Need a new gig...prefer IC status at this point and...
Posted By: Chapelbound on 2009-05-07
In Reply to:
I really need it to be true IC status. I do most of my work between the hours of 9 am and 11 pm every day. I don't want to be chained to my PC. I like to be able to run my errands, clean my house, do whatever I need to do without having to report my every move. I don't like being chased down by phone because I wasn't on right at 9 in the morning...maybe I have things to do and won't be on until the evening. I don't want to be on AIM or Yahoo IM either. Just let me work. Know that I will consistently work every day between those hours and if something comes up I will let you know. And platforms...do any of these jobs have decent platforms? I strongly dislike the platform I am currently using, it closes out of word every time you complete a report and has to reload the next one...very time consuming. Yeah yeah...I am a Prima Donna...we all have our cross to bear.
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done both and prefer IC status
I have been an IC for over 15 years. For the first 12, I was not incorporated. I just filed using my SS#. I incorporated three years ago, and now things are a bit more complicated but I seem to get more write offs.
My husband claims only a few on his taxes, so he seems to cover the both of us. I do not pay quarterly, and just about break even at the end of the year. We usually even end up getting a refund on our personal.
I have a CPA who is expensive but very familiar with home based business and what you need to pay or not pay.
I also work for a company where I am an employee, so throw that in the mix, and my tax return is kinda crazy. I prefer the IC status with all the write off's and such. My corporate filing fee is $750 per year and that is all I ever pay (well at least for the last three years).
Hope this helps.
IC or employee status, makes no difference at this point. nm
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I prefer to be off a day during the week so I prefer a Tues-Sat schedule. nm
nm
Agree..with IC status, equip. is your responsibility; employee status - you should SM
not have to pay out-of-pocket for use of their equipment. I would never work employee status for a company who required me to purchase or lease their equipment. The only thing I would find acceptable is to have a small security deposit taken out of paycheck when starting with a company. This will protect the company from those few who might abuse the equipment.
Anyone know of Escription companies that offer IC status. I do not want employee status but would
like to stick with the Escription platform at all possible.
Employee status w/benefits vs IC status??? Dilemna enclosed
I am caught between a rock and a hard place and figure this is the place to get the best advice from those in the know. I have been an IC for the past 5 years and love the flexibility but was interested in a job with benefits. I started a new job about a month ago with good pay (2 lph more than I was making) and benefits......very happy with company but as an employee, obviously have a schedule. I am working both jobs currently and starting to burn out. On the new job, I am struggling to get the 1200 lines per day required but on my old.... I can easily get 150-400 lph depending on the dictator but again, it is IC and less lph than the new job. Obviously, the platform is different and not paid for template headers/footers wheras the old one, I am paid for those. Now to my question. Is it just me? Is it because I really enjoyed the freedom of ic status and therfore seem to be struggling? Anyone else experienced this before? Tempted to go back told job and lose benefits/more pay because in the end, maybe it works out be the same pay because of amount of time I spend getting the job done? Not sure if this makes sense but hoping you can all offer some advice!! TIA
Prefer MT
I've done both, but prefer transcribing. Can earn more and go faster. QA was fine, but pay was sooooo low.
Definitely prefer QA over MT.
I actually make more doing QA but I guess I am lucky to be paid a pretty high hourly rate compared to what others say they make doing QA(shocked!). I began to really hate transcribing after many years as it became very boring and eventually not challenging enough for me. Plus my arms ached all the time. Everyone is different though, of course.
Prefer QA to MT (sm)
I make a lot more doing QA then MT. Very satisfied with my hourly rate and honestly enjoy my job!
This is exactly why I much prefer being--sm
an IC. Sure, some of these companies sound all wonderful with their benefits and all, but I guess I just do not trust very much, and shy away from accepting any benefit package with a company I cannot see or be physically involved in. The MTSO that I work for recently merged with another company who offered employee status with benefits. It all sounded really good, but when asked specifics about some of the benefits, I received quite vague answers. The one thing that spooked me was when they sent a letter explaining employee benefits and it stated *if you choose to become an employee, your rate of pay may change (but it did not specify to what)*. and also regarding their insurance benefits, it mentioned that $400 would be deducted from employee's pay every pay period, for single coverage!!! I have checked into getting my own individual coverage and I felt that $180 a month was too much to pay, so for a $400 pay cut every two weeks, wow! I decided to remain an IC. That way, I take care of my own taxes. I know exactly what is being paid into my SS every year, because it is ME that is paying it. And, if I choose to have a retirement fund, at least I know any money I put into it is actually going there. In other words, I retain control of my finances and do not rely on some ghost company somewhere to do that for me. It is all a matter of trust these days, and I have been burnt enough in the past that I trust hardly anyone anymore. These *companies* do not know you and you don't know them, so what is to stop them from doing exactly what you have described? You have my sympathies.
I wish you the very best and I truly hope you get your money back. It may be a long drawn out process though, but be persistent! Good luck to you!
Would you prefer....
I am wondering how many of you enjoy having daily e-mails that shares things about the company and your co-workers, such as maybe how long they have been employed and maybe something like spotlighting each MT each different month just to find out a little bit about your coworkers? The reason I ask this is because I used to work for a company about a year ago who had this type of thing and I really enjoyed it. It would even have something in it like bloopers from dictations and such. The company I have now you have nothing like that at all. We have our company e-mail, but the extent is just information about changes in account specs or the daily workload. I have seen names on the IM and just wondered about my fellow team mates. It was just a thought. Would like nice, honest answers... Please no meanies 
First Choice does, also, WP5.1. I prefer it, too. nm
xx
Why do you prefer OP notes? nm
+++
No, just as an employee. I think they have just a few ICs and prefer
to hire employees. I imagine though that working for them as an IC is pretty much the same as an employee with the exception of no benefits. U have been in this business for 20 years and this is by far the best company I have ever worked for.
I have used both, prefer Shorthand (SM)
Learning curve was too tedious and long on instant text. I found I could program ShortHand to do most of the same things.
I prefer nationals. SM
I have worked years in hospital settings. It does have its advantages. Here's what I see the pros/cons are:
Inhouse Pros:
-- When you are done for the day, you're done!
-- You are not faced with family/friend disruption (see cons, too)
-- Company provides everything
-- Socializing is easy
-- Provides a change of environment
-- You have immediate access to assistance on all levels
-- HR and Payroll are usually in the same bldg and you can go down directly to them
-- Mgmt is readily available
-- You can usually view the entire workload and see how it is being distributed or balanced and have more input
-- Workload is limited to your employer's work only
Cons:
-- If you get too close to coworkers, they become intrustive on your work
-- If you don't share coworkers' perspectives, you can be given quite a cold shoulder treatment
-- You have to conform to a dress code usually
-- You have to leave the house in bad weather, park - sometimes walk a ways or even pay fo parking, etc.
-- Usually much more structured work and break times that are not too flexible
-- Usually paid hourly..sometimes with incentive plans. If you are really fast, probably not a good setup for you.
Love Nationals:
-- Work from home
-- Co provides equipment
-- Plenty of work and varieties of work
-- Paid on production -- great producers do very well
-- No worries about coworkers and social settings (getting along with annoying workers, etc.)
I've done both and I prefer..
hourly because I would have a set income already.
I actually prefer to be trained
this way rather than getting stuck on the phone endless hours. Would you mind emailing me the name of the company?
I'm with you. I prefer per report
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Do u prefer being an IC or employee?
Do you prefer being an IC or employee? I have been an MT for a little over 2 years, and I've always been an IC (subcontracting for a small transcription service). I like the flexibility in my schedule, but I feel a little left out in the cold when it comes to tech support, not having PTO to fall on when work runs low, etc.
I prefer my own computer.
Been working at home 12 years and have always used my own computer. None of my employers have gotten into it for any reason. If I have a problem with something computer related, my husband takes care of it.
I think you have to use their equipment, if that matters at all. I prefer my own. nm
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I prefer quiet, too. Everything seems fine. nm
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I earned more doing MT work but I prefer QA
because I love it. I enjoy the mentoring aspect plus MT took its toll on my bones and I absolutely could not do it anymore if I wanted to because of that.
Not afraid - just prefer straightforward
It's great that this company has given you so much and that you feel such a strong allegiance to the COO. My point was that the name and their website are misleading.
Work ethics, offshoring, fear aside, all I stated was that if they're not American owned, they shouldn't give the impression they are. A high-caliber company, regardless of location, should be able to attract high-caliber MTs without subterfuge.
This is why I prefer group over individual..
The bottom line is that.. When you have group insurance, you have a set rate, along with everyone else, regardless of your health insurance..and when it renews each year, it will only go up based on the group's rate, nothing to do with your personal health history and it is generally better benefits overall. Now, you have a private policy, can only afford one with a huge deductible (major medical)..well, during the year, you had an emergency surgery, heart attack..whatever.. Well, first off you have that preminum which is high, then you have all of that deductible to meet, upwards of $5000..THEN, your shocked at renewal time that they jacked up your preminum about $200 a month..and then your stuck..You can pay that outrageous amount or go without insurance because another private insurance wont touch you will all of your medical claims in the past 10 years. If they do touch you, it won't be cheap. So, your bad to square one.. crappy insurance at a bad price or signing up with a company for okay rates but better insurance.
I thought I was smart not keeping my group insurance through work because it was $400 a month (deductible $1000 etc..) so I went and got myself a family plan through private insurance for ONLY $196 a month.. Yes, then I had a $5000 deductible and come to find out my prescription benefits were only 50% instead of the $10-40 I had been paying. One of my son's prescription cost us $100 a month with that great insurance, and it would have only been $25 on my old group policy. Yes, I was saving a lot of money..NOT. I did check into my private insurance to get a policy similar to my group one.. and imagine that.. they wanted over $1000 a month for decent insurance. So, no thanks. I'll stay with group..It's worth it in the long run.
I prefer ESL to speed talkers - and about 80-90%. nm
nm
I work Sun-Thurs and prefer it. sm
My activities are usually on Friday and Saturday and this schedule works out great for me. What if you rotated weekends and just happened to have plans on the weekend you were scheduled to work and then nobody would trade with you? That would suck. This way I'm always off or if there is work available, I will work especially in winter. Would also prefer to work Thanksgiving and Christmas and have the summer holidays off. But that's just me.
I've used both and I prefer Medrite
It's more user friendly as far as someone who's used to Word programs go. It's got its little idiosyncrasies like any program but I've tried several different ones over the last few years and so far I'm favoring Medrite over the scribe platforms I've tried. It Is slower tho, that's the only thing. It's slow loading up when u first turn it on, slow to look up past reports but its not significant enough to warrant me looking elsewhere when I consider that for me its just easier to navigate.
Plus it has its own built-in word expansion which again is a no-brainer. It's just like autocorrect. And you don't have to start from scratch, it already has a lot of the more common words already in there, you just add some as you go. For me, Bayscribe took much longer to learn, it seemed like everything was more complicated than it needed to be but I did manage to learn it so it's not impossible.
Also, Medrite has a problem with using ShortHand but as I use their word expansion 100% I don't even miss it.
Hope this helps. :)
As an IC, I prefer pool work.
I have done pool work and been assigned docs and I prefer working a pool. When I was assigned docs, my lines varied so much. I never knew how much I was going to get each day. Some days I would get over 1500 lines, some days only 500. It made it very hard to plan my day as I never knew how long I was going to have to work. I never made enough money, yet I found it hard to work a second job as some weeks I would be loaded down with work from company 1 and not have time to work my commited lines for company 2, yet the following week I would get very few lines. Working a pool, I know I can get in at least 1000 lines a day every day (rarely have issues on my account with not enough work and usually do anywhere from 1500-2200). I don't have to guess how much I am going to make that day as I am in control of how many lines I take versus someone else sending the work.
Also, as soon as I get up, I can start working (like to start my day around 4 a.m. and be done around noon). I don't have to sit around wondering when my reports are going to be sent to me and waste half the day waiting when the company decides to send them at 4 p.m. instead of the usual 9 a.m.
Also, when only assigned 1 or 2 docs, if they take vacation, you are typically out of work for a week or two with little to no notice (at least in my experience). With a pool, you don't have that problem. If a doc goes on vacation, you have plenty of others to transcribe for. I also tend to get bored easily, so I prefer transcribing for multiple docs. I transcribe for about 15 docs now and I am very familiar with each of them and can transcribe over 250 lph. This would be different though if I was transcribing acute care and had 100+ docs though. But in that instance, pool work is better as it makes TAT faster.
Guess it is good that each company does it different so we can each find what works for us.
I managed 400 lph VR within my first week using. Now prefer it. sm
I would not have believed it if I had experienced it!
AMEN! I too prefer to just work sm
and let the crap be handled by somebody else. I have been there done that as they say. The MTs who think the MTSOs have it so easy, no problems, raking in money and cashing the check and usually the same MTs who care about nothing but how much they can put out an hour and quality and patient care be d_____d! If they really understood the business they couldn't even come up with these crazy ideas!
I PREFER VR to straight. I really like it. The BAD angle...sm
about VR is that the pay is to miserable.
Then MTs come along and say (or pretend) that they can do 600 lines per hour, because they are the LUCKY ones, 1 in a million.
Then MTSOs and clients say,
'If she can do it, why not others.'
That's what p****s me off.
Whichever you prefer. You can use yours or they will provide you with one at no cost.
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I'm joining their team, too. I was told they prefer that
nm
I think 3 cpl is fair. And I would prefer having the flexibility of my own schedule.
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Some companies prefer that - more of a personal touch. nm
nm
Do you prefer Nationals or Independent MTSO
nm
I prefer Dictaphone doing straight transcription. sm
When I worked on eScription I liked the platform but doing VR made me insane correcting so many little things like he to she, not to mention I made about $200 less a month. But, that's just me.
I prefer the term ''downwardly mobile'' nm
x
I prefer America, where if you've got a decent
Burkas and/or head-scarves? Nuh-uh. Not even if I was fat.
Oops! That s/b I prefer home based work.
I work in Meditech for KS and am VERY happy. I average 300+ lph. I prefer it as sm
it is like WP5.1, which I loved. To each his own.
There are also two types of Meditech, Magic with is like WP5.1 and Client, which is a Word-based program.
I personally prefer Medical Language Specialist...
Even the title medical transcriber doesn't do justice to our jobs with the way they have evolved over the years. We no longer can sit and simply be transcribers. We must be semi-fluent in several different languages, do our best to hone our psychic skills so we don't get penalized for leaving a blank for QA to assist with, we have to perform feats of magic at times attempting to find an ADT match, and the list goes on and on.
Geez, maybe we should just call ourselves *medical magicians* at this point what with all the rabbits we're expected to pull from the many hats we're forced to wear these days.
Excellent point, and point in case
look at the charlatan christian in the
Whitehouse who uses religion to push his agenda...
Christian IS as Christian DOES...
I understand your point, my point is why can't MTs and QA work together..
being QA doesn't mean you are above everyone else, you are just an extra set of ears...and why do so many MTs take offense to QA??? That is my point...you made have had bad experiences in the past with QA but not all QA are bad...
I much prefer Bayscribe. No messing around with multiple screens, doc lookup right there, etc.
It's very convenient to use. ExText seemed much bulkier and much slower to me.
Personally, I prefer to be left alone to work. I hear from my lead when I need her and sm
one or two other times a month, never excessive like a certain company that is rah-rah'd on here. No problem with communication in the two years I have been with them!
Gheesh! Some people have something to complain about no matter what, surprised if even a Keystroke's employee. It is easy to form an opinion when only a handful of employees post here.
Similar. ExText is Word based. I prefer it to Meditech for ease of use.nm
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Actually, I can see your point AND the opposing point
.
IC status
I am an IC with Medquist and my base requirement is 4000 lines per pay period (paid twice monthly). This is also required to qualify for reimbursement of a second phone line. An important thing to remember with MQ, however, they are very office-oriented, meaning that each office sets many of their own policies.
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