying on people and instructing all investigators to always use certain words like:

(a) "During the surveillance effort, the claimant was observed as he worked on his vehicle in front of the residence. When observed, the claimant was not observed wearing any visible braces or orthopedic support devices." or

(b) "Additional surveillance is recommended to further document the claimant’s activities and abilities. Surveillance to include a weekend would provide an opportunity to observe the claimant as he appears to be active during this time frame." --- they always want to squeeze clients for more money.

(c) it does not matter that claimants may have injuries. If they are not extremely careful, they will have in their reports surveillance info that may deprive them of the benefits.

ICS represents that it cares about ethics, etc. But it's all just a BS, when you go deeper you will find an organization where people do NOT matter. The investigators do NOT matter. They are all disposable. That is why ICS is a revolving door employer; investigators come because they are sold on company’s song and dance. They get the ICS treatment, and after they can no longer stand it, they leave or are fired to make a room for a new bunch.

I still work here, because in my market there are no other employers, but as soon as I am able, I will be out of here.

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