I feel for you. (long message inside)
Posted By: Lone Star/Susan Douthit on 2008-09-17
In Reply to: Trying to decide between offers - need opinions
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!
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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.
nm is no message inside........nm
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message inside
Hi,
I just signed on with them. So far so good. They seem to place you where your strengths are. Good luck.:)
no message inside.........
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see message inside
They have a new platform now, which is user-friendly. Like any new job, it takes time to learn and gain speed. My experience with everyone has been excellent. They are there and always willing to help you. It's worth a try if you are willing to give them a chance. You will get paid 3 days for training, which is also a plus!
SM, see message (inside); NM, no message (inside)
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sent you an email - no message inside
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But there was a message inside, so I was confused! nm
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sm = see message (inside post)
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Thanks for the info! - No message inside
: )
PRECYSE SOLUTIONS (no message inside)
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nm=no message inside. Can't believe it's so hard to understand. nm
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Spheris India. See Message Inside.
Coimbatore has the potential to become one of the largest Medical Transcription (MT) centres outside the US due to the advantages of a large number of student population and health care knowledge available in the city, according to Mr Suresh Nair, CEO and Managing Director, Spheris India Pvt Ltd, Bangalore, and President, the Indian Medical Transcription Industry Association (IMTIA).
The Industry, which now largely depends on business from the health care institutions in the US, could also expect to secure greater business from the hospitals in India in the coming years as the health insurance business that drives the growth of the MT industry is set to gain greater acceptance among the people here, he said.
Addressing the media here, he said the MT industry in India currently employs around 20,000 people and compared with other BPO activities such as call centre jobs, the attrition rate in MT sector was less. The size of the business generated by the MT industry annually in India was estimated at $250 million that was a fraction of the global MT industry's business volume of $12 billion. In India, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi were prominent centres for the MT industry but now the business is seen shifting to smaller cities such as Pune, Kochi and Coimbatore. The industry is witnessing a 50 per cent annual growth in the country.
He said though the US health care sector generated the largest volume of business for the MT industry in India, other countries such as Australia, the UK, West Asia and Singapore offered good potential. He said more than 50 per cent of the medical transcription work was done inhouse by hospitals in the US and this offered more opportunity for growth.
Mr Nair clarified that the medical transcription work was moving from the US to India not because of any cost advantage but because of the growing shortage in the availability of medical transcription personnel in the US. There was an estimated 10 per cent annual decline in transcriptionists capacity every year in the US because of retirement and inadequate number of new recruits joining the profession there.
He said it was estimated that India requires addition of 10,000 transcriptionists every year to cope with the demand. Apart from the Philippines that had traditionally competed with India for this work, others such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan have joined the race to get their share of the outsourcing pie. There are signs of South American nations and countries in the West Indies setting up capabilities in this field.
He said there has been a gradual migration of companies in the industry from larger cities such as Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad to smaller cities such as Pune, Coimbatore and Kochi in the last two or three years. In the last twelve months, three or four MT companies have moved to Coimbatore from Bangalore. Powered by the growth in broadband connectivity, there was also growing trend of transcriptionists working from home that offered tremendous employment potential to women.
Mr Nair expected Coimbatore to have 5,000 medical transciptionists in the next 18 months. Asked about the safeguards the MT companies have put in place to get their fee for the work done from clients abroad and to pay their employees here promptly, Mr T.P. Prabhakaran, CEO of Pradot Technologies Private Ltd, Bangalore, which also has a unit here, said the companies entered into contracts directly with the hospitals and also obtained part of the payment in advance. The MT companies have established their presence in the business and have strong relationship with their clients.
Mr Nair said a trained MT could earn up to Rs 10,000-Rs 12,000 a month, and this could go up to Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000 after two years of experience.
© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu Business Line
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hmmm, not seeing a post (?) No message inside
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NM means No Message inside post
nm
I really must work on my schmoozing skills, ya know? no message inside.
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Whenever I feel like it, as long as
xx
Hayseed, it won't be long until you feel sm
relieved to be transcribing verbatim. AAMT approves light editing, but an MT must KNOW how to do that. The newer MTs are not experts in grammar like we were required to be BEFORE becoming an MT. Mention the parts of speech to new MTs and you get a blank look in response. Talk about diagramming a sentence, and you might as well be talking nuclear science. Like you said, the boss is the one who signs the check. Our job now is to transcribe what they say, and it's up to the dictator to make him/herself clear.
We're no longer being paid enough to assume responsibility of transcription AND editing.
Good post, Hayseed!
What if I want to leave a Long message?
high road, low road. we'll both get there!
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! =)
There are so many MT jobs available that I feel we will be needed for a long time. There may be
some updating, but that will be fine. I feel MT will be here many, many years to come!!!!!
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.
Current Transcender - long message
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
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.
I feel the same way...I love working for Keystrokes and feel blessed that I have such a wonderful jo
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How can a message be confidential if it posted on a public message board? nm
sm small message or see message...geesh..nm
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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 :)
I feel the same way. I'm irritable because I feel
and that my years of experience overall, and past few years of busting my @$$ for them hasn't been appreciated or noticed in the least.
We're all just cogs in the wheel.
They definitely rip you off with your line count. Figured this out long ago and quit long ago
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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.
see inside
As I mentioned before, the best thing to do would be to send a resume directly to the medical records director. If they are in need of a transcriptionist, chances are they are going to walk that resume right down to HR and have them get in touch with you for an interview. And it also lets the MR Director know that "hey, there are people in the area, and we don't have to outsource overseas or out of the hospital."
I can't say it enough - I wish I had lived in St. Louis because I would have taken the job in a heartbeat. Some people did work at home and others worked on site.
See inside...
I love the fact that there is always work (except on a few occasions around holidays, etc). I love that I can generally get an answer to a question when I ask it. I love that my pay is always on time (as the previous person said). I love that they do not outsource to India. I agree, there have been some changes, but I really love MDI.
There are some minuses too, but I have worked for a few other nationals after working at a hospital, and really, MDI is the best I have seen.
sm inside
I was in a simlar situation once. I didn't want to burn my bridges, just in case the other job didn't work out so I told them I could not commit to full time as some personal issues came up but that I would be able to help them out 1 day a week. They allowed me to do this, and it ended up that I went full time with them later, as I actually made more money in the long run... better dicators, etc...
Look inside for what
Rolling On The Floor Scaring The Cat Laughing My @$$ And Other
Body Parts Off. Teresa, they may have an opening at OSi or SoftScript for you.
Thank you!!!! Please sm inside
Thanks for all the information! Did you feel that you were able to get yourself on some sort of 'schedule'? I just left somewhere because I had no idea from day to day when I would get work or how much and ended up waiting around all day long sometimes and either getting very little to nothing or too much at once for the TAT. Did it seem pretty manageable? (I would also rather work during the daytime hours...) Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for your help!
see inside
I worked for them recently (within a year). They had software changes earlier to that, so if you see negatives about technology problems, it was before that. Evidently they did have lots of problems back before they were on their current system. Still some occasional bugs.
IC only. Good accounts. Put you on one account, and you stay on that account. If you have a similar experience to mine, you won't run out of work on your account.
Software getting dated. Not written by/for MTs or with requests for MT input. Hence, you have the programmer(s) doing really strange Keystrokes that are not productivity-friendly. They fix one thing and break three others. Need to fire the programmers and invest a bit more in getting decent programmers.
Office staff--THE best, hands down. QA will leave you alone unless there's a problem. You don't get QA scores sent to you or nitpicking. You either have good quality or they'll be contacting you about it.
Hours--THE best, once again. You have a quota to get in every week, and you give them a weekend day. Other than that, you're free to get that time in when you can.
OTI is also the company in my experience that's come closest to actually treating ICs as ICs.
I have worked for many nationals, and OTI remains my best overall experience. I had to leave because of needing benefits. That's the only reason I left. I would recommend them to anybody who's got at least five years of acute care experience in the Basic 4.
See inside. sm
SoftScript pays up to 10.5 cents a line with full benefits.
JLG, I believe, pays up to 9.5 with benefits (or at least they used to).
Be sure and watch the job boards for hospitals hiring for at home workers. Good pay and full benefits at a great price. Don't settle without checking all options and best of luck to you.
See inside. sm
Their ad on MTJobs says 7 to 9 cents a line.
see inside
I used to work for them. Is this transcription or editing? Is the patient name not there, or are you having problems getting the template? Is there a button with three dots near the patient info on the screen? If the patient name is not there you need to listen first and then input the first and last name on the screen. It is hard to know exactly where you are. Hope this could help some.
See inside
Pay rate - range is 0.7-0.9 depending on a lot of factors (for clinic). Includes spaces.
Flexible - for clinic and ortho - YES!!!!
Weekends - I do my Friday work on Saturday but not sure if required.
Word - some accounts yes, some no. I type in Scribe, which is Word-based and very easy.
In fact, flexible has hurt me today. I have not started yet. Queen of the game shows today!
No. Inside is what you said in your OP.
I just completed an interview process with JLG. The owner presents herself as an MT who understands our situations
You are wacked and definitely not someone that any co would want
See inside
Then I guess Scribes/Nightingale lowering their rates (without notice) from $1.05/minute to $.80 or $.85/minute sucks even worse than I thought.
Please see inside.
This is my first time doing IC work. I imagine it will eat up some of my profit, but I am just having my other job hold out a little more.
You only do as much as you want. She will send an e-mail out to the P.R.N. pool of transcriptionists stating, I have 60 minutes of Dr. Mickey Mouse available. His speciality is ENT. It is due back by noon tomorrow (Pacific standard time). Does anyone want all or part of this? Then (based on whoever responds first) she will assign the work. Let's say you want 30 minutes of it--you would e-mail her and state, May I have 30 minutes of Dr. Mickey Mouse's work? If you're the first to ask, she will assign it to you.
You don't have to take work...only e-mail her when you want it. There is not that much work. She e-mails maybe 1 to 3 times a day. So the work volume is pretty minimal, but it is something to fill in slow periods with another job.
Hope this has been helpful.
Chickadee
see inside
I usually get what I need.
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