Couple things (SM)
Posted By: PSMT on 2007-09-26
In Reply to: WHAT ABOUT SPHERIS - magnolia
#1 -- All caps is considered shouting.
#2 -- Spheris has been discussed here extensively. Do a search first -- you might find all the info. you need.
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Couple of things
If your company is constantly getting bashed and wrongfully so, then wouldn't standing up for them be the right thing to do? Anyone who could make around the $50k you say you could make in 8 hours is indeed fortunate; most MTs I know personally and those on this board aren't so fortunate.
Secondly, what is it that you think they should do? Jobs of any kind are pretty scarce due to the tanked economy. The MT business particularly sucks when you have a great many MTSOs offering 5-6 cpl for experienced MTs. So what do you suggest they do? Go back to school? I hear education all the time but exactly which career should they pursue that will ensure that they can get a job when they finish this education? Anything that can be offshored is being offshored. We are in the market for a new truck and we have always been pro BUY AMERICAN. Hubby told me this evening that Ford is out because they are building 2 new plants in CHINA! So the taxpayers (and these poor MTs ARE taxpayers) bail out the auto industry and THEIR money is used to build up the economy in another country. Something VERY wrong with that.
Hmmm.....a couple things
Just a thought...maybe NEMT doesn't have IE7 or Word 2003.
Or maybe NEMT senses your attitude...screaming (using all caps) at people who took the time to respond to you - who granted did not read carefully - to READ people...READ...  and NEMT would rather you not test at all...
Just a thought.
Well, things have obviously changed in the last couple...sm
of years since you have been gone. Didn't seem to me that the right hand knew what the left hand was doing and just horribly disorganized. Sad testimonial of what is going on in the MT field as well as all over the US in all fields!
A couple of things to ponder and solicit opinions
This is not the only odd thing occurring at MDI-MD. Let me give you my opinion of what's happening with YOUR situation, and perhaps you can venture an explanation to my oddity.
First of all, I often read the threads on the MQ board and from what I gather, once an account is shuttled over to VR, the only dictators left for straight transcription are either new dictators or the ones who are so horrible that VR can't translate them.
If I had to venture a guess, I'd say you are being left with the dregs that cannot be converted to VR. It might very well be this is an example of what you will be stuck with from here on out.
Oddly, on my MDI account, there was no work on one of my clinics for 2 days. I found it strange but thought perhaps the clinic had not been seeing patients for a couple of days.
Imagine my shock when reports dictated on SEPTEMBER 4th did not show up to be transcribed until SEPTEMBER 8th.
Where where those reports for 4 days? Perhaps over in India and the ILPs fell out of TAT and so MDI begrudgingly had to bring them back for the American MTs to catch up? I have worked on this particular account for over a year, and NEVER have reports not been in the cue ready to type immediately after they are dictated.
This same scenario occurred again 3 days later; dictation that was 2 days old suddenly appeared (a different specialty within the same clinic).
Yep, strange things are definitely going down at MDI-MD and I expect it's going to become even stranger the closer to January we get.
What's that linen from All About Eve? 'Fasten your seatbelts, folks...It's going to be a bumpy night!'
No. Expect good things, and good things will come
x
A couple
Lee Perfect I believe and TTS. Try putting your resume up as well. I got a ton of hits off of here and another transcription job board and another job website. Not allowed to give you names of the sites though.
There are a couple of ways....
You can either use Alt+tab and that will switch you toggle you between programs or you can just keep a notebook and write down the acc#. I thought this was going to really hurt my production but after you get use to doing it, it doesn't really seem to be a big deal at all. Good luck!
It took me a couple of weeks...
had to get all those shortcuts in but once you get used to it, it is okay. I always keep track of how many reports I do and I don't look at line count until I do so many. I can get my required line count in 6 hours or less and when I first started it was a lot longer than that. So, it does get better. 
A couple questions
Do they hire part-time? Do you need a C-phone or are they internet based?
Thanks
...couple more questions if you can...
Tested for radiology, but I can do acute care. Can you tell me about the rotating weekends? How many weekends do you actually end up working over about a 3-month period? Does the software have a built-in expander?
Thanks!
I have a couple questions
Do they hire part time? The website mentions Word 2000. Does it have to be Word 2000 or will a newer version work, i.e. Word 2002?
a couple more questions
What is the minimum line count you need with them for part-time and if you need to work outside of your schedule or type earlier/later in the day, how flexible are they with that? Thanks for the info!
Just a couple questions
How is the platform?
Is rigid schedule required for full-time?
Are there production bonuses?
Thank you!
Yup. Same here. Just started a couple
of months ago with promises of good accounts, never run out of work, etc. I really regret going with them. Now looking for something else. What a disappointment! Same thing with Medware in the past. So don't look there either. These companies over-hire and offshore, and this is what happens. Ugh. 
A couple of questions for you...
What do you mean by acquired 3 private accounts through them? They are your accounts? You bill them, collect the money? Or they are small accounts that only you do? Not sure what you meant there.
If you have no benefits, are you an IC? If you are an employee with no benefits, I'd be looking elsewhere. If you're not being paid what an IC would make, you're getting the short end of the stick.
If you are an IC, you'd need to rewrite your contract at the end of the contract period.
If you're an employee, go for it. Ask for what you feel you deserve. If they value what you do enough, they should be able to meet your needs (especially if they're getting away with not paying benefits!).
Best of luck!
I used it a couple of times and liked it. nm
x
Thanks-couple more questions
This helped some. What is their line count requirement and is it pretty attainable? Also, is 40 hours considered full time or can you work less than that for full time? Again, thanks.
There's only a couple of accounts that way....sm
the majority of them don't have that type of set-up with the client and there's generally plenty of work available between a primary and secondary account to keep you busy.
As far as communication goes, I've received at least 1 e-mail a day on my account advising what the status of it was and any additional information that needed to be passed along. If you use an e-mail service such as hotmail you have to check your junk folder as sometimes your e-mail system will think their valid e-mails are junk mail and filter them out.
A couple reasons
Their VR software isn't as good as eScription, which is what I really like. It doesn't put in any punctuation unless the doctor dictates it. While you train, you get 2 cpl with a max pay between 3 and 4 cpl after training. It sounded way too labor intensive for that pay.
A couple of questions
TTS does this to all of ICs. She literally will call MTs and threaten your job because you are not on the schedule for your hours. I was let go because of not working my set hours, yet I did my line count on a daily basis that I said I would do. Who would you report this to? Would you report to the DOL or the IRS?
I did this a couple of years ago--SM
Hospital benefits were great. Acct managed by Diskriter staff. I had a decent acct manager but I have heard some of them have not been that good (the person I worked for has since left). I used Chartscript, I like that platform, but the lines were tough to come by. I normally would do a good 1500-1600 lines a day at my previous job (and at jobs I have had since Diskriter) with about 6 good hours of working and for some reason it took a full 8-hour day to get 1300 lines with Diskriter. That is why I left.
It has been a couple of years since I was there
.
Yes and no. Went through this a couple of weeks ago.,
Hired for new account that didn't come on-line as projected. Extended training/staging time that at least we got paid for, but half of what I make transcribing and then when we went live there was no little work for week we were lucky to get 4 reports a day. Other accounts were low so couldn't give us a backup, but looks like most accounts are back to producing again and lots of OT now.
My situation isn't quite the same, but the result was the same and I sympathize with you. When you have bills to pay you need to be making the lines.
It took a couple of months
I got behind on bills and had to move on.
Couple of advantages
No harm in doing your own - but I have been audited and it was not fun. This fellow is my new accountant I do believe. If after 20 years of IRS management he has no clue how to do my taxes, then I am dead in the water. You might have a CPA do your taxes one year and then use it as your guide. I just feel far and away safer from my own experience than having to worry about it. He also said to save all records for 6 years. The IRS can go 3 years back on one audit.
I did a couple of years ago.
If it is the same company, they pay weekly (nice), and are such nice people. Everyone in the office was readily available to answer questions. The only downside was they did not have a platform at that time. Work was received and sent via FTP files, and I prefer to work on an actual platform.
Yes, a couple of ways (sm)
The reason you are being told that is because ExText (WordClient) must be installed in the C directory. There are a couple of ways around this. You can have your computer set up to dual boot or you can set up a virtual machine on your computer. As long as it thinks it is C it will allow a second install (or more) on one computer.
a couple questions
Also, how do they calculate VR lines, and can you get a good line count?
I have been with them for a couple of years-sm
and I say they are great. Don't know anything at all about bait and switch - could be happening but it did not happen to me. I am with Shirley on the 9/10 because come on- it is a job. Probably account, account managers, things like that make a lot of difference but I say the management right up to the owner of this company are top of the line. Every issue I have ever had with them has been addressed fairly and settled fairly. I say talk to them.
A couple of years ago...sm
I had KU as a back-up account when I worked for MedQuist. I don't know if they outsourced all or their work to MQ or not.
Diskriter does, or at least did a couple
xx
I agree with QA. There is no way a couple of sm
commas are dragging your score down that low. As a matter of fact, on normal QA scoring, you're not actually deducted the full amount for each instance of punctuation. You'll have the full amount for the first one or two (and it's not a hefty amount of points) and the others will be repeat errors. For a score that low, you're either omitting dictation or have incorrect/misuse of terminology. Those are the items that drag your score down.
Couple More Thoughts
i choose as an ic to have my own set schedule for my work hours and tell a company when i am available, which is a lot different than agreeing to remain there if there's no work. of course, i usually do just that, keep checking for work, but there is a very subtle difference between saying i will work these hours on these days and saying this is when i'm available. along with that comes the mental shift in informing people of one's days off/vacation time, etc. as an ic, you don't request the time, you say that's what you'll be taking off (i might offer to help find coverage, but no guarantees). you don't ask for a raise; you propose a line rate increase b/c your business expenses have risen. likewise, if you carry it to the extreme and are never available, a company might not need your services! but yes, IC vs. employee status is a subtle distinction and mind set, but an important one!
whether IC or employee, what you do is worthwhile and for me, i've truly found my occupational bliss, even with all the downsides to the profession and how it's evolved in the past couple decades.
a nice day and weekend ahead to everyone :)
-t
You have a couple of problems..
...If you deposit a bad check, you own bank will probably charge you a service fee for having to handle it. I was charged a $38.00 (same as their bounced check fee) fee when I deposited somebody's bad check. This is one of the reasons stores have a policy of charging you a fee if you pay with an NSF (insufficient funds) personal check. They get charged a fee by their bank for depositing it. The banks get cranky about the bookkeeping involved, posting the amount, debiting it out again, etc.
Second, I am assuming you work at home and the company is not in your home town. Therefore, the crime of writing bad check will probably be considered to have occurred where the company is located. Good luck dealing with a bad check across state lines.
I'm assuming the check is for a few hundred dollars. In my city, there is something called night court which is an after-hours service of the city prosecutor's office. It basically is a small-claims/arbitration court and you can go talk to an assistant prosecutor about the problem. They may send a summons to the check writer, but it really will not require them to appear. Some people are frightened to get such a notice, but if they are in another state, what can be done to them for a relatively small check?
You might have a mail fraud angle on this, since they mailed the check to you. I don't suppose you saved the envelope? Postal inspector might be someone to contact. Just a thought.
Here are a couple more you might find useful
I had saved these links in my Favorites in case there ever came a time to present our case.
Here are 2 other links where you might find some useful information for your article.
1. http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/17/1548054.aspx
2. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/10/22/MNGCO2FN8G1.DTL
The second link is about the Pakistani MT who was trying to blackmail UCSF with personal information.
A couple of days
You should hear back in just a couple of days. Be ready for a long telephone interview.
This was a couple of years ago
and I really am over it. Went through a false start with a company that looked like it would be a long-term home for me, but wasn't. (This time, I was the one who said good-bye after a year.) Now I'm with a company that I really like.
Have you not noticed that the trend with employers nowadays is to fire you and have security escort you off the premises? They do this so that discgruntled soon-to-be-ex employees have no time to mess things up on their way out rhe door. Sure, SPi (a Philippine-owned company) knew that the plan was to dump all of us when they acquired CyMed, but it was just 'good business' to play their hand close to the vest until they were ready. They wanted us to want them, until they no longer needed us. They needed us to work during the transition to offshore. Then they were through with us. At least I got unemployment.
This happened to the employees of the local branch of a national restaurant chain. It was my favorite breakfast place and the company was closing restaurants all over the country, but the locals were assured that this was a profitable shop (it was always crowded) and they would be okay. Right up until the morning they reported to work to find a sign on the door that the place had closed. Had the corporate office given them notice, many would have found other positions prior to the closing. What would the company have done then? They weren't quite ready to close and needed those people to keep the place staffed until they were ready. Dog eat dog world.
So I'm a lot more proactive now and at the first rumblings of a problem my resume goes out there. This is what happened with my last job. Things started to seem 'just not right' and so I found my current job. But if I become uncomfortable here, I'll start looking again immediately.
I said only for a couple of doctors
x
Couple of comments.... sm
First, if you are IC that means independent contractor. Mandating how and the ways you get your work done is getting very, very close to toeing the line between the employee/independent contractor relationship. They hired you to do X amount of work, and it is up to you how to get it done.
If people are making mistakes, they need to speak directly to them, but this blanket statement is just a lazy way of trying to solve the problem without really getting involved and servicing the client.
However, I think companies nowadays are also guilty of hiring people who aren't necessarily qualified. For example, on the account I work on, we have people who apparently didn't take 6th grade English. There are basic grammar and syntax errors such as no comma after the year when the day and date are given; no comma after the state when the city and state are given; and run-on sentences are rampant. We can copy/cut/paste from prior reports and are frequently told to do so; however, I avoid doing this if at all possible because of the glaring mistakes that I've found in others' work (using sats instead of saturations, for example).
People are going to make mistakes even when straight typing. Instead of discouraging or forbidding people from using Expanders and macros, what should happen is that people are encouraged to read over their reports before submitting.
Finally, I strongly suspect that the transcriptionists are being pushed to meet a tight turnaround time and that is coupled with a relative lack of consistent inflow of work. When that happens, people are going to rush through reports, quality be damned, because they need to get their line counts.
Yes, there are sloppy MTs, but when this happens, instead of punishing the whole lot and bringing morale down, the company needs to look at their OWN contribution to the situation, and try encouraging people instead of just throwing down mandates and pissing off the people who do care.
Here are a couple of links to
http://forum.mtstars.com/company/v/1/96797.html
http://forum.mtstars.com/company/v/1/85608.html
I used the Google search at top with MTStars checked. Didn't read them all, some old, but a start for you.
In a couple different ways
DISCLAIMER: To avoid enduring what Gourdpainter is going through, let me qualify that this is my own recollection of the events as they unfolded along with my own opinion as to the reasoning for and the implications of said event.
Keep in mind that this all came after staff dismissals and pay reductions a step above us on the MT hierarchy, and after a couple of weeks spent reassuring the MTs that pay cuts were just a vile, nasty rumor. Until it happened in a 2-step manner (and they were the only ones that saw this 2-step as a dance move all the way to the bank).
First, they reassessed the tiers that a particular tiers that accounts fell into and many were decreased at least one level. If your primary were in a particular tier, you lost 0.005 cpl for each tier it dropped (regardless of what tier your secondary was in or how often you typed the secondary more than the primary).
In addition, all pay was 'equilibrated to reflect a global economy', and the pay cuts there ranged about 10%.
So if you had the misfortune to be an account that had been reassessed down 2 levels, you were also equilibrated down a bit more.
Note that this is straight typing. I somehow had managed to avoid VR, so I don't know how that pay scale was impacted. I do know, however, that after wending its way through the system, the stuff that I was getting was nearly impossible to type. At the place I have now landed, even new to the account and platform, I was doing 200 lph; I was lucky if I could even make 125/hour.
I already told them that a couple sm
weeks ago. T hey don't care.
When I last talked to them a couple months ago, I believe it was
nm
you used DAH a couple of times in this thread
you're just not willing to admit to your mistake
I ran a search on a couple of boards. Came up dry.
I too would like to hear something about this company. Feel free to email.
Well, not long enough, really. Only a couple of weeks. nm
x
I've been with them for a couple of years
Nothing changed from that article and it was a story about an incident from 15 years ago. The work is steady and my paycheck is on time. I have no complaints.
Thoughts on a couple companies?
I'm very new to this (just grad in Jan) and have a couple of offers I'm looking at. Any insight any of you could offer would be appreciated.
I've been offered an internship with Meditec that should lead to a position with Accustat-Carolinas, but it won't start for probably another month. I don't have any details yet on the actual position, just the internship & what's on the Accustat website. The other offer is IC with Accuscribe in Goose Creek, SC and is for either 2nd or 3rd shift and could be either full- or part-time. (I'm looking for 1st shift full-time.)
Thinking of taking the Accuscribe 2nd shift part-time and continuing to look and/or waiting on the Accustat position. Advice?
I don't need to make tons of money doing this, but I do have certain family obligations I need to meet, to the tune of about $600/month with anything over that being gravy. I am most interested in getting started with a reputable company that will give me some good experience.
I'm a biochemist, and have worked for a medical reference lab for the last several years as a cust serv rep for several clients. The med-speak is second nature to me, but I'm not the fastest typist in the world. I'm notorious for being a perfectionist and have always been the go-to-gal for my clients. This career change is to allow me more time with my family, and to be more flexible, as my husband's career moves us around quite a bit (4 states in 10 yrs).
Transcend, Medware...to name a couple.
I left a couple of years ago
From what I heard they still deduct like crazy but maybe they are better now than they used to be.
I worked for them for a couple of years - sm
It was awful. What should take me 3-4 hours to transcribe one hour - would take me up to 6 hours. These are seminars with MULTIPLE speakers. Everybody talks at once and you do not know who is who but are expected to know that!! I would keep many notes by my keyboard such as accent, deepening of voice, female or male,etc. But when you are working on a transcript that is 4 hours long, you are obviously not going to sit for 16 hours to finish it. The pay was good, but I would break it down and realize that it is not that great. Sometimes I only made $10/hour because of the all the accents of people and everyone talking over each other. The quality was many times not that great because they would record next to an air conditioner or to the person that had a cold and cough so I would have tons of inaudibles. Very frustrating work. The pay at the time took up to six weeks to get. They might have changed that since I left, but I do know that they were offshoring a lot of their work because they do have such a large turnover. One of my friends still works there and she told me that the company lost quite a few clients because the offshore work was hilariously pathetic. So maybe now they are changing their ways and structure. Who knows. But It is very difficult work.
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