Getting paid by audio hour
Posted By: Amylou on 2007-04-17
In Reply to:
I have not gotten paid by audio hour before and just wondered if anyone has an idea what good pay per audio hour is? It's straight typing for seminars/speakers. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated!
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Are there any QAs out there that are getting paid by the hour at 15+/hour? If so, where are you and
how are the work conditions/requirements/benefits,etc?
MT paid by the hour?????
Does anyone know of any Transcription companies that pay by the hour instead of by the line. Please let me know of any.
Are you paid by the hour? Why do you care
what is on your timesheet?
QA should be paid $30 an hour minimum
A good Transcriptionist should be easily able to make $20-30 an hour, and I know there are those who make more. Since QA supposedly requires more knowledge and expertise, how can any company offer only $14 an hour? And why would anybody take that? I really don't understand it at all - makes no sense.
In the real world any job that requires more expertise will pay more. Medical transcription seems to have it backwards - just my opinion.
They are paid by the line, not the hour. nm
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Not that many QA people are paid by the hour sm
I am on furlough from a job that paid me hourly to QA. I was paid $16 and hour and I can do almost double that with VR or with typing. I QA for other reasons.
At my FT job that I still have, the QA is paid 3.5 cpl to edit reports and VR is 4.5 cpl. Given what QA has to deal with, which are traditional reports with the worst dictators and numerous blanks, that is almost not enough. Our VR platform is good, not outstanding, good. I have reports where I hardly change a thing and I feel overpaid. One of our accounts has MTs who are not doing their VR properly and the VR on THAT account is a pain in the backside. My primary is excellent, however, and I got to 400 lph in the first couple of days I used it. About 10 days in, I did more like 500 an hour today.
VR is not for every MT. Typing the old-fashioned way is not for everyone either. Personally, I am glad that no one has offered me hourly to do VR because they would not pay me what I am already making...and it is early days yet. Paying QA hourly has lead to some pretty shoddy work and QA people who bilk the system, I know because I have seen it.
Your points are valid. I am wondering what VR system you are using and who you work for. I tried it on WordClient Extext about a year ago...AWFUL. I am on ExEditor now and it is a breeze. I have a friend who has done Escription for a few years and loves that platform. Now, both Escription and ExEditor learn corrections as they go along. The problem is that so many MTs don't know their stuff, have a slightly different style or, sadly, don't care about their work and they are not actually editing the work. That adds up to a mess for those who care about their work, know their stuff and are making an honest effort. My main account has the best our company has to offer in the way of MTs because the account is very picky. End result? Excellent and constantly improving VR script.
There are just so many variables with this, more than with traditional MT, even with ESLs figured in.
Oh and by the way, we have some terrible ESLs they put through VR and I love it! Slow boring dictators are easy with VR. Even the slurring, sloppy talkers are good. Add in that my hands hurt a lot less and I am less tired at the end of a day...well I am ecstatic.
Or you're paid by the hour/not line
Or, you are paid by the hour/not line.
When I worked in-house I was paid by the hour....
only had to maintain 135 lph...but I never heard of anyone who was reprimanded for not maintaining that. The nice thing was the hourly pay (between $13 and $17 an hour) whether there was work or not, PTO, etc. Had work 98% of the time and if not we could go down to medical records and help out or go home early.
Must be paid MINIMUM WAGE for each hour -sm
worked under 40/wk if employee in the U.S., regardless of work type, job description. In addition, must be PAID FOR ALL WORK PERFORMED - I won't even go there.
Att: Flamers: You can look this up yourself in DOL regulations.
Why do MTs who are paid by the hour cherrypick the normals off accounts.
Line counts shouldn't be that important to them.
I was paid by the hour and turned in my hours and noticed then cut in half
Turned in 60 hours for 2 weeks and noticed only 28 hours. They went through my timesheet and changed number of hours each day. Never signed anything saying they do not pay for downtime so you sit 20 hours a day trying to get in your 1,000 lines a day with no work coming in so they do not want to pay because they did not have work, but I was online 20 hours babysitting each hour catching a job here and there.
I was paid by the hour to work from home for a large hospital. nm
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audio
I just left them for the second and final time due to extremely bad audio files. I was assured this second go-round that the problem had been corrected but was not. I spent the biggest part of the first week - lasted about 3 days - trying to hear dictators, mainly ESL. The people I dealt with were terrific; benefits are some of the best; audio extremely poor. I figured no money could be made under those circumstances.
AUDIO HOURS
Can anyone give me any idea what to charge for an audio hour of transcription and how much time this equals out to? I was offered a freelance job of 30 hours of audio hours for TAT of 2 days and have never done this before. It is television production work. Thanks for any help!!!!
There is no way to do 30 audio hours
I can usually transcribe 1 hour of dictation, my easy stuff, in 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Even if you have really easy stuff to do, on the low end it would probably take at least 60 hours to transcribe, and mayve 90! Geez..even if you could transcribe it in real time...taking only 30 hours to transcribe those 30 hours, you'd be putting in 2 15 hour days to do it. Realistically, for 30 hours of dictation you would 60-90 hours of work.
How's the audio quality with TT? nm
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Patti - about audio
Thanks for your input. I haven't taken the job yet, as I wanted to get some advice from others. Of course, the sample test he had me take was extremely clear! The calm before the storm! He said he would pay me $50 per audio hour. I'm thinking, if it takes me over 2 hours to do an audio hour, it probably isn't worth it. Maybe I'll just have to try it first and tell him up front what my plan is. Do you think $50 sounds fair?
Everything audio I was sent was horrible..
xx
Really bad audio and account--sm
Was a verbatim account and really bad dictators, lots of heavy ESL. So, yes. Very hard to make good line counts under those working conditions.
medgarde audio
I was wondering if anyone else has ever applied to medgarde and had trouble playing the sound files?! I have been trying to get it to play for a day, and I updated the media player... I'm just curious if anyone else had this problem and what they did to fix it.
the audio is horrible on the new system....
I had my husband listen to a little bit of one of the doctors and even he said it sounded like mush. I bought an expensive pair of noise cancelling headphones and it is still terrible. I can handle the software, but the audio is another thing. I am ready to resign. Grrrrr.
I have had zero problems with ESL/audio quality/whatever. TT is the best so far for me.
nm
Good luck with audio
I have done seminars/speakers, etc and never again unless I listen to the tapes or whatever first. It all depends on where they put the microphone and their euipment. I got stuck doing a seminar and found out it was all about building a chip in a computer and had all orientals at the seminar - worse nightmare that there was. You would have to see how many lines you would get in an hour worth of the audio to figure out a fair price -- not in an hour of typing for you but the audio and the difficulty. I had 10 tapes from a 2 day seminar -- 60 minute tapes not all were filled on each side and their bill was well over 1200. Had another on the use of animal with sexually abused children for therapy, 8 to 10 hours of audio and that one was also over $1000. But I charged by line. It took about 4 hours to do each hour of audio when it was good recordings and up to 5 to 6 when poor. We did average about $25 per hour when typing but adding in the QA and listening again to make sure we did not miss anything brought it down to under $20. So then it would be a charge of about $80 per audio hour -- rough estimate. Again too many variables and I would not charge or be paid that way.
Posts here say you need about $2 per audio minute to
p
You'd do better to bill by the audio minute; I'd bill $0.75 per minute of audio.
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I agree on the audio. Not sure what causes their problems with this. nm
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DocQ audio from keyboard
CTRL + SPACEBAR to toggle on and off for play, CTRL + comma and CTRL + period for rewind and fast forward. Once you've tried it for a half a shift, you'll never want to see your footpedal again!
Unless your audio can speed up more than mine
I would say the person (people) telling you 3x as much as straight are just outright lying. I think I mentioned my speed, high also but never have tripled on VR and I keep my audio at full speed, cannot do more than the audio allows. I am very satisfied in the long run with Escription. I had so many straight reports yesterday, usually do the op notes but mostly discharge summaries on the weekends sometimes and so many ESLs, I could have pulled my hair out. What is strange, sometimes a particular dictator on VR and sometimes not? Don’t get that but wish all were. Good luck!
think, people! If she does 250 lines/hour, same docs daily, will make $15/hour
nm
A wav pedal for the audio transcription part....(sm)
I honestly don't know if you NEED one or not...there may have been manual 'play/pause' buttons you could click on with a mouse, but I cannot remember for sure, so don't quote me on that. Reference books are definitely handy...I had to break open my AAMT rule book for a couple of things I wasn't 100% sure on, and even had to pull out my old dusty Dorland's that I've been using as a foot rest for some obsure thing I couldn't get a definitive answer off the 'net from.
Like I said, I enjoyed taking the test because I've honestly never tested before. I've only been doing transcription for 5 years now, and it was always with the same company, and still have oodles to learn. The part I enjoyed most though was the actual sample transcriptions. Fun to hear other voices and accents and type up material I never got exposed to before.
Just give it a shot! After you finish a 'block' of testing, it asks you if you want to stop and come back to it later or keep going. When you first sign up for the testing, it assigns you a log-in and password, solely for that purpose that if you need to take a break or plain ol' stop, you have that option.
I shoulda asked the interviewer how I did. No part of the test said anything like, 'Sorry, but you stink and you can go away now.' I guess if you pass one part it feels you are good to go onto the next? No idea honestly.
Go on...just do it. 
The two ladies that I talked to, both before and after testing, were very nice and I'm sure it's a great company. I just knew where I really wanted to be is all.
I work for the DSG-2 side. One account has some bad audio sm
some of the time-not all. Otherwise I am happy where I am. I cannot speak for the other side which has different accounts.
100,000/year - no way. I charge $35/hour and work 10 hour days - sm
AND I DO NOT CLEAR $100,000/YEAR.
what's not to believe - I said that I charge $35/hour and work 10 hour days AND DO NOT MAKE - sm
I DO NOT MAKE $100,000/YEAR
try READING the post.
Sick and tired of poor audio quality (sm)
that seems to get worse and worse as the days go by? Remember when we were told that switching from tapes to digital would make all the difference in the world with regard to clarity and our production? Remember when we were paid more and had plenty of work? Remember when there was no working on Sundays or holidays?
Why is EVERYTHING MT going to the dumpster?
Why do these MTSOs accept reports dictated on cell phones? Can't they write in their contracts that cell phone dictation is not clear and it can also be intercepted by others and therefore unacceptable? Why don't the QA personnel who read our flagged comments about awful audio pass this information on to the client so that it can be fixed? It's getting worse and worse.
Back in the days when I had my own accounts, one of my dictators asked me to please tell him as soon as his equipment malfunctioned (in those days, it was batteries running low or a tape that needed to be tossed and replaced). He said there was no need for the MT to suffer with poor audio reports when there is a simple fix. So, what's the difference here when the idiots dictate on cell phones? Or there is a hospital phone with a short in it? Why can't these things be fixed?
My plea: If you are a QA person or MTSO getting repeated complaints about specific dictators' dictations being garbled or unclear, won't you please notify, and keep notifying the client until they are brought up to par. How about sticking up for the MTs for a change rather than protecting the client all the time!? In the end you are protecting everyone, including the poor patients whose reports are being dictated and transcribed.
I'm tired of MTs taking all the blame for this industry's downfall. If MTSOs and clients demand 2-hour turn-around time, how about improving the technology to make your unending demands more attainable? It's 2006. There is no excuse for the garbage I have to listen to day after day. No excuse at all.
Wasn't just fast, the audio quality (re-recording)
2
DocQ, hmmm, how to play audio from keyboard??
Can you share. Didn't know, worked on platform twice and nobody ever said this.??? Can you share?
$35/hour x five 10-hour days = $1,750 gross/week.
x
$20 an hour is not even average for radiology. You should not make less than $25-30 per hour. sm
I work for Keystrokes and have for 3 years. I average 25 reports an hour, which is $31.25 an hour. I have 401, health insurance, direct deposit, life insurance. My lead tells me I'm wonderful when I talk to her, but I do not need a daily pat on the back.
I also have a good friend who works for them on a clinic. She only makes 0.08 per line but does 300 lines an hour, which is $24 an hour, again higher than your $20.
I don't think we're selling ourselves short. There are companies out there that are good to work for, 6 or 8 of them that I know of personally. Don't settle for $20 an hour.
Well if I could do 500 lines per hour, I would be making 35.00 an hour. sm
nothing to sneeze at. More than fair for having a 2-year degree. Come on people, we are all acting like we expect 6-digit incomes! Whatev!
Training on the system, not paid, but if you are physically typing reports then you are getting paid
nm
Oh, yea -- PAID, too. Grandmother PAID LEAVE would be a great drawing card to TT !!
Just love that PAID TIME OFF !!
Any company that makes you wait to get paid until they get paid by the client
is not a company you want to get involved with. That's part of being an MTSO, figuring out how to cover your payroll while waiting to get paid. I would stay away!
Is this a live count of lines paid for or same as CTRL I that we do not get paid for ?? nm
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If that's $9.50 an hour, that would be just under 6.5 cpl at 150 lines an hour. nm
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For example, I count every hour on the hour with my job
and while I was posting here and also checking email in between I averaged $22 an hour for 2 hours, not bad for someone who is a) slow or b) does not have a lot of time in transcription work; therefore making me a prime candidate for VR.
Me too.. the outsourced company was paid for and paid me for headers, but OSI does/did not.
x
I have always paid yearly and have never paid or been assessed a penaltly. nm
nm
Be glad you get paid tomorrow. We are paid on the 1st and the 15th, so sm
since the 1st is on a weekend, we don't get paid until Monday. It will happen again on the 15th of August …sigh. It is the only thing I do not like about the company, though, so I guess a few weekends of poverty a year is not too much.
Lori never paid me and now ETC has not paid my friend.
What is WRONG with these companies? 
Is it still being paid on time if you are paid on the 1st and 15th.....
and if the 15th falls on a Saturday getting paid on the 17th? My bank is open and posts on Saturday that means I am not being paid on the 15th doesn't? This has happened a lot lately.
At least you get paid, I would rather be paid late than not at all. Just my 2 cents.
nm
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