Lines versus minutes?
Posted By: transcriptionally frustrated on 2009-03-04
In Reply to:
Which one do you generally come out better getting paid for? I realize that there are instances where one would be more favored than the other but as a whole, which is better.....
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Minutes versus lines
Just thought I would share my experience. I am working for a company who counts minutes and most of us are lucky to get 10 minutes of dictation done in an hour. In this case though, we are constantly pulling info into and out of the EMR to complete reports. On paper, it looked like this could be a very lucrative job - NOT! It is impossible to get any sort of rhythm going for productivity, coupled with many reports which are all of 20 and 30 seconds long and can easily take 10-15 minutes to complete. When I do get a straight 10 minute dictation though, it is completed in about 20 minutes, so based on that I would also think the 10 minutes = 100 lines is a fair comparison as long as it is straight transcription.
Pay for lines versus minutes
I have been paid both ways and have always come out better with lines. When dictators are pretty good and move on, there is a huge advantage to lines over minutes.
10 lines per minute = 1500 lines for 150 minutes - average. nm
x
minutes vs lines
Almost 20 years go when my hospital converted from minutes to lines, they figured 100 min equaled 1000 lines (that was our minimum daily). That's the formula I've found hospitals and MTSOs to use most of the time since then.
Lines vs. minutes.
I usually do at least 125 to 130 minutres in one hour. Now I did that at MQ and they said I only had 850 or 900 lines, no matter how many more reports I did. It is strange that I would average doing about 5 or 6 fairly long reports and still only get 850 or 900 per shift. I finally concluded that they were cheating me at a rate of 30 to 40 lines per hour. so actually I was doing 1,200 to 1,300 per shift. This really does add up after awhile. I never computed just how much money I was losing by working there, but it was probably enough to make a difference. I have had many MTs come forward with the same story as mine, so I know I am not the only one.
SO
Yes it is! If you use the old 10 minutes of dictation -= 100 lines, sm
that's 15 cents per line. I could live with that. 
60 minutes equals 600 lines?
I just saw an ad on the job board that said 60 minutes of dictation equals 600 lines in their estimation. In my experience 60 minutes of dictation is between 800 and 1000 lines. Anybody else care to comment on this?
60 minutes equals 600 lines
In ShortHand class we learned that the average person speaks at 160 wpm x 5 characters/word = 800 characters/minute / 65-character line - 12.31 lines/minute x 60 minutes = 738.6 lines per hour. Of course, they may dictate more slowly as they study a case, but they may dictate much more quickly if it is routine work.
446 lines in 30 minutes? What does your document look like? Same as before your editing?..nm
nm
MDI versus MedScribe versus SoftScript versus Transsolutions versus TransHealth. SM
I'm getting ready to start applying and these are the companies that I'm looking at. So give me the low-down. Good, bad, India?
Here are my criteria:
9 cpl or better
Does NOT send work to India
Good accounts with at least 50/50 of ESL versus American dictators
Consistent work flow - no downtime or time spent waiting for work
Upper management should be professional, positive, and encouraging.
Pay for lines WITH spaces.
Is there such a job out there or am I just dreaming? If there are other companies other than the ones I listed that would fit the bill, please feel free to let me know. I tested with TransHealth and I felt like I tanked. It was a hard test and I had to use the mouse to stop and start the dictation as it was online test and you couldn't download the voice files. So that made it a lot more difficult. One of the dictators was cutting himself off through the report and I had to leave some blanks. I'm very frustrated with this whole process of looking and testing. Are all the tests like that? Or are there companies that allow you download the test files and transcribe them using your pedal and software? Ugh! I am just so frustrated and discouraged.
Thanks for any helpf.
lines versus reports
I have a question for you seasoned radiology transcriptionist. I have been a Transcriptionist since 1995. Most jobs I have worked at required 1150 to 1250 lines per day. I now work for a place that 120 reports per day. I have never had a problem with acheiving my quota until now.............some days we have a lot of long_________dictators and I have trouble reaching the 120 reports. Today I typed 1240 lines, but only had only typed 58 reports by the half of my shift............. On the days that I have mixed reports, some short, some medium, some long, I don't have any trouble meeting my quota. What is the usual requirement per report. I feel like I am spinning my wheels and am very discouraged as I like everything else about this job. I have talked with my supervisor, but I get the feeling she/he does not really want to be bothered.................
legality of hours versus lines
Has anyone ever questioned with a labor organization of any kind the legality of being paid by piece work (lines) but having to adhere to full time hours? Something doesn't seem quite right to me about this. If the hours are enforced then we should be paid by them, right? Even a daily mandatory quota of say 1000 lines for full time makes sense versus 8 hour time sheets. How can this be legal? If not shouldn't we all be independent contractors? I will seriously have to consider leaving full time work if MQ enforces 40 hours per pay period but they are not the only ones with this practice. It seems if one gets away with it they all do. Any thoughts on this?
Gross lines versus 65 character
What is 7 or 8 cpl gross equivalent to in 65 character
High line rate versus possible lines per hour....
I'd like your opinions... I think it's more important to be able to produce a high line count than what your actual cents per line rate is. $0.10/line means nothing to me if I have to struggle to produce 200 lines per hour because of their format or platform. I'd rather make $0.07/line if I can count on producing 500 lines per hour.
Just something to think about when you interview with a potential employer who tries to dazzle you with a high line rate. I always ask about the average line counts and if they have auto-populated headings. We don't get paid for auto-populated headings (which can make a significant difference in our line counts), yet I'm sure the service bills the hospital for them.
5 minutes to type and 15 minutes to edit - some news
I spoke with my friend at the radiology group yesterday. The brass came in and asked why it was taking so long to get the rad reports onto the chart. My friend, the lead MT at the group told them that since they have multiple programs (one for each type of report) that it was very cumbersome to make sure all components of the report were actuallly integrated into the report. So instead of it taking 5 or less minutes to type a cohesive reoprt, it now takes 15 minutes for that same report. They also told her that the percentage of reports needing to be editing has increased by some 10%. They wanted to know what was up with that. She told them that either they go back to straight MT or they hire more editors and IT staff. Things are so rosy in the land of VR, it seems.
I'm done with this. I did my 30 minutes and then
another 30 more. I'm tired and stressed and I'm going to bed. Tomorrow is another day, hopefully it will bring better things.
About the 24.3 minutes
BTW: The 24.3 minutes I typed... the docs were not speaking slow, nor were there a lot of pauses or anything like that. I can type about 2 to 1 that's all it is. In the past I would have gotten about 300 lines or so maybe more. I had these docs say the same things over and over... so it can't be the minutes were slow talkers...still wonder what was up with the low lines.
They did not tell me 10 minutes (sm)
just they were working on it. So,do they call you and tell you its OK, or do you just wait 10 minutes and try again? Thanks for the info this is unusual..I had a feeling this was going to be an ongoing nightmare, but I love the account! thank you.
500 minutes in one day???
x
Very low pay, they want 120 minutes of dictation sm
per day. I did all ER work for overflow account, never anything else. Pay is once a month, I was IC status. Platform not very MT friendly, had to put in all headers, lots of extras.
It took me about 5 minutes to find better cpl.
minutes converted to pay
I am trying to figure out if a service says you will get say 200 minutes of work a day, paid at 9 cpl, approximately how much that comes out to. thanks
mine took 2 minutes - sm
all they asked is if I would go to a local drug lab and get drug tested and also if they could run a criminal background check. That's it. Nothing more. That was about 2 years ago, and I left after about 4 months. Too many changes in the company. Toooooo maaannnyyyy
Mine just few minutes
I have been with them for four months and my interview only took a few minutes. I do not remember exact but I know it was no where near that long. Hope that helps!
Addendum: It would probably take 15 minutes sm
of typing time to do a full page (that's if you can hear all the voices clearly, able to identify them in a snap, etc. So, plan on earning $5 an hour.
AT&T's ULD is only 5000 minutes, which
may cover you for 2 weeks if you work FT. I'd be looking for another plan if I were you.
I was investigating this a couple of weeks ago and I did read somewhere about unlimited up to 5000 and then after that you would need to get a business plan, but I didn't specifically read anything that said the unlimited was only limited to 5000.
I did talk with someone at AT&T last week because I had switched from them to digital phone service through my cable internet provider and she said we have unlimited long distance for $24.95 and I said yes but your unlimited isn't really unlimited and she said no that the limit was 5000 minutes.
My first MT Job I had to do 120 minutes in 8 hours
We were on a tiered pay scale and in order to get the high tier pay, I had to type 120 minutes a day. I had this done in 4 to 5 hours.
As far as my pay scale now, I hit $35,000 in 2007 and I have been with my company for 2 years. My first year with them, I hit $28,000. I have averaged a gross monthly pay anywhere from $3000 to $4000 this year. I have received a line rate increase every year since I have been with the company, plus I also get a $500 longevity bonus.
Minutes of Dictation sm
If you type over 140 minutes of dictation in an 8 hour period, how many lines do YOU get at your company?? TIA
After 10.3 minutes of her, I was GRATEFUL for the ESL doc (NM)
:-)
missing minutes
Some of MDI's accounts are shared with other services (not by our choice, I'm sure). It may be that those minutes were reserved for the other service and for some unknown reason were re-routed to us instead. Some accounts also have in-house MTs that work on them and it could be something happened at the hospital that day with staffing or with some sort of emergency and minutes were re-routed to us that way, too. I really, really don't think MDI is sending work to India. I know it makes people jumpy who have been at the Q, but MDI is NOT the Q. There is probably a logical explanation for the work and I wish they would directly address it so people's imaginations would stop running wild.
It took me, no lie 10 minutes, to learn the platform. sm
When the trainer called, I already loaded the expander, logged into the system, and was ready to go - no training needed. It took me all of 10 minutes to learn the platform; however, the account specifics is what takes a while. Like every company and account, there are certain specifics for each account.
I am liking it very much; however, I am not ready to quit my other job. I prefer working for two, so I have something to fall back on.
All's I know is, I've never been out of work for more than 5 minutes...
90% of the time I'm on my main account and have something like five backups. Also, I asked my manager to train me on the account that's always super backed up (like 200+ reports every day) so I'd have that as back-up, also.
Running out of work is gonna happen sometimes; it's the nature of the beast. And like I said, it's never lasted long. I'll take the teeny little hiccups in work flow over the low hospital pay and bitchy co-workers/managers any day of the week.
1 time in 2 years, and that was for about 30 minutes.
They are very flexible as long as you are cooperative with them.
tell me about it.. my kids had 1 hour and 45 minutes.. sm
on their bus... there were 70 kids on the bus.. and in the middle of that time period.. they sat parked for 15 minutes at another school to move some off our bus to another.. and from another on to ours... and I was supposed to wonder why my boys were getting out of hand?????? bull.. the situation had unrealistic expectations as often is the case.. i just started picking them up at the middle point.. and that bus was WILD all the time .. man did they go thorugh bus drivers on bus 99..
wow 10 minutes a lot of time. She could have lied to you said sure ...
was okay and then have it rejected once you go hired like a lot of places have done and will keep doing.
You are lucky she was trying to at least work with you.
I agree 10 minutes isn't much time. You never
know what might be THE job. Precyse lied to me too and did the IM thing the whole time, which I felt was very unprofessional. Fortunately for me I found out they lied to me very quickly and turned down their offer, though was so unimpressed with them I'm sure I would have turned them down even before I found out they were lying to me. The fact that they offshore was also a major factor.
I wasn't asking for the meeting minutes.
I wasn't even asking what is said. I wanted to know if they were sold. I DO NOT want to get hired into that company if they are off-shoring, plain and simple. A simple e-mail would have sufficed instead of attacking a simple question. You think they would have told this potential hire that information BEFORE I entered the company? No worries, I am not jumping onto that boat anyway. Will take 2nd choice.
So you are saying that all employees should be paid for 30 minutes every day? sm
The only people in this country who get paid for lunch are folks in salaried positions, yes? Otherwise you are talking about Wal-Mart and everybody else paying for your half-hour lunch? Wow.
I would *never* type 30 minutes for a test
In fact, nothing more than 10 minutes - and then not after having been at least partially interviewed.
These companies who respond to your resume by sending you a cold email asking you to take a test should reconsider: If you won't even speak to us in advance of being hired, what does that say about your communication will be like AFTER hire?
Maybe 45 minutes, didn't keep track though sm
wasn't bad in my opinion. Pretty routine questions, the more you know off your head, the faster it goes and also if you keep the small talk down and get to business, doesn't take that long.
Maybe 60-75 minutes, and no Ex-Scribe needed.
nm
The most I typically transcibe is 130 minutes,
nm
How much would 45 minutes of dictation equal....sm
speaking in terms of lph or transcription time? I know transcription time would depend on speed, but round figures are good.
Not complaining, just asking for reference. Only out a few minutes (sm)
and it was early early Sunday morning, not during her normal work hours.
BTW, can you call solution center for help with this during weekends/off hours?
Question about dictation minutes
Hi All. Not sure about this one. Does anyone know what 120-150 minutes of dictation would calculate out to be for a 24 hour TAT? This is for IC PT position for Wed and or Friday? Thinking about applying. Thanks ahead of time
I always allow 3-5 minutes typing time
x
3 minutes is a waste of my time.
I have my own spread sheet that if I feel the need I can enter each account and it will show me what I'm supposed to be paid. Right now, Deventure pulled the info from all accounts for me. Escription shows you what your line count is after every note if you want to check. After a blank that line count can change and sometimes that doesn't happen for 24 hours, which would be AFTER they want the line counter entered. I turned down job offers from Transcend several times because I think their pay is low. If they cut mine from what I currently get, I'm out of there.
1800 lines is easily achieved. I average 300-340 lines per hour. nm
x
You are assigned "x" amount of minutes every day, you work that out between the
two of you. IC status. Pay is on time every two weeks, but there is a long wait before you get your first check. After that, it's smooth sailing.
I told her I wasn't interested about 3 minutes (sm)
into the call. First off, her voice was so annoying that I just wanted to get off the phone. (I know, that's trivial.) What did it was her saying that since they didn't need to spend as much money on ICs as employees, they could offer me a whole penny per line more! Wow! 8cpl on a crappy platform! I can retire rich!!!!11111
I am wondering if any companies pay per minutes of dictation?
When I worked in-house (Radiology) we were actually paid an hourly wage, however, instead of having to produce x amount of lines per shift, or x number of reports per shift, we were required to do x amount of minutes per shift. Just wondering if anyone does this anymore?
I'm also looking to make a move back to my first love of radiology. Anyone have any GOOD companies to work for that have radiology accounts? I just found this site yesterday and have seen many companies listed but a couple GOOD names would be so much more helpful.
Thank you in advance for any help/suggestions.
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