Heartland and India lowdown

Heartland was started by Steve Mandel who thought he could get rich by starting a medical transcription business and having all his work done in India, including QA and management, but it didn't work out the way he expected it to so he moved management back to Toledo.  He had a few U.S. MTs and QA people there, but the majority of the work was still being done in India.  He took advantage of a little-known clause in the minimum wage law that lets an employer hire foreign nationals to work here in the U.S and pay them the equivalent of wages in their home country and brought over a number of Indians to work in Toledo, mostly in the technical departments, but there were some who were learning to QA, and only god knows what else.  What they did best was generate more useless paper than the Pentagon.  Mandel, however. was still having money problems so he conned Manor Care into some sort of partnership.  He was also having quality problems because the Indians who were doing QA couldn't cut it.  When his biggest and most prestigious client threatened to pull out because of the poor quality, he gave the okay to hire U.S. editors to work from home.  I was one of those editors.  All I can say is that I stayed only long enough so I didn't have to pay them back 2000 bucks that they shelled out for plane fare, lodging/meals, and training in Toledo for 5 days.  All I can say about the training was that more time was spent having to listen to people sing the praises of the company (and badmouth the Indians) than in front a computer learning their dreadful system.  Heartland was a very sick place.  I felt it the minute I stepped into the offices there.  I know that people listened in on phone conversations when I would have to call another Editor about something.  Even the most innocent remark would get blown out of proportion and somebody would tattle.  I also suspected them of trying to hack into my personal compter because I was able to trace the attempts to Bangalore.  I truly feel badly for the people who lost their jobs, but no one should have ever had to work for a company the likes of Heartland.  If I had had 2000 dollars when I was in Toledo, I would have written a check the same day I got there and headed home. One of the people in my training group did just that.  As far as all the work going to India now, unless things have changed A LOT in the last 3 years, they will lose most of their clients and hopefully the jobs will come back here where they belong.

• Heartland India based originally - looking for more
  • Here's a glimpse of what Bangalore is like...sm - Researcher
  • Heartland and India lowdown - anon
    • Good post. But hopefully they will just fade - away into the sunset. - not a Heartlesslander
  • Started in Toledo? - Crystal

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Valuable lesson learned.  Never go to work for a company that is based on offshoring because they'll simply pull the rug out from under you.  I don't mean to sound heartless and I wish I had jobs to offer all the American MTs but I don't.

However, Mr. Ormond said the firm's transcription business started in India, and the company tried to bring it to the United States but it wasn't profitable. -- from the article. 

Those of us in the business a long time knew where their center of business was located from the beginning.

L&H was the best company I ever worked for - the people were great, the work was good, they were a company that took care of the employee.  As posted above, once the big-shot guys were caught lining their pockets - they tried to keep afloat, but couldn't and were forced to sell - in came MQ.  Many, many left - Melody and Teresa went to OSI, as did I believe the QA manager - super nice people and great to work with - regardless of what some of the posts below say.  When I knew Melody, she was terrific to work for. One of my best buds, J Hallmark, was a supervisor, again - nobody was a better supervisor than she was!  In a nutshell, it was a great company.  I, for one, probably would have retired from there.   It's a shame that more companies in today's world don't take thier lead from how L&H was as an employer. They had a good rep with the hospitals for quality work; they took care of the employees - offered decent pay, decent time off and actually let you use it! 

MQ -  2005 and before:  Great company, very flexible, frequent bonuses for big $.  Went sour after Jan. 2006.  Strict schedule and high requirements and constant nitpicking. Final straw was when they put everybody on 100 QA, even after there for many years.  then

AMPH. - Horrible and demoralizing! From the getgo you're told QA requirement is higher than other companies and put under the QA b--- from hell, with constant insults. Left after 2 weeks with 2 weeks FT training pay (guess who got the last laugh?)

TRANSCEND - Not me, but cousin also lasted 2 weeks here. Nitpicked to death at beginning about demographics - MORE UNPAID WORK THAN LINES - and the unpaid demographics/bookkeeping was under QA rating, to boot.

TAKE EVERYONES ADVICE, DON'T GO THERE - BEEN THERE - WORST EVER.

sometime back, there was a post in this forum regarding heartland's sale status. it refers to spi backing out of acquisition of heartland...

So... what do we do now guys?

The we take care of our people was supposed to be in parentheses but didn't show up in my post. 

tell you how sorry I am for your situation.  Take some satisfaction in the knowledge that eventually Heartland will realize they made a grave mistake by outsourcing all their work overseas. 

If you are interested in working for a 100% US company, perhaps I can help you.  Just drop me an email through the board here.  Good luck to all of you!! 

Hi,

Heard a rumor that Heartland is going to close down its HBT in India. Can anyone confirm it as a rumor or otherwise.

Has anyone worked for this company? What are their strengths and or weakness? I have been offered a position with them. I need an honest answer please!

Alright, I think I've decided to leave.

My issues: Software is horrendous, client’s specifics are 60+ pages (which you need to know about 4+ inside and out) and not even to mention the so-called "supervisor" who reminds me of a mall rent-a-cop - obviously not a transcription background. I don't know if I should stick around until they are sold in case it would get better or do I just walk away from this?

Any other MTs out there that felt this way about Heartland and what/where did you go?  Does it get any better or are all national companies like this?

HELP!!!

First of all, I would like to say that I sympathsize wtih those that were laid off at Heartland, however, I believe that that there were probably indications that this was going to happen, I for one, remember seeing a LOT of job ads for Heartland and they suddenly stopped on the 2 major transcription job boards. For me, that was an indication that something was going down the tube.

I also do not agree wtih offshoring, but when I read the posts on this board, I see one theme over and over; that being laziness in general. I see posts where people gripe and complain about having to work weekends or nights or whatever and wanting to get paid decent money, but they want to only be able to work 8-5 Monday through Friday.  I have been in this field for over 20 years and I believe that I have always pulled my fair share.  I have seen it in the company that I work for now, and the work load goes up dramatically on the weekends, because NOBODY wants to work and as we all know, medical transcription, for the most part, is a profession that is 24/7.

Sadly to say, our society has become one, where we expect to have something for nothing. Meaning that we want the nice thinngs, but we don't have to break our necks for it.  I hear of friends who are giving their kids brand-new to almost brand-new cars in high school.  Heck, when I was growing up, if I wanted contacts, or a car, or clothes, I had to detassel corn or work in a fast food place to get the money to be able to have those things.  I don't see that happening now, and in essence, that is why so many of our jobs have been offshored.  Its not only a cheaper labor cost, but most of these people in general have a better work ethic.

My company takes pride in the fact that it doesn't offshore and it will be a cold day in a very warm place before they do.

My only advice to those that were laid off is to hang in there, send out the resumes and hopefully, you will be able to find a new company that will treat you like an employee and not a number.

Some people seem to be missing the point here -- I also do QA as well as medical transcription and I generally am working MANY hours a day and usually 6-7 days a week, because I know budget-wise what it takes for me to surviive. 

As a QA person, I see a quality of work that is totally unacceptable and it is from American medical transcriptionists.  I read about people saying they can do X number of lines in an hour, or that they type X number of words a minute and as a QA person, that is usually the persons report that has 10 or more blanks in it, because UNFORTUNATELY they are more concerned about production than they are quality. 

I sometimes wonder how many medical transcriptionists go back and re-listen to a report they have typed and then are able to figure out what the doctors are saying?

I have worked both inhouse and from home and I really have to agree that if someone TRULY wants to get started in this field, then they should work onsite first to truly get a grasp at what medical transcription entails.

There ARE people who are medcal transcriptionists who DO work long and hard hours and ARE getting shafted by the companies they work for, but quite frankly, I am tired of the ones who have toddlers and small children at home and whine about how they can do this work and take care of their kids too  -- just because you work at home, dosen't mean that your children can be underfoot all the time and it is also learning about priorities as well.  If you were working on the outside, you would NOT be allowed to take a huge amount of time off for kid activities or family activities, so the MTSOs do have legitimate gripes when it comes to employees not working when they say they will or keeping to a schedule, and this is where I am coming full circle when I talk about a work ethiic  -- it has slowly and steadily been disappearing over the years.