A friend of mine worked for Spheris

• Why do supervisors ask for more? - lac
  • A friend of mine worked for Spheris - Blackswan
  • why do supervisors ask for more - marie
  • It's a rip-off, and it also sounds against-the-law. - In a NUTSHELL
  • Supervisors - greenjeans

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One of the accounts they have came from a hospital I worked for here in Ohio.  A good friend of mine went to work there when they outsourced the radiology side.  She got an e-mail out of blue with them stating they no longer needed her services. They did this to ALL of the 2nd and 3rd shift MTs.  The reason she wants YOUR line rates is so she can the very least she has to pay.  If she has this information up front, then she will not contact the MTs with higher line rates.  They used to only pay 9 cents per line radiology and 8 cents per line acute care.  They have also changed the way they post jobs as they used to post the amount of line rates for each specialty.  Horrible Company!!

the pay rate sounded a little on the low side to me (I'm thinking around 7 cents, 65 cpl), but she really didn't have a whole lot of experience when she started, either.  (We had worked together for about a year and I trained her as a new graduate before we both quit the company we were with.)  She really likes working for them; it seems like their trainers/QA people are really decent folks who give pretty good and fair feedback, which is something she really likes.

I do know they have benefits for both FT and PT people, which is pretty rare these days.

with her current job, doing radiology transcription at a local hospital.  I was going to suggest she send her resumes to some of the national companies, but did not know which companies out there had radiology accounts.  If Keystrokes is the best, then I'll suggest that to her.  Thanks for the tip.  :-)

As for me, I've been doing acute care since Moses was a baby, but doubt I could pass any kind of radiology test. 

Her big complaint was that there were so many ESLs that it was hard to make any money.  Another friend signed on with them  as well part-time and he had no complaints.  There is plenty of work.  They are very flexible.  I think they use a Dictaphone platform.  I did talk to the owner a couple of years ago and they offered me 8 cpl with a bonus weekend every month where I make 10 cpl, more depending on how much I produce.  Again, this was 2 years ago. 

Verbal tests are to give the recruiter a feel of what that MT knows off the top of their head.  Not all people get nervous at verbal tests but a good recruiter has the insight to know if a wrong answer or lack of an answer is from not knowing or is from just being nervous.  A verbal test is done just to get a feel for the the off the top knowledge of an MT plus you know that MT is taking it.  This recruiter is also an MT and having gone through so many tests the long hard way decided this was the lesser of the evils.  She did tell me though if she felt that MT knew their stuff and just could not respond because of nervousness that she noted that and just by a general conversation based on experience would not flunk someone like that.  Lenghty tests prove very little except that an MT has been working for companies that all have different ways of style and that she felt that was not right to an MT; as well having to take tests that are hours long after an MT has been working long hours is also not fair to the MT.  And my friend told me that in many cases there are MTs that literally have other MTs take their testing for them and you would not know it until that person starts the job.  It depends on the recruiter and their knowledge of the industry.  Each recruiter or company has their own way and usually they find the way that works best for them.  I personally find that many recruiters just have no knowledge of the industry (inside knowledge) and it annoys me that someone like that is allowed to even have the opportunity to interview and test me.  I can remember one with a company up north and their idea of punctuation was way too much.  It should not have been an issue unless it changed the meaning of the report but had they gone by the Book of Style they would not have added those 20 or so commas throughout the 4 reports that they had me transcribe.  I passed but when you have been in this industry for over 15 years and are being judged by someone that has not and who has not been in your MT dancing shoes then something about that just does not seem right.  Anyway I doubt there really is a best way to do anything, but if I had my choice, I would prefer the way that is the shortest. Time is precious and for the rates they pay nowadays those tests are just too lengthy to go through that for a whopping 7 cents a line.  No thank you.  I'll chance my nerves over all that. 

She said that the work load was sporadic at best.  They would either be drowning in work or starving.  She said that her pay was late two or three times and when she questioned management on it they were extremely rude.  She said that the owner/manager of the company was a nightmare who was prone to screaming fits and berating those who disagreed with her.

You can take this for what it's worth.  I hope it helps with your decision.

when they were trying to get more hospital accounts within a system, they would promise them the moon and assign an absurd number of MT's to my accounts ... so that I got virtually NO work on my regular accounts and had to ask for more accounts -- which became time consuming and more importantly NERVE WRACKING to work on so many relatively new accounts all at once -- again -- some of which I got very little work on .... (very different from really learning one or two accts, adding another -- learning that -- then adding another -- truly I was a wreck -- oh and my line count truly sucked -- so when I saw there was an opening at a local MTSO, I lept ... I was stressed out and making no money ... and I had been on these teaching hospital accounts (my favorite) for over 5 years ... sad)

That's what the message above about accounts up for renewal (as in contracts) meant ... in my case, Edix hoped to get more hospitals in this national chain (most national hospital chains, I think, use more than one service so that if something happens they aren't completely left in a lurch) -- at the time I left probably almost 10 years ago, Edix also had a VERY unstable platform that was down a great deal ... trust me -- it was hell

Their rate of pay is pretty average, compared to other companies. They way they count their lines is fair and honest, no matter what you might hear from others. Depending on who your supervisor is, the schedules are somewhat flexible. Some supervisors are pretty lenient with the schedule, and others are very rigid. Overall, the people there are pretty nice. If you're just basically looking for a company where you can go in, get your lines done, and walk away, they're probably a good fit for you.

But there are definitely bad points, also. There's not much in the way of feeling like part of a team. You pretty much feel like just another number to them. If don't give them what they want in terms of lines or overtime or whatever, you'll definitely hear about it. They love to ask for you to work extra or switch your shift to accommodate them, but they don't generally feel like paying back the favor. They're famous for turning down PTO requests for no particular reason, no matter the reason for the request.  The recruiter will promise you there's plenty of opportunities for advancement, but really there aren't. I've known gals who have worked their butts off for them for years and still haven't gotten anywhere. The only way to get a raise is to move up in levels of difficulty, and the levels that pay the most per line are the accounts that have tons of ESL's and lots of very difficult report types, with sometimes pages of really crazy account instructions that have to be followed.

In  my opinion, if you go with Spheris, you'll make the most money if you take on a medium-level account, probably with more clinic work, where there aren't so many ESL's and not so many crazy instructions, because if you can crank out the reports at 6 or 7 cents a line, you'll make more money than struggling thru accounts that pay 9 cents a line but are terrible to type.

Micromanaged to the microsecond, or ms!  Horrible. And part of a team?  Total opposite - part of a team as in prison.