Current Transcender - long message
Posted By: J Horner on 2007-10-14
In Reply to: Axolotl vs. Transcend - Va Va VaVoom!
First of all, I'm not management, which is why I am posting my name. This way no one can say I am anything but an MLS.
October 5th was my 9 year anniversary with Transcend and I'm still here.
I don't post here often but I get really tired of reading anonymous blatherings about how horrible a company Transcend is to work for.
Is it the best company out there? Probably but I honestly don't know. They have been good to me for 9 years and that's all I can attest to.
Maybe I have just been very lucky to have the account managers and team leads that I have had in the last 9 years.
I see people posting about how many companies they have worked for and I am really not impressed. Instead of their transcription skills, it seems that these people are honing their testing and interviewing skills with all the job hopping they do. How can you really decide if a place is a good fit or not if you don't give it more than a couple of months?
There have been ups and downs with Transcend for sure. My curiosity gets the best of me though and I ride it out to see what happens next. I'm still here so I guess that would mean the changes, though sometimes really hard to swallow, have worked out just fine.
They pay us on time every pay period, the tech support is great, the teams are great, and they pay just as well, if not better than anyone else out there for straight transcribing and VR.
The flexibility they give us is great. They are understanding and sympathetic when our lives are twisting and turning.
Since May, I have lost 5 family members and close family friends. Talk about an emotional roller coaster.
I even dropped everything and drove to Las Cruces, New Mexico from Washington state straight through with my sister and daughter-in-law to be with my dad as he was dying in August. My managers knew my dad was ill but I literally called them from the road when I left. Karin and Linda both told me to not give it a second thought, GO and be with my dad. A lot of places won't tell you that. If you don't have the PTO, you stay put or suffer the consequences.
My production has suffered greatly, then bounces back, then I am slammed with another death. Instead of reprimand I have had support.
Probably a little more information than you needed to know but this has been my experience with Transcend.
Maybe if people were a little more honest with each other ALL of us would be better off. Good or bad experience, let them post their names.
J
Complete Discussion Below:  marks the location of current message within thread
The messages you are viewing
are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select
the boards given in left menu
Other related messages found in our database
Current MDI employees see message
Hi, anyone working MDI only full time and feel they get good income and not work a second job? Are you able to get the lines you commit without feeling the need for a second job? Just curious as I want to be able to work full time for one company and not two.
What if I want to leave a Long message?
high road, low road. we'll both get there!
Sorry, message too long, see inside
I meant instead of saying quit, or something equally ridiculous without addressing what she said, to prove what she said was untrue. It can't be done, it is all true. I am not flaming, but I have been there, done that, and am equally tired of reading from management, you're going to love this...., and then find out it equal $200-300 less a month. Just facts lady.
productivity...long message sm
Wow, congrats on 10 years of experience, a great schedule, rare interruptions and very good work habits! Sounds like you should have no problem being more productive! It also sounds like you just need to work smarter not harder. Let Word do more of the work for you--use simple macros (page setups and jumps), autotext (templates and normals), autocorrect (long strings of text, single words with suffixes, special function codes e.g. semicolon and the ALT+ keys), autoformat (quick bold/underline), try to stay away from the mouse (use KB shortcuts), resist the temptation to go back to fix typos on the fly (but remember to spellcheck!), take a quick break every hour to stretch and drink water, set two timers--one for how long you plan to transcribe before your next break and the other to limit your referencing time or Internet playtime--5-10 minutes max? (i use CoolTimer freeware), set payroll/weekly/daily goals, temp save frequently, proof 1x, leave blanks if you must (you have nothing to prove and nothing to gain by dwelling on the difficult!) Hope this helps! =)
Thanks for the kind words. See my Very Long Message
I've been in the profession a long time and I was actually surprised that I could not do the ESL and some of the other Docs at FN. I've written twice about FN on this board, and I tried to give some of the positives, there were plenty of those too. When I see how the MTs at some of the big nationals have to punch in and punch out, can't flex their time at the keyboard, have to use up PTO when there's no work available, get switched around without notice, I think FN is probably a whole other, superior culture to work in. Experience is valued, consistency and regular production is appreciated, the line count as I have said in an earlier post is always correct, the checks are on time (so didn't really need direct deposit once I got used to waiting the few days it took to cut the checks. My direct supervisor seemed to make assumptions about some situations without asking my version of who said what when, and that was a sore point with me. They do assess a small monetary charge when certain mistakes are made, per employee handbook this is supposed to kick in after 90 days of employment, but I got my first official notice in my first month, while I was still learning the ropes. I did get quite a few calls about jobs that I never had in my queue being missing, when I never had them in the first place, resulting in having to do them and send them right away. I kept daily written logs so I knew that I did not have these jobs in my queue.
The quota is 1200 lines a day times 10 in the pay period to qualify for employee status and benefits, and there were quite a few days with no work available for the full 6-8 hours it would have taken to do the 1200 at my skill level, and I never could get a straight answer about health insurance although it was a condition agreed upon when I was hired.
I was sorry to leave, because although I really was unhappy with the quantity and quality of the dictation I hated to just give up. Should say the sound quality was superb, it was just the actual Docs mumbling, snorting, whatever, that made doing the work so hard, and the general attitude seemed to be to just get used to it.
My thought on the matter would be that I felt that it might have worked out and I might have stayed with FN because of the 90 percent great people, but only if it had been possible to work in-house for a while or at least to have instant message to some of the QA people so I could ask the questions BEFORE I had to send the report in, rather than getting a marked up report, or as more usual, just an e-mail with the missing words after the audio of the report was long gone. I don't know about you but I am best at building my knowledge of any Doc's dictating style if I can research in my books, then on the net, then inquire of the QA in charge of my account, all BEFORE sending in a report, instead it went the other way around and I often had to send in what looked like it was not my best work, but in reality was my best effort.
They DO load their LARGE program on your computer, and although I purchased a new XP computer with all the bells and whistles for the job, the platform had many wrinkles in it, seemed to cause problems with importing the demographics, and did lock up on 3 or 4 occasions, causing a 1/2 day loss of work.
Well that's a long post all right, hope you'll forgive me if you've made it this far, but I decided I should put down all the bad AND the good in one post to see if it helps some people make up their mind. I'm well aware that it may have been my problem all along and that I was just not suited to the particular matchup of company, platform, and accounts.
Good luck to everyone searching, it is a frightening and tiring process. Hope it works out great for you wherever you decide to work.
I feel for you. (long message inside)
I just recently left a job where I was getting paid hourly plus production to make a lot less. It sounds absolutely crazy, I know, but I was a stressed out basketcase. They got a new operations manager not long after I was hired who was not happy about them paying a few of us hourly. They hired a couple of people for each shift and paid them hourly because the account had a lot of downtime and very short TATs on their jobs. Bogging people down with a secondary was causing the work to go out of TAT too much, so they finally decided to try the hourly plus production thing. It was working great. We were happy, the client was happy, and all the work was getting done on time. Anyway, the new operations manager was absolutely horrible and started doing all kinds of stuff that made me feel like the hourly was going to be taken away any minute. Without that, the company didn't have enough to stay for. Each day you were hearing about more stuff happening/changing. The communication was horrible.
Anyway, my point is that you can't always go by money. No or low stress is worth a lot of money to me. I know the bills have to be paid, but your health and well being are more important than any amount of money. It was very hard for me to decide on which company to go with because I had several offers. I prayed about it and took a leap of faith that I was making the right choice this time. Only time will tell, but I feel very positive about it.
Things that should be considered in addition to pay rate per line are: Cost of insurance, paid time off, schedule offered, does the company outsource (an important issue for me), what the minimum quota is, is overtime offered/expected, and is quality as important as quantity to them. The company offering a higher line rate may cost a lot more per month/pay period for insurance, which could end up balancing out the 2 cpl. Who offers the best PTO? To me, the PTO offered says a lot about how the company treats their employees. If they expect the push, push, push for high production but never want to pay for their employees to have well-deserved time off -- I don't want to work for them. I don't like being treated like a number that doesn't have a life away from the computer. Will you be expected to work a lot of overtime or will it be on a voluntary basis? Which one offers a schedule that works best for your lifestyle. I hated working every weekend, and while it was hard, I found a company that was willing to offer me a daytime M-F shift.
Anyway, just some of my thoughts that I hope will help you in your decision. I wish you the best of luck. God bless!
Sorry this turned out to be so long. LOL I actually stopped myself and could have said a lot more - believe it or not!
I'm just curious how long that lasts for you? Usually if I get a "no studies" message, sm
I have work again within the hour. I don't get how so many of y'all are out of work all the time.
To Transcender below
I for one am still waiting for your post as to the difference in the pay raises, incentives, base pays, bonuses and treatment of newbies versus long-term MTs at Transcend. You said many things but when asked for specifics, you never answered. Well, you did say you wouldn't post publically. Well, it may be public, but you are still anon. So, why not "ante up" as the other poster asked you to do and give us some facts to back up your statements.
You have gotten on here publically and casually thrown around negative accusations about the company. You should expect some MTs to want some proof of what you are saying.
It just makes me really mad that some people are careless with their comments and can turn others away from possibly being hired by a wonderful company. I can tell you specifically why they are wonderful and have proof to back up my statements. WELL????? 
I am a Transcender
I have to agree with you too. I love it. I was a little slow with work for a few days but I was given a secondary without any hassle and now I don't have to worry about it. Aside from that, they have been great. And I read many, many posts on the forum when I first got hired. I read way back as I wanted to get a feel for things and I never came across any complaints such as the poster below was stating. Very unfortunate. 
TRANSCENDER
I say go for it. Transcend is a wonderful company to work for, don't let anyone sway you if you really are interested. 
Ex-Transcender
I tried really hard on an account with Transcend that had 90+ plus ESL docs, and could not continually meeting the 98% error-free goal, or really make any money. I have been working many, many years in all phases of medical transcription, and this was the hardest account I had ever worked on. I liked the people, and the training was good, but just could not live up to their expectations with that account. At my age, I got frustrated and quit.
Transcender too
I work for Transcend too and this is the first I've heard...I came from MDI Florida and they sold to Transcend. Things stayed the same for about a year then slowly things were changed to the Transcend way. Transcend has its good points and bad points but overall I am very happy there...
another Transcender
I don't want to beat this subject to a pulp, but I just did my training with Transcend yesterday and I am discouraged to read MTs are running out of work on a regular basis. The recruiter was very rushed to get me started, I thought. Why would they hire new people if their accounts are running low? I don't get it.
Not an MDI-er and not a Transcender
I work for a small MTSO, a mid-size MTSO and I have a private account. I pray my situation does not change until I can get my 6-yo child into college. I cannot raise her to be many things that we Americans aspire to be - programmers, doctors, track stars - because our society lacks cohesiveness, integrity, sense of family. It is just too easy to sell off what we said we would never sell or give away. I will raise her to work in a profession immune from replacement by computers or offshoring services...but pray tell, which one would that be anymore? Perhaps pharmacy so as to dispense all the antidepressants and mood stabilizers that are coming to be the American way of life.
I met D in 1997 when I went to work for Signal and became one of the cream of the crop in the MT industry - until Signal was sold to MQ. Life went on and many years later I rejoined the family with deference being given to my previous work at Signal as having elevated me to a standard higher than most MTs. I left MDI some time ago, having stayed longer than I should have. While there was nothing on paper to say that I knew what was happening, my heart told me the truth. All those years of D saying she would never send work offshore, and yet, where was the work? When my primary account only recorded fewer than 100 dictations over the course of a weekend, I knew there was a duplicate system syphoning off the work, again only my gut to tell me so, no proof of it...just a dead paycheck that does not pay the mortgate. That was last fall. When it was anounced that VR was taking all three of my accounts and there were emails stating D hoped she had made the right choice, well what else was there to know. It happened with Signal. I felt I knew it was happening with MDI-MD, and now everyone else knows, too.
To all you cheerleaders rocking out here the last few days, tell me I have imagined all the posts decrying lack of work by Transcend. Tell me it was NOT just within the last few days one of your purported MTs posted that if you are going without work, don't take it. Just pick up the phone and ask for more work. You cannot post now that everything is rosy and gloss over what has been posted about the T over the last couple of years. The MTs from MDI will be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Do NOT pretend Transcend's endeavors in VR and offshoring will prevent loss of American jobs. Do NOT pretend Transcend is the answer to the problem (are you listening, D??)
I will keep my accounts for now. I am grateful I work for an American physician who would give up his practice before sending transcription out of the States (are you listening, D??). I work for an MTSO that has clients who tried it and came back with a better understanding of why it is important to keep transcription state-side. As for the other MTSO, well, I will see what happens there.
Shame on you, MDI and shame on you, Transcend, for trying to pretend things are rosy.
off my 
to transcender
Do you do clinic work or hospital work with reports of all types? Sometimes, that is the clincher - if you do only one type of work, it usually runs dry...just curious. Thanx.
MDI/Transcender
Honey, they are not dying, they've done died.
MDI/Transcender
Of course she said yes they would stay the same. What she meant was that they would stay the same FOR NOW. They won't stay the same after 1 January, betcha a beer.
Well, I am an Ex-Transcender as of Monday. sm
I was disillusioned as you. I am an acute care MT with 20+ years of experience and it just was not for me. Although, I have to tell you that the production management team were awesome to work with up front; however, I didn't like the behind the scenes action like changing my worktypes without telling me, as well as consistently running out of acute care work.
For example, if you work primarily on er reports and the discharge summaries are behind, they will just take the er dictations out of your queue and you will discharge summaries for a week straight, and they don't even bother to tell you, hey the ds are backed up and we put some in your queue. There is nothing wrong with keeping the account in TAT, but give us, the MTs, the respect of telling us.
Also, the ES accounts are a total rip-off. Taking 20 and 30% off the line count is a totally stealing from us MTs. Personally, I had a huge problem with it once I saw that it amounted to $500 out of one paycheck. That really sucked bigtime!
Let me ask you - if you are an acute care MT and was given boring clinic work or doctor letters to do all day every day, would you be happy when you were hired for "basic 4 acute care work".
These are just a few major reasons why I am gone.
Good luck to those who have stayed and I hope you are happy. To each his/her own!
Don't be Depressed, Transcender--
I've been working part-time with Amphion for almost a month--so far, so good. I came off proofing two weeks early, and the account I've been on has never run out of work. The staff I've worked with have been very pleasant and professional. I've been paid on time as agreed, and I'm happy to have a part-time schedule with no nights and/or weekends. I'm feeling optimistic.
should this transcender take a job with amphion??
what to do????
Fellow Transcender, I have had so
many problems with this platform. If you make just ONE mistake, it screws everything up and you can't get back. I did 3 reports in 3 hours today. Very frustrating.
X-Transcender who is happy now, can you
e-mail me privately please? pwdohio@yahoo.com Thanks!
It's Official! I'm A Transcender !!!!
O' Happy Day !!!!!!!!!    
Another happy Transcender here, too! nm
s
Another happy transcender
I have been a happy Transcend employee for over a year now. I get a mix of good and bad dictators, but you get that everywhere! There is VR everywhere now and the same goes for offshoring. Times change, technology changes, and we have to be willing to adapt.
I agree with the other posters. If you hate your job find another one. Transcend is a great company but is probably not a good fit for you, especially since you have such a negative attitude about them. I went through a couple of companies before I found the right company for me. Do yourself a favor, search this forum and find your dream job. Wishing you much luck and a better experience next time!
I agree with ex-transcender
After working for both companies, I am happy at SoftScript. They are flexible and management has been easy to communicate with and questions are answered quickly. Pay is on time and the platform is easy. Yes, there is a lot of work available.
not a Transcender but on eScription
I have been on eScription since this spring. I do a combination of VR and straight transcription for my account. I have a couple of doctors who speak clear and fast and eScription hardly gets a thing wrong. I can get 800 lines an hour on those. Oh, if only I could get those doctors all day, but I can't. They don't dictate enough to fill a day. I have other doctors that I can only get 200 lines an hour on VR because they speak slow anyway or pause a lot, so speeding up doesn't help things much. I put them at double speed and still could have typed them without stopping and gotten paid better. Then there is all the dictation that is somewhere in between as far as how well the VR report comes out (or not), how much the dictator jumps around and confuses the program, etc. I use pretty much all the keyboard shortcuts and the VR overall is fairly decent for our account (I'm guessing because we have a limited pool of MTs training it), but we still run out of work and we're only at about 50% VR right now.
So I'd say, aside from learning all those keyboard shortcuts you need a good dose of luck to be on an account that eScription can get pretty accurately, good dictators that you can speed up all the way but still understand, and plenty of work so you don't run out. I really don't know what else you can do.
I'm also a Transcender - love it here.
I worked for Transcend one time for 3 years, had to resign for family reasons, but was welcomed back with open arms when I came back this year. I'm sorry I ever left and glad I came back. There is constant evolution and constant growth. The only limitations are the ones you will put on yourself. I just enjoy the fact that we are kept in the loop on everything that is going on --- glad I made the decision to come back.
Hey Missourians --- BUZZ ME! Bet there are more of us than we realize :)
not a Transcender, but curious
You said they are cutting your pay 30 to 35%. Is that from straight typing down to VR rate (in other words, VR at 30% of straight), or is that going to be a rate cut for everything across the board?
Anonymous Transcender
I hope it all works out for you. Rather than looking it as being jerked around, you might take it instead in the positive viewpoint of being given a heads up. Good luck to you!
Also a Transcender... LOVE it!
I have a few gripes with this company, sure, but for the most part, I haven't been this happy at a company in a very long time. I feel like I matter to the company. I'm not afraid to ask for things I want or need or just to ask questions. Work has been low (it's been low everywhere), but I told my regional manager my concerns and she gave me 2 extra accounts and was so validating about my concerns. I can get more if I need them. The pay is decent for a big company such as this (I got more with smaller companies and private doctors), but I can get in so many lines that it seems to balance it out. I love the accounts I work on, I love their eScription platform (both speech and text, I do both, but mostly text), and I love the whole team.
QA is wonderful, HR is wonderful, my TLs are wonderful, etc. All in all, I'm a very happy Transcender. :) I just can't wait for the winter season where we are all slammed with work again!
Transcender who doesn't want to go on food stamps
How is Spheris as an employer? Are they hiring? Are they fair? Do they have benefits? Can someone make a decent living there? If their employees give them everything they've got, is Spheris loyal to them? TIA.
How can a message be confidential if it posted on a public message board? nm
sm small message or see message...geesh..nm
x
please don't put nm or call yourself nm if you have a message - nm means no message -sm
nm means no message. sm means see message. if you call yourself nm, then people might not click to read the rest of your post.
just trying to help.
ps. if the money is there, why does that particular person's balance say zero?
No problem :) No matter how long, it is too long for me - I am broke the day after payday. Kids wi
do that to you!
I know that they have worked very hard to make sure that checks are never late and I can say that in the past two years, I have had one problem (2 days late) and in the past 18 months, they have all been on payday and perfect.
I know that there are a lot of hard feelings in MT in general. I also know firsthand (and I am not mgmt) how hard KS has worked to get things going good.
I would not want to walk in an MTSO's shoes for any amount of money, but that's just me. I like to finish my work for the day, forget about work when not working and get paid on payday. I never want the other things that go with mgmt or owning a company of any kind :)
They definitely rip you off with your line count. Figured this out long ago and quit long ago
x
I can't give you the name of the message board, but it is not a free message board (HINT). There
Monitor, I hope this post is okay.
What really sucks is that I looked for a LONG, long time -sm
before joining DRC - wanted a highly reputable, not-too-big co. that was LOCAL, and that treated its MTs humanely. I'm very happy with DRC & had planned to stay with them permanently.
But that could be Leave a Message or Little Message! LOL
nm
Congrats! :) SM = see message. NM (no message)
Long, long history of not paying...and
similar posts have been made here in the past few months. Everyone thinks they will be different, and then they end up coming back here to warn others that they don't pay.
but those were long, long lines for
most of the reports. You could make more with a 65-character line count.
Current DSG'r
I have been with DSG for a little over 2 years now and have been very happy with them! I have not always been happy with my performance, but they have always been there to answer my questions, to have work for me, and to pay me ALWAYS ON TIME! I would recommend working at DSG to anyone. Now that does not mean everyone will find a perfect fit, but I have worked with a lot of other companies over the years and certainly hope that I will be retiring with DSG many years down the road!!
Current DSG'r
I have been with them for almost 2 years. I have not ran into the problems posted here. I have been on one account, and at my request put on another. They do not move me from account to account. I have never had problems with sound. Yes there is ESL doctors. Yes there are different account specs. The management team, I have found have been helpful. Pay is always on time. Any concerns I have ever had management has addressed. Work is there, but like with this field there are slow times. I have worked for other national companies and DSG is among the better companies. No company is perfect, just like no MT is perfect. You take the good with the bad.
current mt
They are great to work for....no problems at all...they pay for headers and footers so the line count to me is about the same, regarding spaces versus no spaces. I have been with them for 5+ years. If you want to stay with a company and not move from company to company, Phoenix MedCom is the company for you.
Current PMC MTs....
How are the dictators at Phoenix MedCom, particularly the ortho docs?
Thanks :)
Something current
from someone that actually works for them if possible. I've read all the archives about them, but need to know if they've changed like they say they have. Thanks.
Current OSi MT
I have been with the company for 90 days. I love it. I do not understand the negative posts about the recruiters. Mine was great. Very informative, friendly. The company is great. There is work, I absolutely love the account I am on. I only have 2 years experience and I make more than 7 cpl. Maybe they pay base on the account. I am not sure. Give them a try. I am on the ExText platform and I love it.
Their current ad says 8 cpl
to start, and past ads have even stated an increase at particular intervals. (I believe 90 days being the first, but do not recall for certain, and do not know what the increases amount to or how many there are.) When I was there, one of the owners sent an e-mail to everyone once (when she was upset about MTs being asked to cover others' vacation, etc.), and in it stated that, although their MTs are all subcontractors, they have always tried to offer rate increases, even bonuses to add a more personal touch to the IC status, which we all know most do not seem to do these days.
I found them to be very nice people for the most part, but have read here before that the owner is a little quirky, which I also found to be true in my experience, but was unable to draw out of the poster why he/she thought that, and my story is far too long to post here.
They do offer direct deposit, which you must pay the cost of if you want to enroll, but it is minimal. They do pay on time, every time, and in the information provided to newly hired ICs it states that they are not dependent on being paid by the clients to be able to pay their ICs/employees.
Hope that helps, and good luck!
Anyone like their current job? If so..sm
I'm in desperate need of a new job. I hate the place I work now, and it's getting progressively worse. Instead of asking about particular companies, can anyone just tell me if they like their current company and what it is, please? I need to change jobs as quick as I can, and I don't want to waste a ton of time taking a lot of lengthy tests only to find out the company is no good (which is what happened to me this last time).
I know all companies have their pros/cons, but anyone have a job where there are more pros than cons? I would so appreciate any suggestions anyone can give me as long as it is not Cymed/SPI  because that's where I want to leave. Any of the pros/cons on your company would be also appreciated. Thanks again!
|
