Does experience make a good MT?
Posted By: DoubtingThomas on 2006-03-12
In Reply to:
I am so confused right now. I am a newbie trying to get a foot in the door. I finally was accepted in a mentor program for a national. In the mentor program you must reach 516 with 98% accuracy before you are allowed to become full time. I am unable to make the line count because there is never enough work. I am happy for this opportunity, but I feel because there is never enough work, I will never make the line count. I have been offered a full time position to do operative reports and discharge summaries. I am doubting my abilities and do not know if I can do the operative notes. Should I go for the full time position or do I need experience before I am a good MT? How do you know you are good enough to take on a job doing operative notes. I want to go for it because the mentor program never have enough work to meet my goals, but what if I am not good enough yet? helpful advise is appreciated. Thanks
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
It will be great experience if you can stick it out, and make
nm
Speaking from experience.. you work all day and make nothing. I also have worked for other companies
on Escription and made a lot more.I just came to the conclusion that they do not pay for headers, footers, spaces etc.. I swear I would work 8 hours and be lucky to make $50. It was my first Escription account so when I changed companies I could not believe it. I make in a few hours what took me 10-12 hours to make at Focus. Dont waste your time. They design it so you dont make any money. What a waste of time working there.
My experience with them has been good sm
Their expectations for style are given out and I have never had any problems with QA. I rarely have to send anything to QA and when I do on occasion, I never get direct feedback as you can check your reports at any time for what the blanks were. I guess if you are doing something incorrect that needs addressed they might do that, but I have never had any negative or nitpicky experiences with them.
Not a good experience
They will keep you on QA for as long as they can.. they even make up mistakes that they state you make.... not a good place to work.
my experience has been good
pay is on time, work is steady, everyone is nice - - some posts have been negative but you will get negative posts about any company you ask about on this board, GOOD LUCK!
I ddi not have a very good experience either sm
Pay was average, but at least on time. Lots of times not enough work. You have to be on IM all day and it is very disruptive. MT World is in my opinion outdated. There is much better out there. JMHO
Good experience with them
so far. Lots of work where I am, not saturated with foreign dictators. Platform easy, lines good so far. Lead MT is extremely nice, very down to earth person. I received a welcome card, a really nice personal touch goes a long way.
I have had a good experience...sm
with Webmedx. I have not received the emails threatening to offshore like the other employee mentioned. My account always has more work than we can handle...thus the overtime (been on account about 4 months). As well, I have a secondary account.
I don't dislike the platform. There are some days when some functions are slower than others, but it has not seemed to have affected my line count.
Full time is 35 hours a week, and handbook states that you will loose benefits if you do not work 35 hours. You know that going in, and I don't think that is unreasonable. You'd be expected to work 40 hours if you worked at a job on site. IMHO, they seem to fair all the way around. Things might change, but today I am happy. :) Hope this helps.
Not a good experience for me at all.
I tried working for them. Nice people to work with. The problems I encountered was that they used EXText, which was extremely slow running for me and I have a high-speed cable modem. The pay was only 3 cpl and they expected 100% QA. With the pay being so low and spending more time sitting there waiting for things to download and open, I wasn't even making minimum wage. I had no choice but to quit with wages that low. Apparently, EXText utilizes a VPN connection, which my Cable internet technician told me was probably overloaded with people trying to work all at once, which was the reason everything ran so slowly. He said there was nothing wrong with my internet speed at all.
My experience has been very good!
I have been with Focus Infomatics for just over a year, and I like it very much indeed. Pros are good, flexible, knowledgable supervisors, direct deposit (has never been late), Escription platform (best I've used), flexible schedule, good feedback, fair QA'ing. Only con I can think of is sometimes the work flow is slow, but by asking for more work I almost always have all I need. I recently converted from IC to full-time to qualify for health insurance (their BCBS plan is excellent). When I started there I was told the editing/transcription ratio is about 80/20, which is about right, though it varies from day to day, of course. Again, the Escription platform is very easy to use. My supervisor is great; polite, helpful. I realize Focus may not be right for everyone, but then again, everyone is not right for Focus. BTW, I have been an MT for over 20 years and this is the best company I've ever worked for.
I did not have a good experience with them. sm
I went backwards to archaic ways with phone lines and lanier stations. There was never enough work on my huge account. Never work on my secondary or third accounts either. Tried the on-line accounts, and no work there either.
When I did get a few reports, the line count was terrible on Bayscribe and the spellchecker sucked!
I gave it a couple of weeks, was off QA the first 5 reports; however, I knew in the first day or two, this was not going to work out. But, I gave it a chance and it was not a good experience.
I could not stand all the no so positive e-mails daily either.
This was just my experience. Not a good fit for me!
My experience was not good...sm
I agree with the OP that most companies have good and bad points. I enjoyed most of the people I worked with/for at KS during the 9 months I was there. But when the work on my account slowed down I then started getting one backup account after another where the work would last only briefly. I was trained on 4 different platforms while there. There was some dishonest communication, and while the intentions may have been good, intentions don't cut it when a person has bills to pay. Once it became clear that they were not being up front with me about workload/accounts, I chose to leave, and I wouldn't go back. I have since dealt with 3 other companies, all of whom were more straightforward with me (even when the work ran low) than KS was. Just my 2 cents. Wishing you the best of luck.
Good experience sm
I did some IC work on a Urology account about 3 to 4 years ago. Dictators were good. Pay was on time. Good communication.
Overall good experience
The platform I am on is good to very good with regard to audio.
my experience has been good
I've been there less than 6 months. Before working for them, I'd held only one job. On that job there was no platform - we used Word/WP. This was a local group of doctors. Since I have no experience with any other platform than Inscribe, I have no comparisons. I don't find it slow, though.
As well, I have a very competent and courteous account manager. She is polite, as friendly as an AM should be, and never rude or contradicting.
Any good MT knows that what you make
per line is just one part of the equation. Do you have enough work? How are your lines counted? Bottom line is how much you make per hour. They have a tiered pay plan if you are FT. They have line rate incentives for both quantity and shift as well as CMT incentives. They will pay for your CMT if you pass the test and contribute yearly to your CECs I believe up to $150 a year. That is reason in itself to at least think about it.
Not 2 good - I make 25 cpl. nm
Gotcha!
Good ones make way more than the best MTs, too!
xx
A good MT can make more than that by
x
It's a good place for experience, IMO
But not for $$ or benefits. They do hire a lot of newbies and they don't hassle you if you haven't reached your goals (unlike other companies I have read about).
However, I do think it is somewhat of a sink or swim situation. Not a lot of handholding here, if that's what you need. I don't even know if they do any clinics. I have all acute care, almost all ESL, and lots of ops. I personally don't find the audio on my accounts to be bad; it's usually the dictators and background noise that are bad. By comparison, I did 3 months for MQ simultaneously, and while the dictators were better, the audio was crap and you couldn't use your own wav player. I was doing stinky derm and ENT clinics - yuk - and when they finally put me on acute care, I never got the same dictator twice.
SS has started to provide a breakdown by job of line counts, which is a good thing. Constant changes in supervisory/management personnel. In summary, if you can do without the $$ and benefits and can jump in with both feet, SS is a good place to get experience.
Rapidtranscript..did not have good experience with them
lack of communication and support, I quit the first day!
I would go with Keystrokes, had a good experience
with them, I left for my own reasons, nothing to do with them at all, they were great. Above poster is right, stay away from Landmark, I had the same experience with them.
I had a good experience with Transcend
I had to leave for personal reasons. I can say though the training was adequate. The people were very nice and communicative. The pay was not bad at all and actually better than most companies. Unfortunately I am not allowed to discuss what the pay was because it is not allowed to be discussed. I would say so go for it. The recruiter was really nice and answered all of my questions. If she did not know the answer, she got it fairly quickly. I dont' have a bad thing to say. They do pay on time. 
Good for newbie experience
I know an employee making less than stated by MslaMT for Escription. It is apparently different rates for different accounts. They will decided the difficulty level for you, the MT, doing the work. Maybe not a career move, but certainly a good place for good newbie experience.
Amen, I had the same experience, not good, and
I absolutely noticed that the line counter was jacked. Even besides that, I would check and the paycheck was always a little short. I had to call the person who was in charge of that every single pay period and every single time she was annoyed. One time she told me to hold on, and then she dropped the phone on her desk and I listened to her type whatever she was typing. It was really rude. She wanted to finish what she was typing. Well then don't answer the phone. I guess she didn't look at her caller ID to see that it was only me calling again about another shorted pay check.
As for that Karen person, I felt the exact same way as you. That person smelled insincere from the first time I read her post. I thought it was someone who works for MedScribe trying to improve their image. Every time someone asked about MedScribe, the same Karen would chime in about how great it was. Since I worked there for a year, I knew that nobody in their right mind would chime in about how great they were and so Karen had to be a fake.
I started to make more money after I left there also.
The other thing I absolutely hated was all the emails all day long, scolding people. It depressed me. I even asked them to only send me emails that apply to me. They were so lazy that if one person did something wrong, they would email the whole crew and berate them. They told me if it doesn't apply to me to just ignore it.
10 years experience... that is good for 8.5 cpl. YUP, thats it.
yes, I did a couple yrs ago. I had a good experience
..good co to work for, liked my supervisors, no prob with pay.
You make good points. SM
I agree with you. Just experience does not make a good MT and some newbies are excellent and careful. If you have 20 years of experience with no mentoring and substandard training, you probably make dumb mistakes and are not aware of it. Everyone makes mistakes but some seasoned MTs make way too many. Keep up the good work.
LOL. And with whom? Only good MTs make that much, not recruiters.
x
You make a good point..
You know what, you're right. An experienced GOOD MT will hit the ground running and not need their hand held. I'm sure an experienced, good MT is worth their weight in gold and SHOULD be paid more. There should be a way to do that, and if all those companies out there that are crying because they can't get experienced MTs would compensate in a way that is perceived as more fair, people would be beating a path to their door. The only thing that bothers me is the assumption that all MTs with many years experience are good at what they do. I've seen with my own eyes that this is not the case. Some of them don't seem to even know proper English usage. Why should that person be paid more just because they've put in X number of years? I guess it just reminds me too much of the labor union seniority systems that protect and reward the mediocre. I didn't mean to offend anyone with my post above; just wanted to give another perspective. If I were sitting where you are, I'd probably feel the same way. The MT profession has been eroding for years, and it's got to be tough on those who were part of the good old days of being an MT when they felt reasonably rewarded for their expertise.
Does anyone who uses MediTech make good $ ?
I've checked the archives, etc., and mostly MTs have said it's cumbersome. But is Meditech such that after getting used to it you can make good money, $20+/hour? I know it depends on the account, but just wondering.
You make a ver good Point.
The stuff that I have read was from 2 years ago, alot can happen in two years time. Every company has something wrong with it in someone's opinion. I just saw a lot of bad remakrs about it. Maybe it will be more of a positive experience for me.
Yes, and make sure the training is good, and
if you are going to Meditech, make sure your word Expander will work and it is a good spell checker. IMO
LOL! I couldn't have done it Must have been a really good job for them to make you do that
you make some good points but may I just ask
what is the point of posting all this information? Most companies post upfront at their sites how much they pay, and there are always those who make more for some reason or another than others. What is the data for, just curious...
You make a good point
You were able to get some recogniton because the doctor knew who YOU were and the quality that you put out. That doesn't exist much anymore. I think THE major factor contributing to the decline of the MT profession is depersonalization. As employees of MTSOs, we are no longer individuals, but part of a big MT machine that cranks out dictation. The true consumer of the MT product, the doctor, has no contact whatsoever with the person who transcribes the report. That means that there is no recognition for the excellent MT; they are mixed in with all the substandard MTs and the doctor never knows who is typing the report. He gets back good, he gets back bad, and everything in between. Basically, the only reward we get these days is our own pride in doing a good job. Unfortunately, that doesn't pay the bills.
You make a good point -
I think you're spot on ~ each of us has different needs and different capabilities. Some companies get bashed just because they weren't a perfect fit for someone and some companies are really are validly not so good to work for.
I've been with SoftScript for nearly 7 months and I have nothing bad to say. I had about 12 years experience and a few years away - things in this business changed drastically during that time. Softscript gave me a really fair go. I worked for Medquist before for many years and did a short period of time with Spheris, but went back to Australia. I was doing VRE with them ~ that was weird, but not their fault.
Some people can't be satisfied with anything ~ I'm happy knowing I have a job and the people are really nice.
Just my dollar's worth (2 cents doesn't go anywhere anymore)
Does anyone really make a good living doing VR??? sm
I currently work for one of the larger MT companies that is mostly VR, platform isn't bad, but just not able to get my line count up. I was curious if it just me or if there were MTs out there who were doing good on VR and glad they have made the switch. Thanks. 
Good luck and make sure you have a
x
What do you think would make a good MT gift? sm
Just curious because as a former MTSO, I went crazy trying to figure out something that would please most MTs; no matter how hard I / we tried, there was always a contingent who were unhappy!
PS - I agree that a donation to AAMT in your honor was a cruddy gift!
Used to make good money
My income has dropped by $20,000 in the past 2 years working at Spheris, and from what I understand new hires get paid even less.
You make some very good points.
However some attorneys are ''of counsel'' to firms while not actually on staff. Maybe they are brought in on a case that needs their particular expertise. So while they work with the firm on specific legal cases, they are not actually employees of the firm, but are paid much like contractors.
Just noodling some ideas here:
My neighbor is a painting contractor who hires subcontractors. He finds the clients, signs the contracts, arranges for the subs and has overall responsibility for seeing that jobs are done satisfactorily and dealing with the client. He collects the money and pays the subs, who are are providing services that are a key aspect of his painting business. (Though maybe we could say his business is actually a sort of broker, selling the jobs and providing the crews).
He has used the same subs for years, so there is an ''ongoing relationship,'' though these guys can and do work for other contractors. He loosely supervises these crews as far as maintaining quality and terms of the contract, making sure they use proper materials, don't do damage, etc. The subs provide their own equipment. Through him, the client specifies the color and type of paint to be applied. So in a way he does tell the subs ''how to do the work.'' And in a way he tells them ''when to work'' because the contract loosely specifies when it is to be done - not an hour-by-hour schedule, but a time frame in which it must be finished. When something goes wrong - a sub screws up in any way, the buck stops with my neighbor. He has to make it right with the client, then take the problem up with the sub.
Ruling that these painting crews must be employees of a single company would be unworkable, since the flexibility of hiring them when/as needed is crucial to the process.
Now compare this to a typical MTSO. They find client hospitals and sign them to contracts. They hire enough subs (us) to do the actual work. They specify format, maintain quality and TAT. We provide out own computer and reference materials. Our computers must have the proper technical specifications in order to handle their work, but they do not tell us what brand to use or where to buy it. Our software must be compatible with their system, but in many cases we just sign onto their server and use their program. They collect the money and pay their subcontractors.
Seem to be pretty similar scenarios to me. The whole construction industry is based on contractors hiring subcontractors in various trades for specific work, only when there is work.
I recommend Keystrokes also, good experience with them.
x
Offered pay for 6 months experience... any good?
I got offered a position to type some reports in a specialty I have been typing for 6 months. I was offered 7cpl for 65 character line. Does not pay for hard returns, tabs, empty lines, headers, footers are not paid. Spaces between words are.
At my other position I was getting 6cpl including hard returns.
How do I figure out if this new offer is equal or better than what I already had?
Yes, I know neither are high paying. I am new to the industry, only finished my course 7months ago. BUT, this particular specialty is easy for me and I have very high marks with QA.
Any and all advise is welcome. Thanks!
not flexible at all. they are scatterbrained and it was NOT a good experience.
I was so excited to work for them and it was a nightmare. QA is not a good thing at DTS.
I didn't have the best experience, but it was not a good fit for me. Still waiting to get
hh
YOG, hands down. Also got some good experience with Lanier.
nm
7 cpl with my experience was insulting...and if your insulted that I said so, GOOD! you should be!
nm
Its sad that we dont believe MTs can make good money at this job....
In the past 7 years that I have been an at-home IC (left my hospital job), I have made no less than $50k and this year, will hit my all-time high of $62K. There are still good accounts out there, with great dictators that pay .10 to .11 cpl and if you are fast, with great macros and expanders, you can still make $40-$50/hr. Experience and reliability are what get you top dollar and there are companies willing to pay. Its sad we doubt those that make the good money. Maybe there is a tad bit of jealousy there!
What is considered good pay $500.00 weekly and up or can I make more once I become more
experienced?
You hear bad and good - it is what you make of it - if it fits your needs, try it out!
s
|
