Move on, girl - gotta make a living

• No work versus loyalty - Jobs
  • No work versus loyalty - Donna
  • Sounds pretty fishy, to me. - sm - Flibertygibbit
  • You could try to find out if account gone and then try to join - it again.
    • How can I find out if account is gone and try to follow it - Jobs
      • I found out by asking on this board - What I did
  • it is one thing to be loyal, but .. - move on
    • And that's the crux of it? How dare they get angry? - tnmt
      • who is angry??? - wah?
        • I believe she said the account manager, someone at her work - tnmt
      • Okay should be !!! not ??? in my subject line there. - tnmt
  • Busier than ever right now - mt
  • Please read: Inside is what we are being told - Jobs
    • Unless that account is in the Ozarks or something, I don't - think that would keep pts. away...
    • Regarding no work - if a facility is running - jt
      • or outsourcing - maybe
    • I think your management is very - creative.
      • I swear I remember a business course called that... - Hayseed
  • I'll bet they lost the acount and scrambling to find - another. Look for another job.
  • Move on and do it rapidly. That explanation doesn't - Anon
  • Are you serious? - Scribbles
  • Move on, girl - gotta make a living - Good luck :) (NM)
  • loyalty won't pay your bills - nm
    • That bears repeating...'Loyalty won't pay your bills." - Hayseed
      • Saddle up Hoss and ride. nm - Kim
        • lol - nm

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I have been an on-site MT for 15 years and have clinic-only experience in several specialties.  I am considering a change to working from home.  I am wondering if it is possible to work from home and still make good money.  Do you folks feel that you do just as well as you would working on-site? 

I currently work for one of the larger MT companies that is mostly VR, platform isn't bad, but just not able to get my line count up.  I was curious if it just me or if there were MTs out there who were doing good on VR and glad they have made the switch.  Thanks. 

situation that is getting worse all the time with lost accounts and over hiring and not knowing yet what the pay scale will be.

And while you are at it, TT Management,

BITE ME!!!  You were fools to file this lawsuit.  $294.50 to lose all credibility in the MT World.  Sad, truly sad...

And many thought you were one of the good guys.

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

Why is it so hard to share their profits with the at-home MT's? ? ?   Give me MONEY for Christmas because so much has been taken throughout the year -- I won't it back -- or at least some of it !  I will buy my own gift or pay my light bill or buy my children/grandchildren a gift with it.

In general, the top echelon is getting so greedy at most MTSO's!   They would have nothing w/o the MT's constantly tapping those keyboards . . . and I mean it gets more and more difficult for us MT's as with each passing year to make a decent living . . . I dare say a living of any sort.  Only those MT's who have husbands to support them are happy with whatever few cents they are offered, because it is only play money for them anyway.  Hubby pays all the bills.   I guarantee you that if a poll were taken of the Happy MT's with their at-home job, it would either be hubby making living for them OR mommy not having to pay a babysitter to work outside the home.  Those in HR/management, with a little research, can easily see how our paychecks are dwindling month by month due to lower wages because ASR/VR is taking away the decent dictators and leaving only the horrible dictators (who take lots of time to transcribe a quality report), lack of cost-of-living raises, rising electricity bills at home that the MT has to pay, high-speed internet/phone bills higher and higher and loaded with taxes, rent/mortages/taxes/insurance continuously rising. 

The office staff don't have to think about those at-home costs, as theirs are paid by the MTSO during their working hours/shift, nor do they have to worry about the lack of raises, etc, because in-house employees get raises automatically with tenure or with a 6-month or annual review or at the discretion of management at any time.

Personally, my line count continues to decrease; I don't know what the reason is because in the past many years, I could transcribe 200-400 lines per hour, and I do good to transcribe 100 or 150 an hour with the horrible dictators sifted out by the VR machine Dictaphone ExText.  

Please don't yell at me -- because I am thankful for a paycheck -- but why is the burden put on my fingers to WORK HARDER AND HARDER to earn that paycheck.  Don't say try ASR/VR because it will double your income, because I have tried that and know better and have proven that theory to be wrong -- at least on Dictatphone ExSpeech you can't !

The other thief of a good line count/wage for the U.S. MT's is the majority of our work going offshore because it can get done CHEAPER !  Who is all that extra money saved by offshoring our work going to ??  Not the at-home MT.  That is exactly why I request MONEY for my Christmas gift from my employer, rather than some promo gift that is handed out to any and everyone.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL US MT's in the good 'ole USA !  ! !

Being remote, it makes it easy for someone to mess with your life if you get them angry, especially if they can manipulate line counts and the type of work you get. 

Perhaps that is why most of us don't speak up more, although that is precisely why we should. 

Who's going to be the overseer for this industry, to make sure that all is conducted fairly and within the law?  I don't think anybody outside the industry cares that much.  There are much bigger things to worry about right now, I guess. 

Peace.

You said what I think every day -- afraid to check how many hours I really work, setting up each and every job in a software platform that makes me take my hands off the keyboard every 2 seconds.  It is a waste of my time, but I doubt I could ever return to the world where you dress up every day, get in a car, fix my hair, get my nails done, etc.  I have many regrets about doing this work, but those stated above are not amont them.  My regrets are yours - no raises, no appreciation, and knowing that the big guys travel back and forth for meetings (what a joke in this day and age of online meetings).  If only they split all that money up for us poor

Actually, my BOB - 10+ accounts for which I have 3 primary accounts out of - has standardized client profiles, no need look at client profile for each account or try to remember different rules. All now have the same formatting rules and ADT info requirements and very few dictator-specific differences. I realize that not all service areas have done this yet and not all areas of MQ are managed the same and I probably would not be as happy if I were in one of those, but I stuck it out and they made the changes promised in my area and I am now so much more productive. The accounts are better than I had before MQ as far as number of ESL and other difficult dictators, the ASR reports on average are good and I can more than make up for the 30% cut in pay on them - only get on average 5 or 6 a day though.

I guess it depends on where you end up when hired at MQ how good or bad things are. I have moved around a lot over many years in this business and probably will stay here until retirement if I am able - depending on what happens with CBay and all. I have found the right fit for me with MQ with adequate pay, the schedule I want, plenty of work, reliable paycheck and PTO - a big plus after a stint being IC, and nobody hanging over my shoulder watching my every move. The only time I ever hear from anybody is in answer to a question I have asked and the daily TAT logs from my PS. That is the way I like it, leave me alone to do my thing. I have no reason to leave.

I am glad you found the right place for you, having only one account that is always busy is the best situation to be in. You are lucky because that is not so easy to find anymore.