As an IC, I prefer pool work.
Posted By: sm on 2009-08-11
In Reply to: MTSOs - Why work pools? - sm - Just Another MT
I have done pool work and been assigned docs and I prefer working a pool. When I was assigned docs, my lines varied so much. I never knew how much I was going to get each day. Some days I would get over 1500 lines, some days only 500. It made it very hard to plan my day as I never knew how long I was going to have to work. I never made enough money, yet I found it hard to work a second job as some weeks I would be loaded down with work from company 1 and not have time to work my commited lines for company 2, yet the following week I would get very few lines. Working a pool, I know I can get in at least 1000 lines a day every day (rarely have issues on my account with not enough work and usually do anywhere from 1500-2200). I don't have to guess how much I am going to make that day as I am in control of how many lines I take versus someone else sending the work.
Also, as soon as I get up, I can start working (like to start my day around 4 a.m. and be done around noon). I don't have to sit around wondering when my reports are going to be sent to me and waste half the day waiting when the company decides to send them at 4 p.m. instead of the usual 9 a.m.
Also, when only assigned 1 or 2 docs, if they take vacation, you are typically out of work for a week or two with little to no notice (at least in my experience). With a pool, you don't have that problem. If a doc goes on vacation, you have plenty of others to transcribe for. I also tend to get bored easily, so I prefer transcribing for multiple docs. I transcribe for about 15 docs now and I am very familiar with each of them and can transcribe over 250 lph. This would be different though if I was transcribing acute care and had 100+ docs though. But in that instance, pool work is better as it makes TAT faster.
Guess it is good that each company does it different so we can each find what works for us.
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I prefer to be off a day during the week so I prefer a Tues-Sat schedule. nm
nm
Could be that you are in a work pool and...sm
...work filters through chronologically in order of TAT.
It's common for companies to put 2, 3 or 4 hospitals in one work pool. Sometimes these are under the same corporate umbrella. You might have 4 hospitals run by corporation ABC - they are in different locations geographically, but in the same pool.
IC, 12 or 24 TAT, work from pool when I am available?
Is this actually offered anywhere? Some days I have plenty of spare time, some days I have none. I would like something to fill the gaps. Any suggestions?
OSi. How's the work pool s/m
The recruiter assured me plenty of work, but I have heard that is not the case. Wanting to leave my current company, but can't if the $$$ isn't there.
SoftScripts work pool?
Is it fairly steady? Plenty of work to go around.?
I know the MTs that work this acct. load them from a pool. However, sm
I think that is a very good idea - batching docs and/or specialties together. I wonder why they don't do that, and I am going to ask! Thanks! If you saw my post above, there are a total of 37 specialties on my list, made up of approx. 4-5 docs in each specialty, so I'm looking at learning well over 100 doctors in only 40 hrs. of training? That's a joke.
Have 3 primaries and then go into the pool rarely, but always have work sm
You get 20 different accounts every day? I feel for you. In the beginning of last year, I was doing as many as 15 accounts. Since at least November, I rarely go into the pool. Maybe you can switch accounts?
Fair? Just curious, why does all the work in a pool go to
the same people and some don't get anything except what they can scrap up? Just curious about this
Do any companies let you specialize rather than work out of a huge pool? nm
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I earned more doing MT work but I prefer QA
because I love it. I enjoy the mentoring aspect plus MT took its toll on my bones and I absolutely could not do it anymore if I wanted to because of that.
I work Sun-Thurs and prefer it. sm
My activities are usually on Friday and Saturday and this schedule works out great for me. What if you rotated weekends and just happened to have plans on the weekend you were scheduled to work and then nobody would trade with you? That would suck. This way I'm always off or if there is work available, I will work especially in winter. Would also prefer to work Thanksgiving and Christmas and have the summer holidays off. But that's just me.
AMEN! I too prefer to just work sm
and let the crap be handled by somebody else. I have been there done that as they say. The MTs who think the MTSOs have it so easy, no problems, raking in money and cashing the check and usually the same MTs who care about nothing but how much they can put out an hour and quality and patient care be d_____d! If they really understood the business they couldn't even come up with these crazy ideas!
Oops! That s/b I prefer home based work.
I work in Meditech for KS and am VERY happy. I average 300+ lph. I prefer it as sm
it is like WP5.1, which I loved. To each his own.
There are also two types of Meditech, Magic with is like WP5.1 and Client, which is a Word-based program.
Can you say where you work if you get assigned docs/accts.? I'm tired of this pool garbage/left
s
If you do not comply with their PC check on your personal computer, Acusis will close your work pool
nm
Personally, I prefer to be left alone to work. I hear from my lead when I need her and sm
one or two other times a month, never excessive like a certain company that is rah-rah'd on here. No problem with communication in the two years I have been with them!
Gheesh! Some people have something to complain about no matter what, surprised if even a Keystroke's employee. It is easy to form an opinion when only a handful of employees post here.
did she say in a pool or in a pool to be CONTACTED?
Are you talking about MxSecure?
Cherrypicking is when you work from a pool of jobs and being able to reject the worst jobs to those
,
Typing pool
Has anybody out there been in a typing pool and always running out of work? I find it very frustrating when there is work in the pool and all of a sudden every MT is on line. By the time you finish a report almost all of the work is gone and you are screwed and not making hardly anything. Has anybody experienced this? This month has been so slow it's ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hospital, no pool, just take what's there. nm
nm
no, usually you are in a pool; if they have many specialites....
you can end up on an account where you as the new guy get the ones nobody else wants to do; that happens; I've been there.
exactly. That's why I also mentioned POOL
/
That pool thing ?
Definitely not you. Probably just the pool of We don't know what we are doing here, we need help but we can't get it through our skulls that we need to hire good MTs which would take the burden off every entity of our organization and then treat them well and pay them fairly so they will stay with us and never create this situation over and over again and time and time again of losing clients, getting new clients, hiring, overhiring, laying off or running out of work. We simply have not figured out that stopping this repetitive cycle and treating our MTs well would only cause us to be more profitable. Amazes me that I have never found a company that has figured this out. I am really surprised with all the mismanagement anyone of them stays in business. Somehow they do because we all need to work and just put up with it, I guess. Good luck to you though, its kinda crappy in this profession most days.
I am an IC, and I basically type from a pool.
The work is available for me to get and return in 24 hours from the time of dictation. I have come to learn when the work is there. I do all clinic though. Some companies require ICs to have set hours, but I don't think that is right.
Of course some companies will ask when you're available, but most that know the true meaning of IC do not care what hours you work as long as you get the work back in a timely manner.
I have my own accounts as well, so that would not apply as far as getting lines because I charge all different amounts. One is subcontracted, I pick-up and deliver. IC offers flexibility at least in my eyes.
I don't know anything about Tera Nova - sorry!
We don't have the pool any longer- we moved
A Mexican family. So, I'm not paying for anything. The pool installers were American and lazy, broke the filter, and took all day and night and brought theird kids to play on my swing set and requested soda. The Mexican landscapers required no water, did not ask to use my toilet, and were done in one-half day with a lot of digging and a lot of stone work that would have taken a lot longer if they didn't work as hard as they did in the blazing sun. The American installers did nothing but cuss, moan, and complain about the heat.
As far as healthcare, we'll be paying more anyway once Hillary gives everyone who can't afford healthcare, free healthcare. Too bad, Americans are too lazy to work harder and smarter. I'm all American, born and raised, and I work very hard, but hey if the foreign entity comes along (like it did on my hospital job) and says they can do it cheaper, then what can I do?
Right now, they seem to be pulling VR editors from their MT pool nm
nm
Throw a VR back into the pool?
My company has stated if this were the case, you could be terminated. I do not like to straight type anymore so definitely would not want to throw away a VR report.
Prefer MT
I've done both, but prefer transcribing. Can earn more and go faster. QA was fine, but pay was sooooo low.
Definitely prefer QA over MT.
I actually make more doing QA but I guess I am lucky to be paid a pretty high hourly rate compared to what others say they make doing QA(shocked!). I began to really hate transcribing after many years as it became very boring and eventually not challenging enough for me. Plus my arms ached all the time. Everyone is different though, of course.
Prefer QA to MT (sm)
I make a lot more doing QA then MT. Very satisfied with my hourly rate and honestly enjoy my job!
This is exactly why I much prefer being--sm
an IC. Sure, some of these companies sound all wonderful with their benefits and all, but I guess I just do not trust very much, and shy away from accepting any benefit package with a company I cannot see or be physically involved in. The MTSO that I work for recently merged with another company who offered employee status with benefits. It all sounded really good, but when asked specifics about some of the benefits, I received quite vague answers. The one thing that spooked me was when they sent a letter explaining employee benefits and it stated *if you choose to become an employee, your rate of pay may change (but it did not specify to what)*. and also regarding their insurance benefits, it mentioned that $400 would be deducted from employee's pay every pay period, for single coverage!!! I have checked into getting my own individual coverage and I felt that $180 a month was too much to pay, so for a $400 pay cut every two weeks, wow! I decided to remain an IC. That way, I take care of my own taxes. I know exactly what is being paid into my SS every year, because it is ME that is paying it. And, if I choose to have a retirement fund, at least I know any money I put into it is actually going there. In other words, I retain control of my finances and do not rely on some ghost company somewhere to do that for me. It is all a matter of trust these days, and I have been burnt enough in the past that I trust hardly anyone anymore. These *companies* do not know you and you don't know them, so what is to stop them from doing exactly what you have described? You have my sympathies.
I wish you the very best and I truly hope you get your money back. It may be a long drawn out process though, but be persistent! Good luck to you!
Would you prefer....
I am wondering how many of you enjoy having daily e-mails that shares things about the company and your co-workers, such as maybe how long they have been employed and maybe something like spotlighting each MT each different month just to find out a little bit about your coworkers? The reason I ask this is because I used to work for a company about a year ago who had this type of thing and I really enjoyed it. It would even have something in it like bloopers from dictations and such. The company I have now you have nothing like that at all. We have our company e-mail, but the extent is just information about changes in account specs or the daily workload. I have seen names on the IM and just wondered about my fellow team mates. It was just a thought. Would like nice, honest answers... Please no meanies 
quarterly bonus from company pool?
Anyone here work for a company that offers a quarterly bonus that comes from a pool set aside by the company and the transcribers who qualify for the bonus, split it at the end of the quarter? Just wondering, if any, are you bonus checks worth the hassle? Are they decent checks? Thanks for all replies.
Ha! This is what dropped into my pool of its own accord. It was a "pocket" and that happens s
I am NO ONE'S PET.
My guess is someone messed up the pool scripts sm
which determines how the work is routed. I had work until about 1 on my primary and then moved over to my secondary and scraped together the last 200 lines. For the last 3 weeks I have been running out on my primary at 9:30 in the morning.
Years ago I worked for PHNS and it was a pool - sm
which I don't know if that is what you do, or if it is assigned doctors who you do the same ones day in and day out. But when I first started I only had PT in my pool, then I ASKED for more work to expand my horizons and obviously to make more money as PT would run out from time to time. I ended up probably with 300+ doctors in my work pool, more than enough work to go around then. As CB says above, you need to go and ask for more, it is the only way you are going to get enough work.
I am in a pool... see inside for the boring details :)
When I started with TRS I was a 36-year clinical-only MT, and the reason I took the job with TRS was, among other things, the fact that they offered to up-train me into acute care. (In fact I applied at Transcend just before I applied at TRS and they said no thanks, don't call us and we won't call you, and they wouldn't even let me TRY the freakin' TEST, so I find it mildly amusing that now they've got me anyway.)
But I digress. Anyway... at first I was assigned to a somewhat-limited pool on a large hospital account (an account that was brand-new to TRS and in fact I think we stole it from 'the Q') and all I was doing to start with was discharge summaries and letters. Well, once I got used to all the different voices, I started begging for at least some consults and H & Ps because even though I had only done 'clinical' before, I had done literally thousands of excruciatingly-detailed consults and H & Ps for internal medicine, hematology-oncology, orthopedics, and a few others I can't think of right now, over the years.
Then, apparently because I could actually do the work (plus I got kicked off the usual 1-month mentoring full-QA program after only 10 days, because it was mostly a waste of their time to full-QA me), they started trying me on another account, which I was later told was the VERY HARDEST account TRS had in its inventory, and before long I was in the 'all-work pool.'
So now the 'hard' account is my primary, the original account (still with only discharge summaries and letters) is my secondary, and I also have a tertiary (which fortunately I don't get hit with very often because it has REALLY CRAPPY sound 'quality', scratchy phone lines or something) on which I seem to be on just consults, progress notes, discharge summaries, and H & Ps.
I am told that the 'goal' at Transcend is to have everyone working something like 80% on their primary account, with the other 20% on secondary and tertiary, with no more than 3 accounts (except perhaps in extraordinary circumstances), mostly so there would be fewer account instructions to keep track of.
I can't find out how many physicians practice at the hospital that is my primary account (short of manually counting them) but it is a 350-bed hospital where they do pretty much everything. Just on a rough guess, there might be around 100 dictators I run into. A certain number of RNs and PAs dictate in addition to the doctors.
They keep me on that 'hardest' account because I am actually pretty good at deciphering most of it. Of course there are a couple of real 'problem children' still, and they usually have as many blanks after QA gets done with them as they did when I gave up on them, so that makes me feel better.
Not only that... our people are very proactive about actually talking to the clients to try to resolve problems. One of the worst dictators was just recently talked to and she has gotten a whole lot better. I e-mailed the liaison to report that, and asked them to please pass the word along that this doctor's dictation had indeed gotten a lot better and we, the poor saps at the other end of that phone line, really and truly appreciate her efforts....
Anyway. I had better get back to the work that is actually available this morning....
Anything else anybody wants to know, just ask, and I'll try to answer as best I can. :)
First Choice does, also, WP5.1. I prefer it, too. nm
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Why do you prefer OP notes? nm
+++
No, just as an employee. I think they have just a few ICs and prefer
to hire employees. I imagine though that working for them as an IC is pretty much the same as an employee with the exception of no benefits. U have been in this business for 20 years and this is by far the best company I have ever worked for.
done both and prefer IC status
I have been an IC for over 15 years. For the first 12, I was not incorporated. I just filed using my SS#. I incorporated three years ago, and now things are a bit more complicated but I seem to get more write offs.
My husband claims only a few on his taxes, so he seems to cover the both of us. I do not pay quarterly, and just about break even at the end of the year. We usually even end up getting a refund on our personal.
I have a CPA who is expensive but very familiar with home based business and what you need to pay or not pay.
I also work for a company where I am an employee, so throw that in the mix, and my tax return is kinda crazy. I prefer the IC status with all the write off's and such. My corporate filing fee is $750 per year and that is all I ever pay (well at least for the last three years).
Hope this helps.
I have used both, prefer Shorthand (SM)
Learning curve was too tedious and long on instant text. I found I could program ShortHand to do most of the same things.
I prefer nationals. SM
I have worked years in hospital settings. It does have its advantages. Here's what I see the pros/cons are:
Inhouse Pros:
-- When you are done for the day, you're done!
-- You are not faced with family/friend disruption (see cons, too)
-- Company provides everything
-- Socializing is easy
-- Provides a change of environment
-- You have immediate access to assistance on all levels
-- HR and Payroll are usually in the same bldg and you can go down directly to them
-- Mgmt is readily available
-- You can usually view the entire workload and see how it is being distributed or balanced and have more input
-- Workload is limited to your employer's work only
Cons:
-- If you get too close to coworkers, they become intrustive on your work
-- If you don't share coworkers' perspectives, you can be given quite a cold shoulder treatment
-- You have to conform to a dress code usually
-- You have to leave the house in bad weather, park - sometimes walk a ways or even pay fo parking, etc.
-- Usually much more structured work and break times that are not too flexible
-- Usually paid hourly..sometimes with incentive plans. If you are really fast, probably not a good setup for you.
Love Nationals:
-- Work from home
-- Co provides equipment
-- Plenty of work and varieties of work
-- Paid on production -- great producers do very well
-- No worries about coworkers and social settings (getting along with annoying workers, etc.)
I've done both and I prefer..
hourly because I would have a set income already.
I actually prefer to be trained
this way rather than getting stuck on the phone endless hours. Would you mind emailing me the name of the company?
I'm with you. I prefer per report
/
Do u prefer being an IC or employee?
Do you prefer being an IC or employee? I have been an MT for a little over 2 years, and I've always been an IC (subcontracting for a small transcription service). I like the flexibility in my schedule, but I feel a little left out in the cold when it comes to tech support, not having PTO to fall on when work runs low, etc.
I prefer my own computer.
Been working at home 12 years and have always used my own computer. None of my employers have gotten into it for any reason. If I have a problem with something computer related, my husband takes care of it.
We worked out of a pool, and when a report came up from a cruddy dictator (sm)
they would hit "1" and send it back to the pool so the next Transcriptionist would get it. It was so obvious, as soon as you went on in the morning the first few reports you got would be from the most God-awful ESLs and you can see that they were dictated the previous day, but then all of a sudden you start getting jobs that were dictated just an hour before.
Friend of mine cleared out pool for incentive - never got it
and now theyve bounced her fourth or fifth check. She's been gone for months and they're STILL messing with her
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