Anyone happier working for a national versus local clinic or hospital? SM
Posted By: Wondering MT on 2007-12-06
In Reply to:
I'm with a national but from time to time, openings come up with areas places. None are in my own town, but would be 30 to 45 minutes away from home. In the case of at least one of these places, you are required to work in-house just to get used to their system, which I understand, but they say it usually takes a year before being set free at home. Now I can understand that if you are a brand new MT, but as far as just getting used to how they do things, that seems excessive. If you meet the criteria sooner, you can go sooner. It worried me about the length of time. That would put me in a bind with little kids and being away from home on certain days after they got off the school bus.
On the flip side, they pay hourly so I might like that, rather than make next to nothing on some days where the dictators are horrible on my current account. On the other hand, on a good day the lines are worthwhile and I'd come out ahead by LPH rather than hourly rate.
So many things to think about...oh, and another biggie...with this local place I'd get health insurance free for myself (not the family, but I have the kids covered on a plan I'm already paying for myself, along with me on the plan, which I could then drop myself from).
Anybody worked both scenarios and decided the national really was better? I actually interviewed here a year ago but didn't have to decide because they offered it to somebody in-house so I never got an offer. I have 3 years of experience but I still worry I would take forever to meet the criteria to work from home. I guess there are a few that have been there over a year and haven't met it. I don't want that to be me.
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Love working for my local clinic
I have 4 weeks vacation after I was there for just one year. After 5 years I get five weeks. I get paid hourly so if there's no work, which happens from time to time when all the doctors and the NP I work for are gone, I still get paid. I get all holidays and weekends off, a 401K plan, and profit sharing. I'm sure those working for Nationals make more than I do, but it was important to me that I didn't have to work weekends and/or holidays so it's the perfect fit for me.
Once, while working for a local hospital
I was also working PT for the service that the hospital used. The only conditions made for that were that I could not work on my hospital's account as that could be considered a conflict, i.e., less work for the hospital so more was available for the PT job. I have yet to have a problem working for 2 companies. Currently I work for a national company FT and a local company PT. They do not have the same accounts, so therefore no conflict.
i just started working for a local hospital. sm
They pay for the entire phone bill and internet for an extra line to do their work.
Curious, can you make more money working for a hospital rather than a clinic?
I've never really did acute care and curious?
Wow, 3 jobs. Hats off to you! Are they local or national.NM
xxxx
Yep, 24 hrs for national, IC for 2 local clinics, also teach kickboxing and sales rep for a clothing
nm
I work for local clinic 17 cpl
But it's only two doctors and another MT and I split the work.
specify, clinic/acute, IC/employee, national/own accounts,
nm
Local hospital - sm
I loved Medware until they started sending so much of their work to Medware India. I spent my days editing the offshore work. Its incredibly frustrating. It doesn't matter how much feedback you give, the same errors are made. A person cannot go day after day after day doing that without getting down. I made the decision to leave and have been so much happier. I only have to worry about my own quality now. 
Our local hospital...
has closed the entire top floor, and the nursing students from the local college are lucky to get 1 patient for their clinicals. They are asking the older seniority nurses and other personnel to retire early. Another hospital has the healthcare workers down to 32 hours per week. I am in OH, and my area is really bad economy-wise.
Then a small co or a local hospital SM
would be better. You are not going to find an MT service of any size that doesn't have a bunch of ESL dictators. That's just the way it is.
JLG did work for our local hospital when I was there.
They charged us $3.50 a line. I saw the contract. I was shocked. We paid ICs $1.50 a line. And the work was horrible. Everytime they uploaded reports, 2 of us spent most of the day correcting them. After about 6 months, we fired them.
Only when hired by a local hospital - sm
It is a little surprising to hear they want you to do this. I was hired by a local hospital (an hour away) and had to come in for training there - up to 3 months, unless I got the hang of it earlier. Some folks who worked there lived a little farther away (one was 3 hours) but all were within driving distance. So I have been asked - however, I've not been asked for a place as far away as what you described. 
It's just a local hospital account, not a
national. Most of the time I do their acute care work on Chartscript; I just help on radiology in Meditech if they are backlogged. It's not the Meditech Magic version, though. Don't know if that makes a difference.
The local hospital I go to has it....I have to say it is impressive.
I have various scopes done periodically for surveillance, and for the last few years they have handed me a beautifully typed and surprisingly detailed report as soon as I wake up, complete with color photos. I recently asked how it was done so quickly. The nurse said the doc types it using a template.
Often it is better to apply at your local hospital. Many times they
train on-site. The training is invaluable as you can get training on acute care and radiology and you would have a mentor with you all day.
worked 3 yrs, went to work for local hospital nm
nm
Oh boy I will. It is nothing but depressing out there. I applied at our local hospital because I can
hardly stand another day of this disappointment. This business has gone down the tubes!!
I work in-house at a local hospital...
And it's been pretty much famine conditions there, too. We're having to use our VH hours when we're called off for lack of work. I don't know where you're located, but I'm in central California. Perhaps it's a nationwide phenomenon for some reason.
Hang in there. The powers-that-be where I work keep telling us it's just temporary (although I'm preparing for the worst).
~hugs~
acute care versus clinic
You are so right. Same here. Started in acute care about 15 years ago back when they had tapes. arrrgh! I started out weekends in radiology which was for 5 docs and then when I graduated college went to HIM to do acute care. Started with maybe 30 doctors and doing all kinds of reports and hospital grew to 250 doctors minimum before I left there a couple of years ago. Now I am so thankful for the experience because I am very flexible with what I can do and that makes a better candidate on an interview. Best of luck to you and do stick with it if you can. Actually, I think its great if you are only missing it by less than 100 lines a day. Some advice, though, make you your own 'normals' and maybe save them in folders in Word or something if you can. Even if the dictation isn't the same every time, you can read through while the person is dictating and change what needs to be changed. Op notes are notoriously repetitive for surgeons, barring complications, so that is why it is important to proof as they dictate. Hope this helps bump up that production.
I currently spoke with a local hospital and their pay was hourly with an incentive (nm)
x
Actually, my local hospital offered me MUCH less than what I make at my MTSO
By 4 cpl.
I used to make an hourly rate at a local hospital but s/m
The home-based MTs were on a tiered hourly scale depending on how many minutes we typed daily. The in-house MTs were not on this scale and I believe they are the reason we lost our jobs to outsourcing. They made the big bucks and could not even produce 80 minutes of dictation a day. The home MTs had to produce 100 minutes a day to reach the maximum hourly pay.
I feel that being paid by production is not such a bad thing because at least the ones who produce get paid for it.
Ecstatic I left hospital to go national, but... (sm)
No favoritism (funny how that's the same everywhere), no office politics, no long commute every day. And I've more than doubled my income, since I'm paid by production. I work for WebMedX, who are wonderful. I know they're hiring now, only thing is their ad makes it pretty clear they're only hiring second and third shift right now.
Hmm. Your situation is a little different, though. I'm single with no kids and live in a big city with DSL. There's no way you could get DSL where you live?
Still, I think your idea of trying out a service part-time to see how you like it is a smart one. You just can't enjoy life if your workplace makes you nuts, y'know? I put up with years of my manager will look into it before I figured that was just code to shut me up and nothing was gonna change.
Good luck to you!
Acute care versus clinic work...sm
Which do you feel you can get a better line count on and would you take a slight pay cut to do just clinic work? Most acute care accounts have such difficult dictators and such I was wondering if it would just be better to go to a good clinic account even if it meant less per line. Opinions?  
Clinic work versus acute care?
Anybody have any input as to the money to be made doing clinic work versus acute care?
Multi clinic versus acute care
I was wondering if it is possible to make a good line count with a multi-speciality clinic. I was offered a PT position; one with acute care and one with a multi-clinic. Just wondering what you all thought.
I beg to differ. Acute Care versus Clinic
You may have the same terminology in clinic as with Acute care, but I promise you, you will have terminology in Acute Care that you will never see in clinic. The terminology in Acute care is more extensive than in clinic. I have done the both, but I specialize in Acute Care with Ops. I've been in the business 30 years. Multispeciality clinic is quicker and easier terminology, therefore the pay is less.
Recently applied at local hospital that paid incentive.
The local hospital here also pays hourly plus incentive. New MTs start at $15 an hour and then anything over 120 lines are paid at an incentive rate with the incentive rate increasing with the more lines you completed.
hospital versus IC
If you are happy being an IC, stay there. I went from there to MQ and was happy for several years, but just quit MQ because of all the changes. If you stay your own boss, you obviously have much more control.
Hospital versus At Home
The hospital I work for has finally said I could work at home. I am wondering if there are experienced people that can tell me the cons of working at home. I am looking forward to it but need to know if I need certain things and what kind of books to buy.
Diskriter versus hospital
There is a BIG difference between working for Diskriter and working for a hospital through Diskriter. I've done both and there's no comparison.
Are you hospital or clinic?
x
are you doing clinic, hospital, or ER?
nm
hospital/clinic?
Is it one hospital? 30 doctors? Can you tell me the hospital/clinic name?
Diskriter versus hospital accounts
Did they explain the Diskriter versus hospital status to you when you spoke with them? I'm a little confused about that from the above posters. Thanks!
MDI versus MedScribe versus SoftScript versus Transsolutions versus TransHealth. SM
I'm getting ready to start applying and these are the companies that I'm looking at. So give me the low-down. Good, bad, India?
Here are my criteria:
9 cpl or better
Does NOT send work to India
Good accounts with at least 50/50 of ESL versus American dictators
Consistent work flow - no downtime or time spent waiting for work
Upper management should be professional, positive, and encouraging.
Pay for lines WITH spaces.
Is there such a job out there or am I just dreaming? If there are other companies other than the ones I listed that would fit the bill, please feel free to let me know. I tested with TransHealth and I felt like I tanked. It was a hard test and I had to use the mouse to stop and start the dictation as it was online test and you couldn't download the voice files. So that made it a lot more difficult. One of the dictators was cutting himself off through the report and I had to leave some blanks. I'm very frustrated with this whole process of looking and testing. Are all the tests like that? Or are there companies that allow you download the test files and transcribe them using your pedal and software? Ugh! I am just so frustrated and discouraged.
Thanks for any helpf.
I make more than that working for large National, which SM
provides all equipment. I do not have to pay for long distance. I have benefits, paid time off, health insurance and a wonderful supervisor.
I am really glad you posted. I haven't felt this satisfied with my company for a long time. Now I know why I am still working for them.
And by the way, if you expect your MTs to paid 8 cpl and pay for their own LD, they must be starving and/or homeless.
Or try working for a local doctor's office in your area as an employee
That's one of the reason I wouldn't/couldn't work for a National MTSO. I wanted a more flexible schedule as far as days off and vacations. I get six paid vacation days and 5 weeks paid vacation. I don't think I could ever find that with a National.
I make $4000-5000 but NOT WORKING for a national
I just couldn't even make $1800/month working for a national because they kept running out of work, or had me tied to a computer for 7 days a week, or I was getting up at 4 a.m. just to try to get some work before running out. I certainly would never work for MQ because I would have made less than $1800/month, but that's just me. I now do it independently, and I'm not bragging, but most of my months vary in the $4000/range. A couple have been less, and the most has been $7000/month. JUST NOT FOR A NATIONAL. NO WAY, NO HOW!
$2500 gross a month working for a national
x
I also lost hospital job and have tons of clinic work
Hospitals can afford the software, clinics cannot.... It will be a long time before any of these clinics can afford the software especially when the health insurance providers refuse to reimburse for services rendered like they should... When I say clinic, I mean private practice....
Used to be 7.4-7.7 cpl for clinic, 8 cpl for hospital w/1 weekend shift, 10 if U worked entire
s
I know I'm going to be happier... heck, I'm happier already
Although only on day 2 at my new job and having to learn a new system, all new doctors etc etc, I typed 50% more lines per hour today than I did yesterday and I anticipate it'll keep getting better. For the most part I was able to work the hours I wanted to at MQ, and DQS is a very user-friendly platform IMO, but other than that I don't think I'll miss a thing. I was with MQ for 12 years and at the end there it felt like I was in an abusive relationship. Change is good!
Working for a hospital
Most of the hospitals like for you to be in a certain radius so that you can attend meetings, etc. The last one that I checked out said you had to live in a 50-mile radius. They are out there. Just keep checking.
Actually, it is much like working in the hospital
snarling and ignorant comments. I don't feel like I have left the hospital at all.
Jeannal, were you working for a hospital that
decided to outsource, or did you decide you want to work at home and so you are leaving the hospital?
Working inhouse for hospital, sm
There's 2 of us for 25 staff MTs plus monitoring the outsource vendor. We're both paid salary. Works out pretty well for my budget. Living in Florida, salary range for our jobs I believe is $35K to $39K annually.
I worked for a national company previously, we were paid on production, at about 4 cents per line. It was a horrible way to make a paycheck. Would never go back to that.
Its been my experience, even when working in the hospital sm
that MTs with seniority usually get the worst work because it is the more difficult work and newbies usually cannot handle it. Unfortunately, thats the way it works in this field...the more experience you have, the more likely you are to get the crap work. That work has to get done too!
Probably each company has their own rules, but when I was working in a hospital sm
generally, it was 7a-3p for first, 3p-11p for second, and 11p-7a for third, not including lunch breaks.
Hope this helps. 
I make twice what I made working at a hospital.
And I even work for MedQuist, no less!
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