I get 10-12 cents a line from clients so I can only pay 6-71/2 to make any profit.

• It is refreshing to see Job Posts offering 10.5 cpl and 12 cpl on weekends and Holidays. sm - Refreshed
  • Sounded great, but then saw you have to - travel to train:(
    • But ... you travel to train to CA ... what's not to like about that/ :-) sm - Long-time MT
      • I am one of the very few that just does not - sm
  • Amazing that someone wants to pay that well - - happytyper
    • I believe it! That is why I say - Do Not Believe it sm - IC
      • I agree.. - MT
      • That is not true is all cases. I charge .135 cpl to my clients and with my overhead, I can only - afford to pay 8 cpl. Sorry. nm
      • It's a disgrace and they should - sm
        • I get 10-12 cents a line from clients so I can only pay 6-71/2 to make any profit. - company owner

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on an account with VR.   Regarding the platform, there are several.  Do you have one in particular?

Am I missing something??

Just thought I would add my 2 cents worth.  It would be great to be paid 10-11-12-13 cents per line (as an employee not IC), but that is not a reality in this job market.  Yes, MTs will take jobs that pay 7 cents per line, but that MTSO is not necessarily underpaying or demeaning the MTs that work for them. 

Bottom line is that you have to do your homework because, yes, there are people who can make a living on 7 cents a line and will take those jobs.   It really depends on your skills and how dedicated you are to making your maximum possible lines per hour.  The MTSO that is offering only 7 cents a line but has easy dictators can actually pay you more per check if you type more lines per hour than an MTSO that is offering 10 cents a line but has horrible quality, ESL dictators, nasty QA, etc and you can barely type 100 lines an hour because of it. 

MY TIP:  When you interview, ask what the approximate minimum and maximum lines per hour that the other MTs that are doing EXACTLY the same accounts that you are going to be doing are achieving per hour/day/pay period.  If the recruiter/MTSO will not tell you that information, you probably don’t want to work there anyway so just terminate the interview before wasting any more of your time.  The slowest MTs are probably new and the ones achieving 200-250-300 lines per hour have been there a long time and know the account(s) forwards and backwards.  If you plan to make that MTSO a long-term employer, you will have a pretty good idea of what you can potentially achieve if you stay there long enough.  Don’t let them tell you the “average” of all the MTs that work for the company or what their perfect employee Suzie Q types.   We all know every account is different, so Suzie Q who just started last week and is already doing 150 lines per hour may have easier accounts than the one you are going to be working on, so that is not very representative of what your account(s) is really going to be like.  Ask specifically about the accounts you will be assigned to and don’t let them distract you.  Again, if they don’t want to tell you, terminate the interview. 

According to the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, in 2004 !!!, the MEDIAN hourly earnings for a Medical Transcriptionist (probably  mostly hospital and office based) in May of 2004, was $13.64 an hour. 

Just for reference, it seems like most MTSOs have a 6000 lines per week minimum production standard which is about 150 line per hour (40 hour week) on average for full-time MTs.   

·        If you are being paid 7 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (150 x 0.07) = $10.50 per hour.

·        If you are being paid 8 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (150 x 0.08) = $12.00 per hour. 

·        If you are being paid 9 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (150 x 0.09) = $13.50 per hour. 

·        If you are being paid 10 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (150 x 0.10) = $15.00 per hour. 

If you are one of the highly trained experienced MT and type 200 lines per hour on average, you are even better off. 

·        If you are being paid 7 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (200 x 0.07) = $14.00 per hour.

·        If you are being paid 8 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (200 x 0.08) = $16.00 per hour. 

·        If you are being paid 9 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (200 x 0.09) = $18.00 per hour. 

·        If you are being paid 10 cents per line, you are making a minimum of (200 x 0.10) = $20.00 per hour. 

The median hourly earnings in 2004 was $13.64 per hour.  That was almost 4 years ago.  With a minimal 2% per year cost of living/inflation increase, by 2008 the median hourly earning should be about $14.76 per hour.       

2004 --------- $13.64

2005 x 2% = $13.91

2006 x 2% = $14.19

2007 x 2% = $14.47

2008 x 2% = $14.76

So, in my humble opinion, if you are an experienced MT with 5 or more years of experience, when you call that MTSO offering 7 cents per line the accounts you will be assigned to should be easy enough so that you can make an average of 210 lines per hour within a relatively short period of time.  If they say their experienced MTs are only doing 175 to 200 lines per hour on average, that MTSO is drastically underpaying their experienced MTs and it is time for you to move on.  If they say their MTs are averaging 250 to 300 lines per hour, then that MTSO may be worth looking into further, even if their starting wage is lower than what you originally thought you should be getting paid. 

I think if WE ALL start doing this, the MTSOs will start to figure out that we are not going to work for companies that underpay our skills and experience.  If enough experienced MTs hang up on these companies, eventually they will figure out that the recruiters/supervisors need to be more honest with us regarding their pay structure and the difficulty of their accounts. 

Some food for thought !! 

More information from the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: 

Medical transcriptionists had median hourly earnings of $13.64 in May 2004. The middle 50 percent earned between $11.50 and $16.32. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $9.67, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $19.11. Median hourly earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of medical transcriptionists in May 2004 were:

If you want more information, check out the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics web page for Medical Transcriptionist. 

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos271.htm

Then of course you need to know how they define a line.  "Standard" is 65 characters is a line, but that might be with spaces or without spaces being counted.  Also, not all companies a define a line this way, and it could be gross line (anything on a line, even one character is considered a line), or it could be a character line (with or without spaces).

But...CPL means cents per line.

Yes, yes.  I worked for them for one whole day.  The only reason I applied was because I was born in Mass (but now live in AZ) and it was an editing job, which I wanted to try doing, since I trained MTs for so long and edited their reports, etc.  Anyway, the supervisor, Bobbi, was an absolute tyrant nightmare.  Training was done over the phone, and she was so nasty and bitter, she made you feel like you had never done a thing in the medical field ever before.  For example, I was not following what she was talking about as far as her formatting statements, and she was going on like, what are you talking about???!!!    I had to take a Valium and Rolaids, and then she told me to go ahead and transcribe some reports.......I have been doing transcription over 20-years, and wanted to just edit.  Well, she said she was going out for the evening, but there should be no problem with the system and sending the reports on after I transcribed them.  Well, there sure was.  I contacted the lady that was her assistant, and SHE ragged on me for contacting her.  I said, 'sorry, I can't send the reports.  Something is wrong with the system, so I am just going to email them to you, so you know they have been done at least.   The next morning I woke up and emailed Bobbi that I am not right for this job.  Nobody is.  That has been years ago, and amazingly she cannot hold on to anybody for that Editor job.  It was so bad, I cannot remember the name of the company - Maybe something like Infomatics, or something.  She was an absolute horror.  Don't work for her.  You will not be happy........ 

Deb

Even at a moderate pace and 100% reading of each report, that is more than $11.00 an hour.

I SO agree with what you said.  Loved the platform (EditScript V8) and the account was really not that difficult & good sound quality.  However, they had too many people trying to train the VR and sometimes it was a mess.  The 3 cpl for the VR is RIDICULOUS, especially when on some reports it would be quicker just to manually type the entire report rather than edit.  I was told I could not use a word expansion program, so I HATED that part.  We also could not copy/paste repetitive phrases of dictators from another report due to alleged HIPAA violations.  I truly don't see how a generic phrase or even paragraph for a procedure, as long as patient names are not mentioned, is a violation of HIPAA.  I think it has more to do with training the VR program.

My pay was relatively on time and accurate, but it just was not worth my while at 3 cents per line.  I also hated the panicking e-mails and the nastygram e-mails I received CONSTANTLY.  The nastygrams were just a blanket e-mail to everyone saying if they didn't do this or that they would be TERMINATED and constantly crying wolf about backlogs when at times there was no backlog!  I don't consider 4 jobs to be a backlog.  I now work for a small service where I am getting top dollar (12 cpl weekends) for relatively easy work & am happy that I quit.  Maybe someone else will do fine at TTD and will like to work that way.  Maybe they will make a lot of money at 3 cpl, but it sure wasn't me.

In order to make $20.00 an hour, which is what I make most days, I would need to edit 666 lines an hour.  Is that even possible? 

Hmm.... 666.....hmmm

In order to make $20.00 an hour, which is what I make most days, I would need to edit 666 lines an hour.  Is that even possible? 

Hmm.... 666.....hmmm

Then the MTs get stuck with account specs that are contradictory and confusing. 

It should be simple.  When an MTSO is wooing a client, the MTSO should present with a copy of the style guidelines they intend to follow or if it is the BOS, let the client know that.  It should be made clear that with the exception of report format, the guidelines are not flexible.  Either we use apostrophes or we don't.  Don't do it one way for one client and the exact opposite for the other client and then hold the MT responsible when she gets confused as to what account she is typing that day!

MDI  in Florida.  if you have Meditech experience.  If you don't, they will train you on it.  Giving sign-on bonus through March.  Diskriter pays by report, 1.05 -1.25.  Just have to do your research.  Its a pain.