Burnout...wanted to work smarter, not harder.
Posted By: Hayseed on 2008-03-07
In Reply to: Why'd you leave deventure? - NM
It seemed like I was sitting at my desk for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, just trying to pull the bare minimum. I had to hop around from one hospitals operating system to another and to another constantly...and if you've ever had the pleasure of doing that, you know that lines don't come easy that way because you spend all your time waiting for things to load and what not. There just wasn't enough work to stay on one account all the time, the way I think it should be, so instead of becoming an angry and bitter employee, I left.
They really did try to make me happy, but all they could offer were more hours, or more accounts, and like I told them, I simply wanted to work my 8 hours and make a decent living. Had a really hard time doing that over the winter. I think they overhired but I never asked that question head on. It was a great company when they first started out, but then got really big really fast. Great benefits though, if you can make the lines.
If I needed to get my foot in the door, I'd work for them, get the experience, and move on. It's that kind of place. But during a moonlighting gig I tasted freedom, more money due to a more efficient way to work, and better overall work environment, surrounded by people who truly loved their jobs, and when I was happy to log on for THAT job, and got sick to my stomach when I had to log on at DVHP, well that's when I knew it was time to be on my way.
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Work Smarter, Not Harder...
Exactly! Go to work for a company that pays for ALL of your work, not just what is reflected in your typed reports. What about time spent looking up physicians out of a data base of 50,000! Trying to figure out what in God's name the doc is saying when pronouncing some foreigner's name, and wasting 10 minutes doing so...with no pay! ALL of my expertise is worth compensation, not just what they see on the final report. How many times do you type an entire report, just to hear at the end, Erase this, I'll redictate! No credit! What a waste of time and I deserve to be paid for the work I did, even though the DOCTOR screwed up and screwed me out of earning my pay for those lines! What a bunch of BS!!!
You have it all wrong. I work SMARTER, not harder.
I will take on any acct. After months of getting used to it, I see what I am making an hour. If it is worth the work required to do that acct, great. If it isnt, I ask to be taken off acct and so far, have never been refused. Sometimes takes little while for them to get another MT for acct but have never been refused. Company is not working for the prestige, loyalty to an acct, or ME for that matter, or for the good of mankind. Why should I? I am in this for the money, just like the company. I am very much a pro, which is probably why companies would rather have me on another acct, than to quit giving me work all together. They know many companies are always looking for a good MT. Like other posters, I dont understand why someone would work below their worth. There are too many companies out there to try. I have tried several, staying with the ones where I could make good money.
I was doing VR, too. For me, the work is just harder to come by.
I work second shift, and it used to be early evening the OPs would start coming in. I could really roll on those, but they have all but disappeared. I now only get handful per shift and mostly EGDs or I&Ds. I also worked Fridays and Saturdays, which were great for work, but even those days are depleted now.
I think now I just am bummed out thinking I worked my butt off to get to the 5 to 6-year mark where I could apply with the better companies, and there just is no work. My daughter is almost done with her transcription course, and it is scary to me that she has to work for 3 cpl but even scarier that I might have to pretty soon :(
You work longer AND harder and the work is
??
MT burnout
Does anyone else feel like this career is a dead end road? I can't keep up like I used to. I'm making less money now than I made 10 years ago. Being paid on production is really stressful to me compared to hourly. I have a new super who breathes down my neck and lectures me when I'm not up to count for a day, which only adds to my already feeling negative about myself. Don't think there's anything else I can do, though, after almost 30 years of doing nothing but MT work. How do YOU guys deal with extreme burnout?
MT burnout
You have a lot of company.
MT burnout
30+ years, less money, stressed. I do love MTing though, just not making it any more. I quit working for 2 months - went through enormous withdrawal for a few weeks (hurting wrists and hands and neck that hadn't bothered me before), and slept quite a lot for a couple of weeks. Gradually energy came back and in about 6 weeks was ready to work again. Found an IC position (rented the equipment) and now also a full-time for bennies. Hope soon to be back in the black. I hope you can take some time for yourself and recharge. Best wishes..
MDI/TRANSCEND BURNOUT
Anyone else as sick of MDI/Transcend as I am? I am so tired of them talking out of both sides of their mouths. Run out of work and their response is - "oh here, just move to this account and type". Then they want to know why the hell the line count went down that day!! EXCUSE ME??? You just put me on an account located in a different state, different hospitals, different cities, different nursing homes, different rehab centers, and you expect me to be productive?? By the time you research everything, get the information you need so you don't send in the blanks to QA, you are lucky to be typing 100 lines an hour! I'm tired of being bounced around like a ping pong ball and treated as if I'm a nobody when if it wasn't for the TRANSCRIPTIONISTS who BUST THEIR TAIL ENDS every day, work over time EVERY WEEK, they wouldn't exist! So how about paying a little extra to the people that have to switch on a daily basis because they over staff and then run out of work! Or here's another BRILLIANT IDEA - - - try telling the ICs not to work when the work is slow, or move THEM to a different account! It seems that it's always the hard working dedicated ones that work there that end up getting shit on. If anyone is considering a position with Transcend and/or MDI - THINK TWICE! They will promise you the world when they are trying to hire you, but TRUST ME they will take that world right back as soon as you start to feel comfortable. You might get 1,500 lines in one day, and then 500 the next! Good luck to you! I'm ready to throw in the towel. 
Anyone who's not smarter than Flo is on SSI
That narrows the field down a bit.
You really think that you as an MT are smarter than doctors?..sm
When doctors will be put to the task to correct their own VR, you can bet they will be up to the task, some immediatley, some with some training or polishing up their grammar and spelling. Certainly regarding the medical terminology. After all, it is they who s-t-u-d-i-e-d it, 8 years, some even longer. Do you really think that MTs can not be replaced?
If all true, I forecast a bout of burnout in the near
xx
65-character is the way it is now. The clients are smarter and cheaper than sm
they used to be. Very few have weekly pay. I agree about QA rudeness.
9-10 cents per gross line! Where? Sign me up !!!
Well said, fellow member of the smarter gender.
Very well said. The only male MTs I have come across in my many years, have been at 60% accuracy (I QA'd them, so I speak from experience), and then they are absolutely shocked, horrified and rude when they never make it out of their probationary period.
Don't think there was one. And they really wanted you to NOT work the weekends, too, unless you
s
I don't work there but wanted to apply
/
THANK YOU!! WOW even if i wanted to work there I would NEVER give her the option of a referral as
I wanted to work for Keystrokes but she hired me a month ago
and then never followed through. I think that they are a great company, at least the friends I have that work there think so, but it seems that hiring is their weak spot. I should apply for that. I am organized and would never let someone slip through the cracks. I am going to call their office on Monday to be the squeaky wheel.
I love the company I work for and I just wanted to share
that with you all so that if you are not happy, realize there is hope out there. I worked for Healthscribe/Spheris for over 2 years until I found this position. I am a SE for MDI out of Maryland and I make 10 cents per 65 character line including spaces. This is a great smaller company that does not offshore. I am left alone to do my work but I have somebody there if I need any questions answered, etc. QA is wonderful too. They didn't dump me into an account full time, they let you ease into your account over a 2 week period doing 5 reports a day so you can work your other job until you are taken off of QA. I was off QA in a week. My account is great, the platform is great (Bayscribe), production Expander is user friendly. For all you unhappy MTs, there is hope out there.
It's harder to get your own accounts
Most guys don't have a choice but to work for nationals in this business or own their own business. Would like some input into how guys work at making that much money in MT. Thanks.
Seems like they are just making their job harder.
They should be taking the time to do the job correct the first time. How is rushing through going to help them in the long run? The reports are just going to come back for corrections, which is then going to take them longer to fix in the end then just editing them properly the first time through. I understand not wanting to get pay docked, but it seems they are only making things worse for themselves in the end.
Working harder for less pay.........
to achieve the same figure on one's paycheck is circular reasoning.
As has been stated before here, it is a pretty sure bet that the clients are being charged the same for their reports whether an MT physically transcribes it or whether a speech engine translates it and an MT cleans it up. That being the case, with the MT being paid even less for speech recognition, the middle man (management) is making way more money off the MTs back and will continue to make more as the MT is pushed to turn out more production.
As for adapting to more coming technilogical changes, you'd better prepare to adapt yourself to another line of work because the MT field will become obsolete as we know it even today. There will be fewer MT positions needed as speech recognition becomes more and more proficient at creating a medical document that is within acceptable limits.
I must agree with you. Seems harder the older you get.sm
When I was in my 20s, sure I could do 1800+ a day, but it's a different story now that I'm in my 40s. Sore wrist and fingers. Forearms tight and painful.
IT SUCKS!!
PS: Chinamom, sorry, I didn't mean to reply by email. Clicked the wrong thing by mistake. I must be getting old!!
Yes, for some reason Bayscribe does seem harder (sm)
Harder to make your lines, that is. The only time that Bayscribe will not add demographics (or autopopulated info) to your character count is if you mark the report as a No Report. Otherwise, on all reports, including the ones marked Incomplete Report, it will count all the demographic info too.
They say that Bayscribe is Word-based, but personally, I haven't seen much simularity at all between Word and Bayscribe. I do know that when I switched from using Word to using the Bayscribe platform, my average lines-per-hour production dropped somewhere around 25%.
So yes, with Bayscribe, I do find myself working longer hours in order to make the same line counts that I used to make. I'm not really sure what the answer is, but I don't think that it's the accounts.
Sometimes the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Lots of these big MTSO co's are in bed with AHDI, and I have a hunch the whole kit-n-kaboodle of 'em are ridin' for a fall. Or a public hangin'.
Even if some of them aren't harder to manipulate,
it's just assumed that they are. I've found that the few guys I worked with on-site in the past WERE fairly woman-like in their willingness to be manipulated and taken advantage of. Which is probably why they got into, and stuck with, MT in the first place. Those guys who won't stand for that sort of thing never got into MT at all. Which is probably about 99.999% of them.
The benefits to the MTSO for having at-home MTs is not only the savings of NOT having to run, maintain, insure, heat, cool, and clean a brick-and-mortar building for their workers, but more importantly, the physical and social ISOLATION of those workers by basically chaining them to their desks at home. The isolation makes it far easier for us to be lied to, intimidated, cheated and overworked because NO ONE ELSE SEES IT HAPPENING.
The internet, and forums like this one, have broken us out of that isolation to some degree, but obviously not enough of a degree for change to happen. It's likely that for every MT that knows of this, or other MT forums, there are 10 who don't.
Further compounding the trouble those of us who DO use online forums to communicate with each other have, is the fact that we all know the MTSO suits cruise these boards, and we have to be careful about what we say, and to not reveal our identities, or else we'd most likely find our little selves fired.
So to date, medical transcription, and the sweatshop conditions it's done under, is the healthcare industry's best-kept 'dirty little secret'.
Is it getting harder for anyone to get jobs now with all the people applying for them. How does
this seem to be going for most MTs looking for jobs. What seems to be the one factor that gets MTs a job before all the other 100 or so looking for the same job and what are the most desired qualities today that companies are looking for.
Anyone else going from DQS to ExText and noticing lines are harder to get? (sm)
Both accounts are about the same difficulty, just find ExText more cumbersome and where I used to do 1200 lines in 6 hours on DQS I now take every bit of 8 hours and sometimes that doesn't do it. Am i just getting slow to learn new things or has anyone else noticed this same thing?
Definitely harder and I've given it a lot of time. I'm thinking about
nm
Acute care is quite a bit harder than clinic.
Definitely. Never a good idea to lie. You won't find anyone at most big companies to ask beginner questions to, on ops or otherwise.
I, too, went from MQ to TT, and line counts are much harder to get at TT with Dictaphone ExText.
I have always been called *firey fingers*, so know it is not me, as I am very fast and accurate on the keyboard. Line count continually gets harder to achieve. I know it depends on how the company has Dictaphone set the line count parameters -- whether to pay headers, footers, spaces, demos, normals, expanders, etc.
Also speech recognition using ExSpeech at TT is so cumbersome and awful. Really made good money and line count with DQS speech editing. Just must my opinion. Other comments would be interesting.
The requirement is 50% participation. It is actually harder for a larger company sm
than a small company if they are national to get good rates. Once in, they will have it easy after that. I dealt with it personally for another company and it was a nightmare. Insurance is crazy and once national, it is harder to get the insurance. They should have gone with BC/BS when smaller but chose Unicare for some reason. Now they are regretting it.
Sometimes you get spelling and abbrvns over the phone, typing later on. Bone up on your harder
s
Thank you! Just wanted I wanted to hear!
nm.
It is much harder on the wrist to constanly use the mouse to jump around the report to edit, rather
x
I agree that it is an easy platform, but compared to other platforms I have used, lines are harder
to get, probably counted or weighted differently.
Easy tests versus harder tests...
Having passed both and offered jobs at both, which company would you likely go for? They both have the same basic benefits and line rates. Would I be assuming that the harder testing will mean that the dictation is more difficult? Any opinions on this would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks for saying what I wanted to say...
We are not the same as Transcend, although we both are good companies. We care about MTs... and I would love to know who the posters are that claim differently.
As Liz says below -- e-mail her or give her a call.
I just wanted to say that I don't believe the
Indian worker is trying to destroy the American dream, they are trying live it. Blame should go to the companies who are taking the work and sending it overseas, not the workers who are given an opportunity to better their life situation. This doesn't mean I agree with off-shoring, I just think blame for the dying of the American MT profession is sometimes misplaced.
I have been following this and I wanted SM
to say that it might not be that you were the only one this happened to---a lot of people just see the $ coming out of the paycheck and don't think they have to confirm that the plan holder got it (because the company should be more trustworthy).
The way these companies are now, it's probably a better thing if you take the check they gave you and found an IRA to invest in yourself. You can also arrange to contribute to it throughout the year (although it will be after-tax money, but you will be able to claim the contribution at the end of the year and get that tax back) out of your own bank account. The situation that happened to you is unacceptable. You are being far more gracious than I would under the same circumstances.
We do not allow job-wanted ads. (SM)
Please feel free to post your resume on the resume bank or search the Job Seeker's board.
In the future, if you have a question about your post, please e-mail the Administator or myself.
Goldbird
I just wanted to know if - sm
it was liked or not. Wondered if it slowed you down at all. I am used to Word and I hate to change if it is a problem software.
Thanks.
Just wanted to say hello...
I start with MDI this week, was just trained yesterday. It's nice to hear there's usually plent of work. :)
No job wanted ads, please. NM
Goldbird
No job-wanted ads, please. SM
Please use are free resume bank or see the ads on Job Seekers board.
Ask about specific companies or specific issues (i.e., the poster below asking which companies have an HMO plan).
If you need help, e-mail me.
Goldbird
just wanted to add...
it sounded very familiar to a presentation presented by a former employer YEARS ago. It was a very small local MTSO, and he was reworking the pay scale in order to cover other expenses. He showed us a pie chart of what a huge chunk MT wages took out of the total revenue (DUH -- would you HAVE revenue without us) and mentioned how we could increase our wages by becoming more productive (the latter, I believe, was mentioned more than once in the DRC/Acusis presentation -- read: don't count on making your current wage -- but you'll be able to offset that by increasing your productivity -- HA). We didn't get the pie chart in this presentation, but it was clear they want a good portion of their revenue to go to research and development.
I'm cautiously optimistic -- I would LOVE to switch careers but at my age it's impossible -- I know because I have tried. Once you have worked at home doing this for X number of years, you basically don't qualify for anything else unless you wish to flip burgers. A friend asked: Can they really cut your wages? And i explained how the lovely world of MT CAN and DOES do that: I predict in this case, it will be: We are switching to a different way of counting lines, and we will adjust your pay per keystroke appropriately. And LO AND BEHOLD, when you crunch the numbers, you will notice that your pay has been appropriately adjusted DOWNward.
Did you tell them you wanted to do OPs and they said OK, or just
not check it out at all???
I just wanted to say ....
I have worked for Liz, and she is really great. She was always very understanding and went out of her way to be kind to me. I did not see the ad you guys are referring to, and I understand no one wanting to feel like they are being insulted, but for her to have written something like what I imagine the ad said from what I can gather from your posts, she had to be frustrated. I would totally work for her again.
I think it is 5 cpl, but I wanted
I wanted straight transcription to get a better rate, so don't quote me on it.
Ok, that's what I have already. Wanted to see if could do away with the
nm
BECAUSE I WANTED TOO,
x
That's what I wanted to know. Thanks for
your honesty. Anybody else have a different/similar experience?
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